The Art of Letting Go

by Rania Naim

Anything that feels forced or harder than it should be or causes you pain and distress is not meant for you.

Things that are meant for you have a way of flowing smoothly into your life. The more you fight for something that is not meant for you, the more it will fight you.

But nothing is a waste of time, even if it feels like it, we are here to make mistakes and learn lessons to grow as individuals, if we keep holding on to toxic situations or toxic people because we’ve already done too much or it’s too late to change things, we are only setting ourselves up for a miserable life. There is power in letting go, a power that brings more peace and serenity than being stuck in situations that make your heart a bit heavier each and every day.

new passions will emerge and good things will happen twice and as many times as they want, and will probably be a better and more convenient fit for you.

Holding on to something out of fear that it will never happen again, is the definition of fear. We have to be fearless in letting go.

truth is if you reach a point where letting go is the only option, it usually means that this thing or someone already let you go. You are trying to stay in a place where you are not welcome anymore.

Forgive yourself enough to let go of even the parts of you that dim your light.

don’t give up things you once loved and sacrifice your independence.

It’s hard to let go, but it’s harder to be unhappy. Some happiness is only temporary and sometimes making a hard decision requires you to find happiness that isn’t.

A relationship should bring out the best in you. A relationship should be eternally supportive, and you should lift ea...

Making our own independent decisions without seeing them through someone else’s eyes, helps us to find out who we truly are.

They could not satiate me and my need to be respected, appreciated, or valued. And the sole reason for that is simple: I respect, appreciate, and value myself far too much to have stayed.

Your indifference taught me that I could not be indifferent to my own needs, ex-boyfriends. And that is a powerful lesson that I might not have learned had you not been so dismissive of me. Your emotional abuse and manipulative tactics taught me I could not tolerate being disrespected. I give respect, and I deserve it back – from everyone.

I had an epiphany in that time: That those things you did to me bothered me, hurt me, and destroyed me, and they did so because deep down, I knew I deserved better.

What I did was obsess and replay everything that happened and what I wish I had done differently. Then I got lost in an endless array of distractions. I was going, going going, keeping myself busy so I wouldn’t have to feel anything. I took it all way too personally and these feelings of inadequacy bled into almost every relationship I had after.

Here is something to keep in mind about pain: it doesn’t go away just because it goes unacknowledged. The more you avoid it, the more it merges into your psyche and becomes a part of you. These faulty beliefs get wired in and will remain unless you challenge them.

It isn’t because you weren’t enough. I know this is how it might feel, but that is a destructive belief, and also a false one. Everyone has different things they want and need in a partner. There might be some things about you that one guy doesn’t want, and those qualities may end up being what the right guy loves more than anything about you.

This can be the hard part, but it has to be done. Whatever it is you’re feeling, feel it. Don’t bury it, don’t hide from it, don’t ignore it. Feel the awful, brutal feelings.

Why did I stay even though the relationship wasn’t working?

You will heal, you will feel again, and you will find love, the right kind of love that will make you wonder how you ever mistook the wrong kind for the real thing.

Let go of the toxic friends, of the urge to gossip, of the anxieties over what he said and she said, of the worry you feel over a future you cannot control. Let go.

I hope that you do not let the world condemn you for being too loud, too expressive, too soft; that you do not let it convince you to be perfect instead of real. I truly hope that you celebrate the fact that you are not for everyone, that you are not impressing the kinds of people who were built on the foundations of a sad world. If there is anything you do, please, let yourself rejoice in the fact that you do not fit in, that you think differently, because there is a chaos that laughs inside of you and it is going to change lives. It is going to make even the cynics believe again. It is going to grow love from thorn and glass.

Sometimes the loss is so difficult to bare, that even the illusion that whatever we wanted is still with us, is better than nothing at all. And then we go through life with a tight grip on everything that has already escaped us. The fear of letting things that we oftentimes think define us, or keep us whole, supersedes the courage that we are capable of, of choosing the unknown, and letting the familiar leave us.

knowing the difference between the necessity of our suffering, allows us to keep what is meaningful, and to throw away the unnecessary pains; to throw away what insults the soul.

If you don’t trust anything or anyone in life, trust that the things you leave behind allow you to make room for the unexpected. Because with enough faith, courage, hope, and love; and the awareness of every blessing we’ve been given, and feeling gratitude for every gift we’ve been granted, the unexpected paths we end up taking, often end up feeling like the place we are exactly meant to be.

In the end, our paths are rarely straight and narrow, and they were never meant to be anyway. And if all we do in each one is learn a lesson, or meet a friend, or know ourselves better, or do something kind for someone, we have done much. But first, first we mu...

I know the grief that is felt after loss. It covers you like a blanket and threatens to choke you with its enormous weight. It follows you around and tries to trip you as soon as you get back on your feet. It haunts you in your sleep and you can’t even run away from it in your dreams.

We are only hurting ourselves more by continuing to ignore our hurt.

The first and final step to let go of someone is to grab onto grief’s hand and let it take you on a ride. Just be prepared, it is going to hurt like hell. You will cry. You will scream. You will hurt and you will ache. But it only will go up from here. It will only get better from this starting point.

You will have days where the nostalgia returns and you can’t even breathe because you miss them so much. You will have days where you just want to sit in bed and cry staring at the letters they wrote to you. But, you will also have days where you wake up clear headed and nothing reminds you of ...

The more you realize that it’s okay to feel what you are feeling, the more you heal. The more you walk beside grief instead of running from it, the more you heal. So, instead of ignoring grief, shake its hand and greet your sadness with open arms. Don’t expect to be healed in a week. Don’t expect to be cured in a month. Just expect g...

When someone doesn’t want you, in the beginning, it will be hard. Sometimes, very hard. You will think there is something wrong with you, something so undesirable and unlovable that definitely needs to be fixed and changed.

That’s how endless questions won’t stop circling in your head and soon you will start to believe you are not good enough, or worse, happiness isn’t what you deserve. Once self-doubt and cruel thoughts start creeping in, you will be forced to face all your insecurities and be reminded of all the times you were left behind and not chosen. Even the wounds that you were certain had been healed seem to be torn apart and cut wide open again. You will feel small and insignificant but all at the same time unbearably heavy.

Luckily, over time, it will get better. You might never fully forget but your pain will be relieved and you will eventually stop thinking about them every waking second. You will come to terms with the fact that they are not here with you and life goes on whether you want it to or not. But unfortunately, it doesn’t mean you will stop questioning and hating yourself for all what happened, for everything that could have been. It’s like you were shot but the bullet has never been removed so it keeps aching from the inside.

As memories take you right back to where you were, you will wish for the millionth time that you could be someone else — ...

Perhaps you would have known what it is like to be on their mind, to be the receiver of every “I miss you” that is meant every single word, and for once, to be the one that is wanted instead of getting so close to the desire of your heart but never being able to have it.

Be prepared because the flood of sentiments will not hit you just once. It will happen many, many times and each time it will hurt like the first as if you haven’t moved on at all. Maybe you really haven’t, especially if after all this time you still don’t understand why it cannot be you, beating yourself up over the ending you somehow messed up. You will ask yourself all over again what it is that you’re lacking and what it is that you need to have to be deserving of their love. You will see flaws and imperfections in every reflection of yourself and never truly feel complete.

But please listen to me. This is important. What you fail to see and need to know now to set your heart free is that you have been asking all the wrong questions and to the questions you can’t stop asking, the answers have always been right in front of your eyes: That person doesn’t want to be with you. They are not here with you. They have made a conscious choice for their own...

The truth is, when someone doesn’t want you, no reason matters. No amount of fixing could change that and actually, there isn’t anything that needs to be fixed because nothing was wrong or missing in the first place. You have always been wholly you, before or after them, including all the flaws and imperfections that make you unique. So if you ever feel the need to redeem or validate yourself after being rejected, please don’t because no one can take anything away from you by not wanting you and you aren’t born to prove yourself to anyone.

It might be hard to fathom all this when you have invested so much energy and time into this said person and are clouded by the pain from their rejection but if you put things into perspective, if you look back at all the times you say no to the people who want you but for some reason are just not quite right, you will be able to make sense of your own situation and stop blaming yourself so much. You will find it easier to accept that not everyone chooses you and it’s okay because you respect and love yourself enough to let go of the past and keep going to those who want you the same way and love you for all what you are.

With all that being said, if you don’t feel whole by yourself, if you believe you need to be filled, if you haven’t quite known who you are and learned to love yourself yet, having someone’s interest is never the solution. It’s not going to magically make all that happen. In fact, nothing could, except you. You have the power to take yourself to a place of peace and acceptance. You have the choice to be kinder to yourself eac...

When someone doesn’t want you, one day you will be thankful for their honesty and decision because they have let you go on to find yourself and the happiness you deserve. Such happiness will not only help you realize how strong and brave you have been but it ...

Every day with you has been a pleasure and a gift, and my god, you have made me happy and whole.

I love you, precious. It has been a privilege to love you. It is a privilege to love you. And though every day without you is agony and things between us have become messy and painful, there is a relief in knowing, at last, with absolute certainty, precisely what it is I want. I would like you to know that not a single day will go by where I would not give the world, and my very best, to make amends, to shelter and serve you, and know the immeasurable privilege of having your heart and trust with me once more. I adore you. You have been a true light in my life. And if nothing else, let these words speak to the profound and wonderful influence you have on the lives you touch. You certainly did on mine.