Hi Everyone! I wanted to start off this vent sesh with a YouTube video a past manager showed me that has stuck with me to this day. Grab your wine and get ready for a very enlightening 3 minutes and 40 seconds:

Bishop T.D. Jakes, you get me. You get me good.

Now, let that main message sink in. “When people can walk away from you, LET THEM WALK.”

Seriously that quote gives me chills people. & it can be applied in almost every situation. It’s applicable in breakups, in the dissolution of friendships, in losing a job opportunity, and the list goes on. Everyone can grow from Jakes’ advice. It’s imperative for personal happiness to recognize when someone’s part in your story is OVER. This especially rings true when it comes to a breakup.

When looking at a breakup, there is no need to effortlessly chase an ex across the country, or go to a bar you know they’ll be at on the weekends, or continually stalk them on their social media feed (or their new significant others). As Jakes says, “Know the gift of GOODBYE.” Know it & embrace it. I’m not saying embrace it flippantly. I know the gift of goodbye is hard; frankly the gift of goodbye can flat out suck. But trust me, it’s MUCH better to grit your teeth and bear it rather than futilely chasing after someone not meant for you.

Ahhhhh the gift of goodbye; I know that feeling right after it happens all too well.

Lol but seriously. That feeling of a fresh break up or split from a friend can be excruciating. I’ve felt that pit in my stomach. I’ve felt totally out of control. & you may not be able to immediately push those undesirable feelings aside, but you know what you can control? You CAN control your actions in the aftermath. & this is where you need to dig deep and have the courage to recognize your destiny is not tied to whoever left you.

Embracing the gift of goodbye certainly comes with maturity. I look back at breakups and friend splits I have had and several were NOT handled gracefully… not even in the slightest lol.

Ugly crying for the win.

To embrace the gift of goodbye right off the bat, it’s important to define your split by what detrimental actions took place on BOTH sides. That’s right. You have to admit where you messed up. Relationships are a two way street people. & nobody leaves a broken relationship with totally clean hands. For example, I knew a girl who blamed her breakup on a puppy (i.e. “My boyfriend and I got a dog. His parents didn’t like that we didn’t ask them first. They pushed us to break up.”)

People, there is nothing worse than lying to yourself after a breakup. If you convince yourself you and your ex split for a reason that was not a contributing factor, aka puppy, you will drive yourself insane. You have to take accountability for what hand you had in solidifying the split. The girl who told this puppy story, told it with SUCH conviction, she wasn’t only convincing those around her the breakup was because of this dog, she literally convinced herself.

So since the puppy was not the reason for the split; what was? It came out that there was consistent crying at family functions and intermittent threats of suicide. Now, those are two direct factors, one of them EXTREMELY serious, to cause severe discord in a relationship (if you ever have a friend that threatens suicide, it is not a joking matter. Try your best to get them help). Failure to recognize factors in a scenario such as this simply allows such behavior to continue. Force yourself to identify the actions that caused a split; by acknowledging them and potentially getting help, you’re ultimately ensuring you won’t make them again in the future.

Another vital step in embracing the gift of goodbye, is to admit the person you’re leaving behind is not all bad. If a person was really all bad, you wouldn’t have been with them in the first place.

Yes I know, I know lol. This is a HIGHLY annoying step. It seems easier to hate the person you’re splitting from; but from personal experience, you can never move on and become indifferent while holding on to a feeling as strong as hate. So now ask yourself, why you were with that person? Because you DID love them. Because GOOD parts of the relationship did happen. & those good moments can be and should be cherished. You can’t dirty your entire memory of someone and expect to move on.

The final step to really embrace the gift of goodbye is to know the best is yet to come. One of the main reasons people handle splits poorly is because it’s hard to wrap one’s head around the possibility that there’s something/someone better out there than what is being left behind. With recent friendships I ended, I’ve walked away unscathed. How? I embraced the goodbye full heartedly with the knowledge that there are better friendships out there for me. There is ALWAYS a light at the end of the tunnel. You just have to have the resolve to get through the dark to get there.

To recap, you can embrace the gift of goodbye after a split by identifying what went wrong on both sides, taking accountability for personal actions, acknowledging the relationship was not all bad, and understanding THE BEST IS YET TO COME! Life will go on, You WILL be ok.

Till next time.

If someone you know is struggling emotionally and having thoughts of suicide, you can help. Call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

The Gift of Goodbye