The Art of Letting Go

Chapter 15 Sudden Surge

Have you been to a beach? Relaxing right? Soaking yourself in the salty water in the mild heat of the sun. Small waves make your body move up and down. You can feel the cool breeze blowing. Then slowly, the wind gets sturdy and the waves slowly get bigger and higher each time it hits your body. Until they are so big that surfers try to catch them and those waves start to tower over you and burying you in the salty water. Then you decide to go at the safe zone, the shore. Sorry if I scare you but the comparison of that beach experience have something to do with our next theme.

During this stage you are not always outside of the town on an adventure having fun. Probably, the times that you are going out with friends on shopping, food tripping, bar hopping and drinking spree has diminished. Then you just find yourself in your cubicle at the office, seat in your classroom, favorite place in the cafeteria, or stuck in the traffic. In short, you are in your monotonous life again enjoying the silence. All of a sudden there are waves of emotions such as sadness, boredom, frustration and loneliness that hit you. They are caused by unconscious ideas or events that just popped out from your subconscious mind. This might be triggered by boredom, monotonous situation, seeing things that reminds you of your ex, or ideas that just come from nowhere. Then, unconsciously you find yourself entertaining the thoughts and being drowned by the waves of emotions. As a result, you find yourself sad as if all the happiness in this world was sucked out of you. The situation then turns everything into lifeless and gray like seating beside a 'Dementor' turning the place cold as a graveyard.

Well, good news, those are normal surges of emotions during your healing process. Those, again, are short disruptions or bumps that you may encounter during this stage. They are sudden surge of memories coming from our unconscious mind that turns into emotions. Generally, the initial reaction on these surges is sadness. Unconsciously you are swimming on these thoughts already. You start to reminisce, create stories and over thinking. Slowly you are sinking deeper and deeper into sadness and frustration. Sometimes it will bring you to tears. Then you feel helpless even though you are not. Yes, you are not helpless because these thoughts and emotions are manageable.

The tactic when these sudden surges of memories hit you like a wave on a cliff is not to entertain them. At the first stage of the healing process they come by every minute, then they are lessen and come by through just every hour, then just once or thrice every day to be further lessen into once or twice in a month and eventually die a natural death. This is if you are completely ignoring and brushing them off immediately. The antidote in those sudden gush is to replace them immediately with happy memories or something that will keep you busy. Do not dwell on them because they come from the past. Move forward. Fill yourself with positive thoughts. You are now free. Your ex is not hurting you anymore. Sadly, it's you who is hurting yourself through those memories. Always, keep this in mind, HAPPINESS is a CHOICE. It is okay to grieve and to cry but they should have expiration day or else you are poisoning yourself. It is your choice if you're going to continue hurting and live a life of misery. Free yourself from those shackles. You deserve to be happy. Start making happy memories. For SMILE looks GORGEOUS at you. Put it on.

Bible Verse of the day:

Philippians 3: 13 – 16

13Brothers, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead,

14 I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God's upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

15 Let us, then, who are "perfectly mature" adopt this attitude. And if you have a different attitude, this too God will reveal to you.

16 Only, with regard to what we have attained, continue on the same course.