The power of acceptance

Here are three universal facts from life

Bad things happen
It's easy to hold grudges, but it takes strength to accept and forgive
This too, shall pass

Since those facts are universal, they can be generalized to any aspects of life and life itself. However, I'm going to narrow the scope of today's post to "How to deal with people leaving."

What does leaving mean?

Leaving can mean a multitude of things

The person is dead (death of a loved one)
The person is alive but you never see them again (teachers leaving)
The person is alive but you and them are no longer connected (breakups)

The number one, two, and three you see there are arbitrary and are for listing purposes only. I did not mean to rank them in terms of how much pain they causes, since you can't compare pain within the same person or across people. Everyone's experience is unique and there the reason why they feel that way is valid. Emotions are to be felt, not to be decoded. Let it hurt, then let it go.

I have dealt with the three above (note how it's have not had, still in the grieving process) so I guess I have some experience to share will y'all today. These three happen pretty close to each other. Thich Nhat Hanh passing away, my favorite teacher leaving, me and my boyfriend breaking up. A lot of shit is going on, really. They come in waves, and increase in magnitude each time.

Why and how people leaving causes pain

There are people that we love. When they leave, we feel like they're not here anymore. We feel empty. However, as Thich Nhat Hanh had it, when the cloud is no longer there, it doesn't mean that it died. On the other hand, it changed it shapes and is now visiting us in raindrops, dews, vegetables we eat, tea we drink, and so on. Bringing this spiritual awakening and wisdom into our daily lives can ease our way through the stages of grief that we're going to go through.

Moving on

I find guides on the Internet pretty useless. Although I still use parts of the r/breakups posts that I happened to read, I only include here the ones that I find personally effective.

Find people that are struggling with the same thing
Find something to replace it (keep yourself busy)
Embrace the grief process

Advice #1

Bonding with such people is helpful since it provides you with a sense of comradeship and camaraderie that nothing compares to. Although there are still people who can listen to you, people with mutual experiences are better listeners. They understand what you say more since they'd been there themselves.

Note that these people don't always need to be the one who you talk to. They can be strangers on the Internet who shares their story. I found my story very relatable to Adèle Castillon from VIDEOCLUB (I mentioned her in my last post) Seeing people getting better can provide you with hope that you can one day get there too!

Advice #2

This advice helps filling the hole that person left. I like to imagine that my life is a clean sheet of fabric and that person is a beautiful embroidery that I'm patiently sewing in deeper and tighter everyday with the threads of my love. Then guess what? They're ripped off from me by the force of God out of the blue.

Habits are hard to change. It sucks when the first person whom you said "Good morning" and the last person you said "Goodnight" with is no longer there. They used to be the first to receive good news and bad news you harbor. They stood together with you through tough times. Now that the hardships are over, they're just not there anymore. You may feel like you are willing to through those hardships again just to have them with you. Not anymore. It's hard but it is how it is.

By replacing I don't mean get new boyfriends or girlfriends right away when your wounds are still fresh, but I mean doing things that benefit yourself and help you slowly shift your focus to something new. Old paths don't lead to new wonders.

Advice #3

In life, fast is slow, and slow is fast. Healing is not a race. Take your own time and do it patiently. Once you got in the flow state, time seems to just fly by. So do the first 2 advices and fail better next time! I will still remember my used-to-be boyfriend and wished we never parted, but I will try not to fight with my feelings. I will try to let them in and let them go.

Prevention > Cure

Once you feel better, look back and try to understand how it went wrong. A disaster doesn't just happen overnight, there used to be a series of mini-diasters that you sensor didn't detect. Try to identify them and work out how you can deal with them better next time.

For me it was bonding with my friends. It's good practice to have a safety net of people who you can fall on when you deal with bad times in life. However, they're not there to deal with you crap times and times again. They're there to support you, but don't exploit them for that.

Best of luck, Eugene. See you in the future.