How To Get Closure When A Relationship Ends Badly

hey guys I'm Heidi Priebe welcome back to my Channel or welcome if this is your first time here today we're talking about the experience of finding closure within a relationship that has ended badly so whether that means you had a romantic or friendship or family relationship end in the middle of a fight whether it means somebody passed away at a point where you had unfinished business with them most of us have experienced some aspect of feeling like we need closure that we don't have so before we get too into things we're going to talk about

what I mean when I say the term closure so in any relationship that involves true intimacy between two people there is a cycle that the relationship tends to go through over and over again throughout the entire course of both people's lives and this cycle goes from connection so what is it to be in connection with someone it means to have a shared set of contacts so a shared understanding a shared set of meanings about the way in which you are interpreting the world and your relationship with one another and when we're in connection with someone

in that way we are offered the opportunity to see ourselves through their eyes in a way that gives us each A New Perspective on ourselves so to be in that state of connection is to be in the state where we are seeing the world to some degree in the same way and Through The Eyes of another and also seeing ourselves in a new way through the eyes of another now what inevitably happens with any close relationship is at some point there is a rupture so a rupture is the place where that set of shared meanings

and understandings that you have in some capacity large or small breaks down so where there was once alignment there is no longer alignment in some small or large way and what we want to have happen in most cases after a rupture exists is we want to go into repair so we want to come back together with that person and find a way to make the relationship big enough to now include both perspectives that were initially at odds and when that happens successfully we go back into that state of connection and I would call this reconnection

because you're coming back into that connection that you have with the other person with a more expanded deeper and more mature shared perspective because you've now integrated these differing points of view so what does it mean to not have closure in a relationship to not have closure in a relationship means to arrive at the point of rupture and get stranded there so to not have a means of moving the relationship from rupture to repair and there is a step that I believe is extremely important in between rupture and repair that rarely gets talked about and

that step is the step of remorse and re-evaluation so when we arrive at a place of rupture in a relationship what tends to happen is we feel a sense of Shame shame is the natural response to falling out of connection with another person and if we are reasonably secure in our understanding of ourselves and other people that shame helps us understand where the differences of opinion happened what we may have done that was not particularly loving or respectful of the other or ourselves and how we need to behave differently in order to re-enter the relationship

in a healthier way however if we do not have a particularly secure view of ourself and others what we're going to do when we feel shame in the rupture process is try to speed right through it and go either too quickly into repair which could look like just trying to get the other person's forgiveness when we haven't really spent time unpacking and understanding how we're going to show up differently in the future or which boundaries we're going to need to set within the relationship to keep ourselves protected inside of it in the future or we

might go into anger blame externalizing mode right we might try to offload The Shame by getting very angry critical and judgmental of the other person and trying to get them to accept complete and total responsibility for that rupture so when we are seeking closure in a relationship it means we are trying to move back into that state of reconnection so we're trying to go from either rupture or remorse reevaluation back into repair and reconnection now this doesn't mean that the relationship necessarily continues right a lot of relationships particularly when both people air more secure actually

end in a state of connection so you have a rupture both people take the time to evaluate what went wrong and figure out okay if our perspectives are different in this way is it possible or is it desirable for me to continue a relationship with this person and if the answer is no then we go into repair we talk about where our perceptions or our values are too different to continue a relationship with each other and arriving back at that State of reconnection means that the shared meaning we now have is that we are not

the right romantic partners for each other or we are not the right friends for each other or it does not make particular sense for us to remain close however there is a sense of mutual respect and a sense of a shared understanding about what happened within the relationship and why it is not a feasible one to continue so that's what it looks like to part ways from a state of connection to part ways in a state of disconnection so to end a relationship in the stage of rupture means to allow the relationship to end in

such a way where your differing perspectives are not integrated so there was something you disagreed on there is maybe ways you were viewing each other that each person did not feel adequately represented by and to walk away from the relationship in that place means to walk away from a relationship in which you feel as though the person you are is not represented adequately inside the eyes of this other person so there is a natural craving to want to at least arrive at a place of understanding and shared meaning with that other person and it can

be incredibly painful for a relationship to end from a place of rupture because what does that leave us with that sense of Shame that arises when we have fallen out of connection with another person and something I want to make clear at this point is that a lot of us go into repair work in a relationship from that place of toxic shame that place of kind of panic I just need this other person to tell me I'm okay so that I can believe I'm okay again and so we can tell ourselves this story I want

to repair the relationship because I am selfless because I felt this shame I immediately assumed the shame meant I am bad and the other person is good and so now I want to go apologize express my remorse and repair this relationship so that I can once again start to see myself as good through the other person's eyes but when we're in this place of telling ourselves that we are selfless and we just want to repair and apologize to the other person for their sake really ask yourself if this is the space you're in if this

person is refusing my apology if they are refusing to get back in connection with me is it truly respecting them as an autonomous and Sovereign human being who is separate for me to continuously trying to push a form of repair that they don't seem to want if someone does not want to move into repair with us the truly selfless thing to do is to allow them to walk away with whatever they want to walk away with with whatever pain it is psychologically protective for them to continue holding on to if we are truly behaving selflessly

we will respect their choice to not be back in connection with us and so now we must accept that if the truly kind thing to do is to let that person go how do we take care of ourselves with what's left over so we are stuck in this place of rupture in this place potentially of remorse where we are parsing through what we did wrong in that relationship what we wish had been different the ways in which we wish we had treated ourselves and the other person differently and we are left to do repair work

with the version of ourselves that existed within that relationship and so this video is going to talk about how we work with that shame in order to repair the relationship that we have with ourselves in reference to that other so what do I mean by that every time we have a relationship with someone we are having a relationship with two people one is that other person as they exist in real time as a living breathing human entity who is separate from us the other person we're having a relationship with is ourselves Through The Eyes of

that other so in every relationship we have there are unique parts of ourselves and of our experience of being alive that gets mirrored back to us through another person there are certain energies within us there are certain wounds that get triggered that are unique to our relationship with that other and so when we are navigating any relationship of any capacity we are managing both the way we're relating to that person but also the way we are relating to ourselves through that person okay and what I'm going to present in this video is the idea that

in order to find closure we don't necessarily need to arrive at a place of repair with that other person as they exist in reality what we need is to arrive at a place of repair and reconnection with the version of ourselves that existed within that relationship and that will get us back into that Loop of connection that will allow us to feel settled and move on with the closure that we need so I remember when I was around 26 years old I was at a retreat in South America and I was talking about the relationship

that I had had with my father who had passed away some years ago and I remember the shaman looking at me and going while you talk about this relationship in the past tense and I went yeah of course like my dad is dead I don't know if you were paying attention but this relationship is no longer ongoing and he went your father's relationship with you has ended because he has passed away your relationship with your father will continue to change and grow and evolve as long as you are alive because the things that your father

brought out in you the ways in which you developed and formed as a product of being raised by your father are still very much active and Alive within you and you will be working with those energies those perceptions those patterns of belief that arose as a result of your relationship with your father for the rest of your life and I believe this is true of every single relationship we ever have as long as we are alive we are still in some capacity in relationship with everyone we have ever had a connection with the way that

that person exists inside of our minds inside of our memories the emotions that we felt through knowing that person the perspectives we were exposed to they all stay alive inside of us so the version of ourselves that we were within that relationship persists even after that person has left our lives and so to move to the place of remorse and re-evaluation even without the other person's help means to sit in that space of Shame and really look at where your perceptions stopped matching up where that connection with the other literal person who exists in real

time fell apart and what can I learn from that if I am in that space What understanding of myself and the way that I show up in the world and the way that I show up towards other people do I have now that I did not have prior to this rupture happening what is my shame telling me about what I may have done wrong whether that means failing to protect the other person from me and my own triggers and my own biases or failing to protect myself from the other person's biases and triggers and in

some capacity most relationships involve two people trying to offload their shame and self-loathing onto each other so in a moment someone gets triggered and we try to go blah get this feeling of Shame out of me I'm going to make it your fault I'm going to make this way that I am feeling your responsibility by telling you it is yours not mine and to sit in that place of rupture of remorse and of reevaluation means to properly put everything back in its place so to go here is the shame I tried to offload onto the

other person actually that's mine to integrate and metabolize here's the shame the other person tried to offload on to me actually that's theirs I'm not going to accept it as a part of my self-concept and so we can work in this space with the relationship that we have with ourselves and get really clear on where we end and the other person begins and in an Ideal World this would be the exact process that happens before we move to repair even in a relationship where both people are wanting to willingly participate in the repair process we

would both take time to work with the shame that comes from a rupture to understand the situation more clearly and arrive at the place of repair with a truly deepened understanding of who we are in relation to this other person and who they are in relation to us both for better and for worse and the reason why repair can feel so good is because we have the new understandings and the new perceptions that we formed in the remorse and reevaluation process confirmed and mirrored back to us by the other and if I'm going up to

the other and going hey I realized we were getting some things muddled up but this is me this is where I End and You Begin and they can mirror that back to me and go yes that is where you end and I begin and you can do the same for them you now have a new understanding of yourself an expanded and more mature understanding of yourself that they are mirroring back to you and that can feel really phenomenal and that is exactly what the growth process in any intimate relationship looks like however if you don't

have that mirror because the other person refuses to hear you out after you've done that remorse and reevaluation process you're probably going to be left craving that because at the end of the day we all understand ourselves through other people's eyes we need to be reflected back to ourselves through other people in order to develop an accurate understanding of ourselves and so what I want to make clear is that if you are left with that energy that energy of having sat with something understood the ways in which your relationship to another person was perhaps unhealthy

the ways in which you may have offloaded your shame onto them in a way that was not fair the ways in which you responded to that person that you want to respond differently going forward there is still a way to get that mirrored back to you the way you're going to get that mirrored back to you is by reminding yourself that you are going to meet this person again just not in the physical body that they came around in the first time you are going to meet this person again in small ways in hundreds of

interactions over the course of your lifetime with other people I have met my dad again since he died inside of other people I have met my ex-partners again inside of other people the energy that those specific people brought out in us will be brought out in us again in some small way over the course of our lives inside of other relationships and if we have truly done the repair work if we have truly worked out internally here's where I end and the other person begins here's how I will not show up in a way that

is harmful towards myself or others when I encounter this energy again in my life we are going to be able to find the mirroring that we need through those relationships with other people who bring up that same type of energy within us so the relationship with ourselves that we had with that other person when we knew them continues to grow and evolve and we will continue to find mirrors for the work that we did within that relationship and for the growth that happened through it inside of other people who may be kind of trigger us

the same way that person who is now no longer a part of our Lives used to trigger us or who excite Us in the same ways we will have the opportunity to meet those parts of ourselves again if we are staying honest and open in our connections with other people and that's ultimately how we arrive at that place of repair and reconnection we figure out not just how we would prefer to approach that person who left our lives differently if they were ever to come back into it but how we will treat them the next

time we meet them inside of someone else how we will respond differently in those moments to how we did in the past the first time I met my dad after he died I had a very healing interaction with what was once a very negative and unresolved State because I took the time to work with that energy to figure out my own protective boundaries around myself in a way that I did not have with that person while he was alive and the next time I met him inside of somebody else I knew how to show up

for myself and so my relationship with my father who passed away many years ago continues to change and evolve my relationship with past partners continues to change and evolve through the ways that I no longer allow myself to offload my shame onto other people in the moments that I feel triggered by anyone in the ways that I used to feel triggered in past romantic relationships and I also know how to draw boundaries around other people offloading their shame onto me everyone I've ever let go of in my life I have met again inside of someone

else or some other situation and I have eventually had the opportunity to see the ways in which I have changed as a result of sitting with the shame of that rupture and drawing new rules for how to interact with other people and myself mirrored back to me in those interactions and in some cases those interactions pointed out that I still have more work to do right but at the end of the day the point of all of this is that to gain closure you don't necessarily need to move into a state of repair with the

other person you can do that repair work with yourself with the version of yourself that existed at one point in time in connection with that other and find a way to make sure that the next time that energy gets triggered in you you will respond differently you will not be stuck in that state of Shame and Desperation forever and the nuts and bolts of how we do this how we work with intense shame is something that I am going to leave for another video because that is a large topic but for now I just wanted

to be clear that we don't need to reconnect with other people who don't want to reconnect with us or who have died in order to get closure we can give it to ourselves by doing that repair cycle internally and finding the mirrors we eventually need in other people all right that's all I'm going to say for today as always I love you guys I hope you're taking care of yourselves and each other and your inner children and I will see you back here again really soon [Music]