February 8, 2024 • 37 mins
The end of a relationship or a friendship can leave us with a lot of unanswered questions, especially when the split is sudden, out of the blue, and the other person is unresponsive. In other instances, we don't quite know what went wrong and are looking for answers. In today's episode we talk about the elusive myth that is closure: whether we need it, how to get it, and why we should not rely on others to provide us with permission to move on. We also discuss the closure cycle and the reasons we may THINK we are looking for closure, but are really looking for an excuse to reconnect. All of that and more, listen now!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is so great to
have you here. Back for another episode. Today we are
going to be talking about closure, what it is, what
it isn't It's very elusive nature, whether we need it,
(00:47):
and how to find your self closure without needing another
person's input or needing someone to have all the answers
for you. Closure, I think is such an interesting concept
in our twenties because there are so many storylines that
we will live out, so many relationships and situations that
(01:08):
will not have a neat conclusion, as much as we
might want them to. Not every relationship is going to
finish on a good note. Of course, when I talk
about closure, most of us do think about relationships. We
think about love. We think about that period after a
(01:29):
relationship ends where we are left with thousands of questions,
did they really love me? What did I do wrong?
What do they think of me, now, why was I
not enough? Honestly, the list is endless, and I think
their need for closure is a lot like grief. It
is lost or misplaced love, a love that really lingers on.
(01:50):
But beyond those romantic relationships, we can also require closure
at the end of platonic relationships and friendships. I think
friendships always seem to be painted is less important by
our society, something that we just expect to follow along
with us in life, whilst our romantic relationships are really
(02:12):
the main attraction. But I really do truly believe that
they can hurt so deeply when they come to an end,
probably because we never expect our friendships to end in
that way. We never expect to go through a friendship
breakup or you know, I've heard so many stories of
lifelong friendships where the other person suddenly goes the friend
(02:35):
or goes completely silent, or friendship breakups that are so
much worse than the heartbreak that we experience from romantic relationships.
When we are that connected with someone, when we spend
so much time with them, we bond over everything, We
talk all the time. Seeing those connections, whether they are
platonic or romantic, seeing them crumble is really upsetting, especially
(02:58):
when we are left feeling very confused and unable to
seek clarity. In those moments, we want closure. We feel
like it is the only thing that will help us
come to terms with these events. But although we might
want closure, do we really need it as much as
we think we do? And when we say that we're
looking for closure, what exactly does that entail? And is
(03:23):
it maybe slightly naive for us to think that the
person who caused us so much pain and disappointment is
going to be the same person who can provide us
with the answers that will let us heal. I don't
necessarily think so, So that's really what I want to
focus on in today's episode. Do we need someone else
to provide us with closure or can we provide it
(03:44):
for ourselves? I think that my opinion is quite obvious.
But before we get into that, let's look into some
of the psychological origins of this concept of closure and
make sure that our the foundations of our understanding are strong.
Cure essentially refers to our need to make sense of
a situation and feel like it has a solid conclusion.
(04:07):
In psychology, the need for closure is seen as a
motivation to find an answer to an ambiguous situation because
as humans, as we know, we are not particularly good
at navigating uncertainty. So this motivation to find an answer
it is enhanced by what we see as the benefits
of this right, so an increased ability to predict what
(04:28):
might happen, being able to remove some of those fears,
feeling certain of where we stand with someone. Really it's
about finding a way and finding a place for these memories,
and social psychologists in particular suggests that people tend to
have a need to view their relationships as a whole,
(04:48):
that they are a complete story. They have a beginning,
they have a middle, and they have an end. And
when a relationship concludes, the mind seeks to fill in
any gaps before moving on so that it can find
that ending. In other words, we need that closure to
essentially finish off the story. And when we are left
(05:10):
without an ending, either because the relationship ended quite abruptly,
we didn't see it coming. You ended on a fight
that you never resolved, or there was just radio silence,
we don't know where to place that memory because it
still feels like it's ongoing. It's an active storyline. Our
minds have this open chapter, and this lack of a
(05:32):
conclusion keeps us going back and returning again and again
and again, wanting to find more answers by searching through
our memories, wanting to find a resting place for this
relationship and for what it has become. We all have
as humans that individual drive for closure, but that need
(05:53):
and that drive differs between us. So mainly it differs
according to intensity and the intensity of our need for closure.
This depends largely on our personality. So people with that
intense need for closure, they may be used to being
in control and they prefer life to go as planned.
(06:14):
They may feel really distressed by uncertainty. It might really
challenge their sense of safety and well being to not
have the answers to a question. And in the nineteen nineties,
these three psychologists actually came up with the need for
Closure scale, which can be used to really categorize people
based on a number of questions and determine where we
(06:37):
kind of all sit on this spectrum of obtaining closure,
what lengths we will go to find closure at the
end of a relationship or at the end of some situation.
So those of us who really need closure often make
a lot of assumptions or false judgments, or shut down
as soon as a relationship is over in order to
(06:58):
just provide ourselves with the ending without waiting around for
someone else to come in and challenge what we feel
was the reason for this relationship not working, or what
we feel was the reason that this had to end.
The answers that we come up with the conclusion that
we reach it's might you know, it might not be
entirely correct, it might be based on a lot of
(07:18):
false premises, but at least in our minds, the story
is over. We have a nice bookend to this relationship,
to this situation. In contrast, sometimes we observe individuals who
avoid closure almost as a way to continue to suspend
the relationship in space and time. So the movie Five
(07:41):
Hundred Days of Summer if if you've seen it, and
if you haven't, you really should go and watch it.
It's quite good. But this movie cult classic. It's an
excellent example of someone who does not have a high
need for closure, in fact avoids closure. So Tom, the
main character, he really remin suspended in the happy memories
(08:02):
of the relationship, and he is fixated on them almost
as a way to stay connected with his ex closure
signifies the end. But if you are still anticipating something more,
if you are unable to rectify your feelings for someone,
even when you know it's time to move on, if
(08:22):
you have these expectations that you might get back together,
sometimes you actually continue to deprive yourself of closure in
order to stay in the potential of the relationship. That's
because our innate need to avoid closure in some of
these instances is controlled by our desire to avoid the
(08:44):
negative consequences that come along with that. So, for example,
once you acknowledge that yes, this relationship is over, this
person does not want to talk to me, I do
not want to talk to them. Acknowledging that fully means
that you have to start processing what that means for you,
the pain that that might bring. So we elongate the
(09:05):
situation in order to avoid that. There's actually another little
interesting facet of this that it's kind of the fun
fact for this episode. These types of people who don't
really have that need for closure, they've done some studies
on what that really means for the rest of their personality,
and they found that in some studies conducted on the
(09:26):
correlation between the need for closure and creativity levels. People
who avoid closure are significantly more creative. Maybe that's because
of their appreciation of deep emotions or the fact that
they are more comfortable with things being uncertain, so they're
able to transfer that uncertainty and that kind of open
endedness into their art or what they're creating. So a
(09:48):
little fun fact. That's not to say that depriving ourselves
of closure, either unconsciously or not, is all good and
has a lot of benefits. I actually think that a
lot of us do get to a point, even if
you have a low need for closure, we do get
to a point where we can no longer live in
(10:10):
the past, and maybe our lack of closure is preventing
us from moving on, or it is keeping us in
a very emotionally unavailable place. I think we commonly see
this with people straight out of a long term relationship
who actually haven't yet figured out exactly why the relationship
(10:33):
didn't work. Because of that, they don't necessarily know what
maybe needs to change. But more often than not, you
still have one footstuck in that past relationship, taking up emotional, mental,
and psychological space that might be better devoted for something else,
not just to someone else, but for something else, and
(10:53):
it's super frustrating. I've talked about this a bit before,
but I had this weird situationship a few years back
with someone and it was so emotionally exhausting, it was draining.
It left me in such a bad place mentally. I
had no self confidence. I could barely speak to anybody,
and it took me so much time to recover and
(11:14):
so much time to find that peace and closure that
I needed, more so than when I'd ended my previous
long term relationship. And the reason why was because of
how many what ifs were left over, at least in
my relationship. We kind of had the chance to really
take this connection to its final destination, if that makes sense,
Like we lived out the journey that we were meant
(11:36):
to go on. We had tried to make it work,
it didn't. There was nothing left to say, there was
nothing left to do. The end of the story was
written very quickly, but with that situationship, because the entire
relationship had been so tumultuous, the conclusion, or what I
thought was the conclusion, was equally confusing. You know, was
(11:56):
it me? Was it him? Was it just circumstances? Was
it timing. In hindsight, I really can't believe I spent
so much time, so many months thinking about this person.
But I also realized that there were some parts of
that relationship that always meant I was never going to
get the answers that I needed at the end, or
(12:17):
so I thought. I think when we were in this
moment of grief and ambiguity and sadness, we like to
believe in the idea of a quick fix, and we
fixate on this premise that there is something we don't
know that can explain it all away and take away
all these feelings. There is some answer out there that's
going to make us feel better, and we place a
(12:37):
lot of hope in someone else's ability to reach our
emotional conclusions. For us, I think we obviously all need closure.
It is a human need, but we don't necessarily need
someone else to give it to us. Our solution to
the closure problem doesn't always lie with our ex or
a former friend, or any explanation that they can provide us.
(12:58):
In fact, I think you are probably the only person
who is going to be able to bring that for yourself,
even if you don't realize it in the moment. In hindsight,
nothing that someone else has said has made you feel
any better normally. It's just that you have been able
to integrate that into your idea of the relationship and
(13:20):
your idea of the conclusion and write that ending for yourself.
So there's a few reasons why I don't think that
we should rely on other people to bring us closure. Firstly,
their actions were in some ways the closure that you needed.
Their inability to treat you with respect, or their fickleness,
their inconsistency, their cruelty even at times, that is really
(13:43):
the evidence that all along this person did not have
the emotional maturity to navigate an adult relationship with you. Right,
Like a lot of the time, if you are left
without answers at the end of a relationship, something has
kind of not gone wrong. But there is something that
they could have provided you, that they could have spoken
(14:05):
to you about along the way that they chose not to.
And I think secondly, like I mentioned before, you are
relying on this same person who hurt you in the
first place to heal that very wound that they created,
either intentionally or unintentionally. I think the irony of this
is best understood. You know, through metaphor, if you fall
(14:27):
off a ladder and you break your back, you are
not going to climb back up that same ladder with
the hope that you will fall off it again and
break your back back to the way that it was before.
Do you know what I mean? Like, this person has
obviously created some pain and has injured you in some way.
I don't necessarily think that they can undo that. They
might not even have the answer that you want because
(14:49):
they don't know what themselves. They may not even be
able to articulate their actual feelings well enough to provide
you with the clarity that you need. And there's also
no guarantee they're going to be be honest with you either,
So you are relying on a faulty or an unwilling
messenger for your emotional and mental sanity. I also saw
this really beautiful quote the other day that I think
(15:11):
expresses this very well. Life is short. I don't think
that you should wait around for apologies. Your peace is
worth more than their acknowledgement. If you're looking for them
to say sorry, if you're looking for them to not
just apologize but make some kind of amends, I don't
(15:32):
think you're ever going to truly believe that anyways. And
I don't think it's gonna undo anything that has already happened.
At least they won't be able to undo it once again. Sadly,
it's back to you. And Thirdly, and for me personally,
this is the most important reason we shouldn't rely on
others for closure is that sometimes we use closure as
(15:56):
a proxy for something else that we actually want. Think
that we need to reach out to them just one
more time, grab a coffee with them, just once more,
in order to get closure. But really what you want
to do is just see them again, because you're not
ready to move on. But you're evoking this idea of
closure as an excuse. I'm not trying to call you out.
I'm just saying from experience, I would do this. I'd
(16:19):
be like, oh, you know, I just have a few
more questions about the end of our relationship. But really
I didn't. I knew everything that I needed to know.
I just wanted to see them. You have convinced yourself
that you have good intentions, when actually underneath this urge
is a true desire to reconnect, and this pattern is
keeping you stuck in the memories of the relationship. It's
making you feel like it's not quite over yet, that
(16:40):
there's more to come. You're left kind of discussing your
relationship with this person. You're looking for answers that you
know they can never give you. And when you repeatedly
go back to this person with more excuses to catch up,
you are in the closure cycle. We are not letting
the connection fade away from our memory and our brains.
(17:02):
So in psychology, particularly in cognitive psychology, there is this
idea known as long term potentiation, and it has to
do with how our neurons make and replace connections and
pathways in the brain. So the more we use a connection,
for example, the more we talk to someone and see
(17:22):
them and interact with them and bond with them, the
more we use it, the stronger that neural connection becomes.
When that relationship disappears, the neural pathway is not stimulated
as much by an external presence or stimuli, so it's
used less and less until it begins to fade and
be replaced inevitably by something that is more important. That
(17:45):
is a natural part of the recovery process, specifically after
the end of a relationship. It's the reason why We
say that time heals because it quite literally does. It
heals us by letting our brain do what it does best,
which is prioritize what is important and what is not important.
And if this person is no longer a part of
(18:05):
your life, we want our brain to deprioritize the information
that it has about this individual. When we continue to
find opportunities to talk to them, to reach out, to
call see this person, all we are doing is keeping
this connection alive. We are keeping it strong, We are
keeping that pathway and those memories present, and we aren't
(18:28):
letting ourselves move on the way that we should. This
neural explanation is not to claim that you shouldn't reach
out if you really need to, But I do believe
that one closure conversation is probably enough. You have a
right to ask for closure, but you need to ensure
that you want it for the right reasons. And I
also don't think you should expect to leave the conversation
(18:51):
feeling completely sure of yourself and renewed. Those expectations once
again contribute to the closure seeking cycle, because when you
go into it thinking I just need to hear this
one thing and I'll be okay, It's never just that
one thing that you need to hear, and so you'll
keep going back wanting more and more, waiting for the
(19:13):
right thing to be said, when it won't be said
at all. So when going into that conversation, if you
choose to have a closure chat, make sure firstly that
you have a time limit. Do not find yourself talking
to them for six, seven, eight hours, staying over, you know,
going for a long drive, like don't find yourself in
(19:34):
a situation that is reminiscent of your relationship. You need
to have your questions ready and you need to have
your intentions clear. What are you actually hoping to get
out of this? Is there actually a reason that you
need to be there right now and you need to
be discussing this with them. Remember as well, that this
is also a controlled conversation. This is not a time
(19:54):
to try and get them back. It's not a time
to bring up old arguments. This is a space for
understanding and moving forward. It's also important to acknowledge that
there are a lot of situations where we are not
provided with that opportunity to talk it through with someone else,
(20:16):
especially in some of those situations that we spoke of before,
where the other person has just chosen to break all contact.
They've chosen to block you, to ghost to you. And
this might sound controversial, but as hard as that is,
that is their right to do. I usually see these
situations and friendships when someone has actually just been unable
(20:37):
to set boundaries or communicate. Maybe they are very conflict averse,
so something has been bothering them for a while. They
just don't know how to talk to you about it.
You remain unaware. It's not like you've done anything wrong.
Maybe you have, but you just haven't been given an
opportunity to rectify the situation or to apologize. And so
this person eventually snaps and their only option they see
(21:00):
in their mind is to just go completely no contact
with you. I know it doesn't feel fair that we
are left to navigate the aftermath of this ourselves, but
we cannot control what other people see as best for them.
What you can control is what you do next. And
I think it's your turn to do what's best for
you and to find a way to move forward and
(21:21):
provide yourself once again with closure. So that is what
I want to discuss next. How do we find closure
without reliance on others? How do we move on successfully
well all of that and more after this shortbreak, providing
(21:41):
ourselves with the emotional, psychological, mental closure that we need.
Doing it all by ourselves officially closing a chapter in
this book is not going to come without some challenges.
I know this all too well. I'm sure that you
do as well if you're listening to this episode. And
there are so many times where we sit back and
(22:03):
I think, just wish and pray that we could be
over it by now. We just want to be over it.
We're ready to just have moved on, But sometimes we're
also not willing to do the work to get there
because the path through is of you know, the path
that is hardest. But I have five tips and kind
(22:24):
of pieces of instruction for you, and I think following
this process releases a lot of the grief and the
anguish that otherwise keeps us quite trapped in the past
and quite trapped in the closure cycle. So my tips
are as follows. We're going to talk about changing your
mindset around what the end of this relationship has brought you. Second,
(22:48):
how to not be afraid of negative emotions. Thirdly, how
not to be afraid of memory flare ups, How to
take responsibility and then finally how to release the pain
that is wanting you to go back and ask more
questions and look for more answers. And I have a
specific exercise for this that I think is so important.
It has been so helpful to me in those times
(23:11):
that I really needed closure. So to begin, let's talk
about changing your mindset. We hear this a lot, and
I understand that when we hear this, we talk people
talk about mindset shifts and whatnot. It's very easy to
dismiss this and just be like, that is a that
is nonsense, that it's a bunch of garbage, Like, let's
just skip this step. I don't need to change my mindset.
(23:33):
It's just a terrible situation. I get it, and in
many ways it is a terrible situation. But we're going
to trust the psychology on this, and the psychology says
that we have control over our cognitions and our thoughts
about a situation, and these cognitions can be changed to
better suit us. So instead of sitting there and thinking
(23:55):
this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
This is so terrible. I'm never going to recover from this.
I'm never going to find love again. I'm never going
to have a friend as good as her. This is
the end for me. Replace those thoughts deliberately with ones
that suit you better. Yes, it sucks, but this ending
(24:16):
was a gift. This has given me things that I
wouldn't have imagined for myself. What doors are opening because
that relationship ended? What is it teaching you about yourself?
I always say that the best beginnings are truly hidden
in the endings of things, because it's there that the
story really gets to take like so many different turns,
(24:38):
It's where the storyline is most open for change. That's
the point that you're at right now. I think, stop
those negative thoughts and replace them with a deliberate thought.
So when you think I just want to get over this,
I'm so this is just the worst thing that's ever
happened to me, stop and say, this might be the
(24:58):
best thing that's ever happened to me. Can't see it yet.
I just don't know what my future looks like, and
that is really exciting. When you continue to interrupt those
negative thoughts and replace them, that repetition will mean that
you get to a point someday where it becomes automatic.
You don't need to try and convince yourself. You just
(25:20):
believe it. You just believe that maybe this happened not
for a reason, but there is something that is going
to come out of this that you would have missed
if that relationship had continued. I really think that understanding
that and having a more positive not just positive, but
a different mindset towards the end of a relationship, towards
(25:42):
snika for closure gets us to a point where we
are not scared to let ourselves move on, and this
is where the next step comes in. True closure is
about facing unfortunately negative emotions and sometimes what keeps us
in the memories of a lot of a relationship, what
keeps us going back, what keeps us unable to move on,
(26:05):
is knowing that the next step after that is going
to be really painful. Once we acknowledge that the relationship
is truly over, that there is no more that they
can provide us that it's going to make us feel better,
There is no more bargaining that is going to naturally
trigger a lot of grief, and so we engage in avoidance.
But when we allow ourselves to realize that, you know,
(26:29):
true closure is about facing these negative emotions. There will
be hard times when we no longer avoid the tears,
we no longer avoid the fears about the future, the anxieties,
the dark emotions, but we find an outlet for that energy.
I really think that we get to a closer point
of being able to live with these past experiences and
(26:50):
the knowledge that they didn't work out. It is not
as scary as it has to be. I also want
to reassure you that subconsciously unconsciously thinking about this person
having them pop into your head does not mean that
you are not ready to move on. Do not confuse
that with a need to reach back out to this person.
(27:10):
It is totally entirely normal to still have the occasional
thought about them, especially if you've been with this person
for a long time, or they are a friend who
has been with you for your whole life, or the
situation you're trying to find closure from was particularly upsetting
or traumatic or really frustrating. It takes a while for
(27:34):
that memory to be dulled and to feel like it
has a place. I think we all know that weird
feeling where you wake up after a dream that you've
had about someone and you haven't seen them for months
and suddenly there they are popping up in your subconscious
or strangely, you just can't stop thinking about the things
(27:55):
that you did. You know, two summers ago, you can't
stop thinking about this situation. These are called memory flare ups,
and they are totally normal. Especially when we are dreaming.
Our brain just tends to fire off a lot of
random energy and that sparks old connections, old paths, old feelings.
It doesn't say anything more than that. It is not
(28:17):
a secret sign to you to reach out. It is
not a secret sign that you are not ready for closure,
that there is something left to be said. It's just
likely that something in your environment has subconsciously triggered these
memories to reappear. It could also be what we call
the anniversary effect if these memories are occurring around a
significant date, maybe on Valentine's Day or their birthday, or
(28:38):
six months since your breakup. The anniversary effect is a
term used in the PTSD space that refers to the
tendency for us to start reliving past experiences and events
when a significant date comes around, because it's the significance
of that anniversary that cues our memories. So don't fear it.
(28:59):
There is no hidden mesas for you in this You
are not doing anything wrong. You are not, I think,
unprepared for closure. Just let it come and let it go.
The fourth step is around accountability. Now I think we've
taken this perspective for most of this episode, of like,
someone has wronged me, someone has left me. How do
(29:19):
I find closure? How do I move past this experience?
Sometimes though we have been the one who has done
the wrong thing, even if we didn't mean to, and
it's actually that urgent and that craving foreclosure that we
have to reach out to that person is really just
the urge to resolve the lingering guilt that we feel.
(29:39):
We want this other person to forgive us. We want
them to accept our apology because we weren't happy with
our behavior and we cannot move on from this place
of guilt and remorse and regret. I think in those
moments it's really important to actually examine the role you
had to play in what ended up occurring. If you
continue to ignore what is so blaringly obvious and wrong
(30:03):
maybe about your behavior, it actually doesn't help you in
the future. All it's going to do is ensure that
you make that mistake again, and you go through what
you are going through again with another person you care about,
facing the same kind of emotional turmoil and regret and
resentment even that you're feeling right now, Really take a solid,
(30:26):
hard look at what about this situation were you responsible for?
Did you not respect their boundaries? Maybe did you ever
step their boundaries? Were you not really on your best behavior?
Was there something happening in your environment that you allowed
to be projected onto them? What was your role in
creating this situation. It's very easy to blame others, especially
(30:49):
since we like to protect our self esteem and we
like to feel like we are good people. It is
only natural to feel that way. But the older you get,
the more you realize that that really does it make
you a better person. You're just suppressing the parts of
you that might actually end up hurting other people. And
this moment, right now, this moment where you're looking for closure,
(31:10):
is a great time to turn to yourself for answers,
and turn to yourself for the promise that this won't
happen in the future, because I'm going to take responsibility
for my role in this. Finally, if you're looking for
the closure that we have been talking about all along.
You are unable to get it. You are searching high
(31:31):
and low for some kind of answer or explanation for
why this has happened. It might be time to do
some further digging and further self forgiveness, but also forgiveness
of the other person for what is essentially the pain
that you're experiencing, whether it is deliberate or accidental. So
(31:52):
we've talked about this exercise before, but I want to
speak about it again. This is around. It's like a
letter writing ethie, and you're going to write two letters.
You are going to write a final letter to this person, apologizing, acknowledging,
expressing how hurt you feel, but why you are ready
(32:14):
to let go. Why now is the time that you're
going to move on. I want you to write that
letter and give as much detail as possible. You are
going to detail every emotion that you have felt, why
it was directed towards them, the emotions that have been
directed towards yourself, every confusing thing about this situation, everything
that you are mad about, everything that you are maybe
grateful for. Write it in that letter and then get
(32:38):
rid of it. I know this sounds super silly. But
do something that symbolically kind of represents that you are
like cleansing yourself of this past, kind of removing or
cleansing yourself of the guilt that you're feeling or the sadness.
Not going to promote arson, obviously, but like burning the
letter is in a controlled space is actually really deeply
(33:03):
moving because it does feel like quite poetic and symbolic
that you have had this pent up emotional landscape and
pent up emotional state for so long that you're finally
letting yourself physically like burn it down, physically destroy some
of these emotions. That's the first letter. Write the letter
(33:25):
to them, and then write the letter to yourself, to
the self yourself right now, who is experiencing this? What
do they need to hear from you? Is it that
it's going to get better? What do they need to
hear about what you're feeling? Especially when we think about
this in terms of reading it back in the future,
what would you want to remember about this experience that
(33:48):
it is going to teach you something and that it's
going to serve as a landmark in three months six
months time for you to look back on and say,
I've actually done a lot of work. From here, I'm
actually feeling a lot better. I am no longer in
that intense, exaggerated state of needing, needing to see them,
needing to get an answer, needing that closure like its water.
(34:12):
There's been a lot of research on these kinds of exercises.
The first thing that they're really helpful with doing is
preventing you from ruminating in your own mind over and
over again about every small detail, and therefore allowing yourself
to kind of be beholden to these memories. But research
has also shown that this type of writing that allows
us to examine what we've lost through a redemptive lens
(34:36):
without blame, and that focuses on your current emotional state
and focuses even sometimes on the positives, it can be
very useful in helping us to achieve closure, whereas when
we simply just vent and rant to our friends. Actually,
what you're doing is just maintaining this cycle of feeling
like this situation. This person has control over you in
(35:01):
some senses. I want to say this again, the answers
do not lie in someone else. You can provide yourself
with closure, whether that is through a mindset shift or
kind of a cathartic release, making some changes to how
you see yourself, but also understanding that this relationship maybe
had to end for a reason, this situation had to occur.
(35:25):
There is something contained in this that you might not
be able to see right now, but is really important
for your journey. I think that that really allows us
to come to peace with the situation and not feel
like it has total control over who we are and
who we're becoming. I want to say this final thing,
but time seriously does heal all wounds. Your grip on
(35:46):
these memories and this experience will loosen as time goes on,
and as those experiences are replaced with better ones and
novel experiences as well, and new things, new relationships and
new people and new things to be happy about. So
I really hope that this has provided you with an
(36:06):
overview of why maybe you don't really need closure from
someone else, why you can provide it for yourself, some
of the pitfalls of looking for closure and being desperate
for it, and whatever you're going through. Whether I describe
your situation or not, if this related to you in
any way, I'm sending you a lot of love and
a lot of strength. I know it can be incredibly difficult,
(36:28):
but I think you're doing the right thing. You are
obviously listening to content about this, and you are searching
for answers that lay beyond this other personal lay beyond
these circumstances you can't control. So I'm proud of you. Congratulations.
As always, if there is someone who needs to hear
this episode, please feel free to share it with them.
(36:50):
Make sure you have left a five star review and
that you are following us on Instagram at that Psychology Podcast.
If you have an episode suggestion, if you just want
to say hi, if you have feedback, if you have
any further tips for getting closure in these tough situations,
I would love to hear from you. We will be
(37:10):
back next week with another episode. Until then, stay safe,
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is so great to
have you here. Back for another episode. Today we are
going to be talking about closure, what it is, what
it isn't It's very elusive nature, whether we need it,
(00:47):
and how to find your self closure without needing another
person's input or needing someone to have all the answers
for you. Closure, I think is such an interesting concept
in our twenties because there are so many storylines that
we will live out, so many relationships and situations that
(01:08):
will not have a neat conclusion, as much as we
might want them to. Not every relationship is going to
finish on a good note. Of course, when I talk
about closure, most of us do think about relationships. We
think about love. We think about that period after a
(01:29):
relationship ends where we are left with thousands of questions,
did they really love me? What did I do wrong?
What do they think of me, now, why was I
not enough? Honestly, the list is endless, and I think
their need for closure is a lot like grief. It
is lost or misplaced love, a love that really lingers on.
(01:50):
But beyond those romantic relationships, we can also require closure
at the end of platonic relationships and friendships. I think
friendships always seem to be painted is less important by
our society, something that we just expect to follow along
with us in life, whilst our romantic relationships are really
(02:12):
the main attraction. But I really do truly believe that
they can hurt so deeply when they come to an end,
probably because we never expect our friendships to end in
that way. We never expect to go through a friendship
breakup or you know, I've heard so many stories of
lifelong friendships where the other person suddenly goes the friend
(02:35):
or goes completely silent, or friendship breakups that are so
much worse than the heartbreak that we experience from romantic relationships.
When we are that connected with someone, when we spend
so much time with them, we bond over everything, We
talk all the time. Seeing those connections, whether they are
platonic or romantic, seeing them crumble is really upsetting, especially
(02:58):
when we are left feeling very confused and unable to
seek clarity. In those moments, we want closure. We feel
like it is the only thing that will help us
come to terms with these events. But although we might
want closure, do we really need it as much as
we think we do? And when we say that we're
looking for closure, what exactly does that entail? And is
(03:23):
it maybe slightly naive for us to think that the
person who caused us so much pain and disappointment is
going to be the same person who can provide us
with the answers that will let us heal. I don't
necessarily think so, So that's really what I want to
focus on in today's episode. Do we need someone else
to provide us with closure or can we provide it
(03:44):
for ourselves? I think that my opinion is quite obvious.
But before we get into that, let's look into some
of the psychological origins of this concept of closure and
make sure that our the foundations of our understanding are strong.
Cure essentially refers to our need to make sense of
a situation and feel like it has a solid conclusion.
(04:07):
In psychology, the need for closure is seen as a
motivation to find an answer to an ambiguous situation because
as humans, as we know, we are not particularly good
at navigating uncertainty. So this motivation to find an answer
it is enhanced by what we see as the benefits
of this right, so an increased ability to predict what
(04:28):
might happen, being able to remove some of those fears,
feeling certain of where we stand with someone. Really it's
about finding a way and finding a place for these memories,
and social psychologists in particular suggests that people tend to
have a need to view their relationships as a whole,
(04:48):
that they are a complete story. They have a beginning,
they have a middle, and they have an end. And
when a relationship concludes, the mind seeks to fill in
any gaps before moving on so that it can find
that ending. In other words, we need that closure to
essentially finish off the story. And when we are left
(05:10):
without an ending, either because the relationship ended quite abruptly,
we didn't see it coming. You ended on a fight
that you never resolved, or there was just radio silence,
we don't know where to place that memory because it
still feels like it's ongoing. It's an active storyline. Our
minds have this open chapter, and this lack of a
(05:32):
conclusion keeps us going back and returning again and again
and again, wanting to find more answers by searching through
our memories, wanting to find a resting place for this
relationship and for what it has become. We all have
as humans that individual drive for closure, but that need
(05:53):
and that drive differs between us. So mainly it differs
according to intensity and the intensity of our need for closure.
This depends largely on our personality. So people with that
intense need for closure, they may be used to being
in control and they prefer life to go as planned.
(06:14):
They may feel really distressed by uncertainty. It might really
challenge their sense of safety and well being to not
have the answers to a question. And in the nineteen nineties,
these three psychologists actually came up with the need for
Closure scale, which can be used to really categorize people
based on a number of questions and determine where we
(06:37):
kind of all sit on this spectrum of obtaining closure,
what lengths we will go to find closure at the
end of a relationship or at the end of some situation.
So those of us who really need closure often make
a lot of assumptions or false judgments, or shut down
as soon as a relationship is over in order to
(06:58):
just provide ourselves with the ending without waiting around for
someone else to come in and challenge what we feel
was the reason for this relationship not working, or what
we feel was the reason that this had to end.
The answers that we come up with the conclusion that
we reach it's might you know, it might not be
entirely correct, it might be based on a lot of
(07:18):
false premises, but at least in our minds, the story
is over. We have a nice bookend to this relationship,
to this situation. In contrast, sometimes we observe individuals who
avoid closure almost as a way to continue to suspend
the relationship in space and time. So the movie Five
(07:41):
Hundred Days of Summer if if you've seen it, and
if you haven't, you really should go and watch it.
It's quite good. But this movie cult classic. It's an
excellent example of someone who does not have a high
need for closure, in fact avoids closure. So Tom, the
main character, he really remin suspended in the happy memories
(08:02):
of the relationship, and he is fixated on them almost
as a way to stay connected with his ex closure
signifies the end. But if you are still anticipating something more,
if you are unable to rectify your feelings for someone,
even when you know it's time to move on, if
(08:22):
you have these expectations that you might get back together,
sometimes you actually continue to deprive yourself of closure in
order to stay in the potential of the relationship. That's
because our innate need to avoid closure in some of
these instances is controlled by our desire to avoid the
(08:44):
negative consequences that come along with that. So, for example,
once you acknowledge that yes, this relationship is over, this
person does not want to talk to me, I do
not want to talk to them. Acknowledging that fully means
that you have to start processing what that means for you,
the pain that that might bring. So we elongate the
(09:05):
situation in order to avoid that. There's actually another little
interesting facet of this that it's kind of the fun
fact for this episode. These types of people who don't
really have that need for closure, they've done some studies
on what that really means for the rest of their personality,
and they found that in some studies conducted on the
(09:26):
correlation between the need for closure and creativity levels. People
who avoid closure are significantly more creative. Maybe that's because
of their appreciation of deep emotions or the fact that
they are more comfortable with things being uncertain, so they're
able to transfer that uncertainty and that kind of open
endedness into their art or what they're creating. So a
(09:48):
little fun fact. That's not to say that depriving ourselves
of closure, either unconsciously or not, is all good and
has a lot of benefits. I actually think that a
lot of us do get to a point, even if
you have a low need for closure, we do get
to a point where we can no longer live in
(10:10):
the past, and maybe our lack of closure is preventing
us from moving on, or it is keeping us in
a very emotionally unavailable place. I think we commonly see
this with people straight out of a long term relationship
who actually haven't yet figured out exactly why the relationship
(10:33):
didn't work. Because of that, they don't necessarily know what
maybe needs to change. But more often than not, you
still have one footstuck in that past relationship, taking up emotional, mental,
and psychological space that might be better devoted for something else,
not just to someone else, but for something else, and
(10:53):
it's super frustrating. I've talked about this a bit before,
but I had this weird situationship a few years back
with someone and it was so emotionally exhausting, it was draining.
It left me in such a bad place mentally. I
had no self confidence. I could barely speak to anybody,
and it took me so much time to recover and
(11:14):
so much time to find that peace and closure that
I needed, more so than when I'd ended my previous
long term relationship. And the reason why was because of
how many what ifs were left over, at least in
my relationship. We kind of had the chance to really
take this connection to its final destination, if that makes sense,
Like we lived out the journey that we were meant
(11:36):
to go on. We had tried to make it work,
it didn't. There was nothing left to say, there was
nothing left to do. The end of the story was
written very quickly, but with that situationship, because the entire
relationship had been so tumultuous, the conclusion, or what I
thought was the conclusion, was equally confusing. You know, was
(11:56):
it me? Was it him? Was it just circumstances? Was
it timing. In hindsight, I really can't believe I spent
so much time, so many months thinking about this person.
But I also realized that there were some parts of
that relationship that always meant I was never going to
get the answers that I needed at the end, or
(12:17):
so I thought. I think when we were in this
moment of grief and ambiguity and sadness, we like to
believe in the idea of a quick fix, and we
fixate on this premise that there is something we don't
know that can explain it all away and take away
all these feelings. There is some answer out there that's
going to make us feel better, and we place a
(12:37):
lot of hope in someone else's ability to reach our
emotional conclusions. For us, I think we obviously all need closure.
It is a human need, but we don't necessarily need
someone else to give it to us. Our solution to
the closure problem doesn't always lie with our ex or
a former friend, or any explanation that they can provide us.
(12:58):
In fact, I think you are probably the only person
who is going to be able to bring that for yourself,
even if you don't realize it in the moment. In hindsight,
nothing that someone else has said has made you feel
any better normally. It's just that you have been able
to integrate that into your idea of the relationship and
(13:20):
your idea of the conclusion and write that ending for yourself.
So there's a few reasons why I don't think that
we should rely on other people to bring us closure. Firstly,
their actions were in some ways the closure that you needed.
Their inability to treat you with respect, or their fickleness,
their inconsistency, their cruelty even at times, that is really
(13:43):
the evidence that all along this person did not have
the emotional maturity to navigate an adult relationship with you. Right,
Like a lot of the time, if you are left
without answers at the end of a relationship, something has
kind of not gone wrong. But there is something that
they could have provided you, that they could have spoken
(14:05):
to you about along the way that they chose not to.
And I think secondly, like I mentioned before, you are
relying on this same person who hurt you in the
first place to heal that very wound that they created,
either intentionally or unintentionally. I think the irony of this
is best understood. You know, through metaphor, if you fall
(14:27):
off a ladder and you break your back, you are
not going to climb back up that same ladder with
the hope that you will fall off it again and
break your back back to the way that it was before.
Do you know what I mean? Like, this person has
obviously created some pain and has injured you in some way.
I don't necessarily think that they can undo that. They
might not even have the answer that you want because
(14:49):
they don't know what themselves. They may not even be
able to articulate their actual feelings well enough to provide
you with the clarity that you need. And there's also
no guarantee they're going to be be honest with you either,
So you are relying on a faulty or an unwilling
messenger for your emotional and mental sanity. I also saw
this really beautiful quote the other day that I think
(15:11):
expresses this very well. Life is short. I don't think
that you should wait around for apologies. Your peace is
worth more than their acknowledgement. If you're looking for them
to say sorry, if you're looking for them to not
just apologize but make some kind of amends, I don't
(15:32):
think you're ever going to truly believe that anyways. And
I don't think it's gonna undo anything that has already happened.
At least they won't be able to undo it once again. Sadly,
it's back to you. And Thirdly, and for me personally,
this is the most important reason we shouldn't rely on
others for closure is that sometimes we use closure as
(15:56):
a proxy for something else that we actually want. Think
that we need to reach out to them just one
more time, grab a coffee with them, just once more,
in order to get closure. But really what you want
to do is just see them again, because you're not
ready to move on. But you're evoking this idea of
closure as an excuse. I'm not trying to call you out.
I'm just saying from experience, I would do this. I'd
(16:19):
be like, oh, you know, I just have a few
more questions about the end of our relationship. But really
I didn't. I knew everything that I needed to know.
I just wanted to see them. You have convinced yourself
that you have good intentions, when actually underneath this urge
is a true desire to reconnect, and this pattern is
keeping you stuck in the memories of the relationship. It's
making you feel like it's not quite over yet, that
(16:40):
there's more to come. You're left kind of discussing your
relationship with this person. You're looking for answers that you
know they can never give you. And when you repeatedly
go back to this person with more excuses to catch up,
you are in the closure cycle. We are not letting
the connection fade away from our memory and our brains.
(17:02):
So in psychology, particularly in cognitive psychology, there is this
idea known as long term potentiation, and it has to
do with how our neurons make and replace connections and
pathways in the brain. So the more we use a connection,
for example, the more we talk to someone and see
(17:22):
them and interact with them and bond with them, the
more we use it, the stronger that neural connection becomes.
When that relationship disappears, the neural pathway is not stimulated
as much by an external presence or stimuli, so it's
used less and less until it begins to fade and
be replaced inevitably by something that is more important. That
(17:45):
is a natural part of the recovery process, specifically after
the end of a relationship. It's the reason why We
say that time heals because it quite literally does. It
heals us by letting our brain do what it does best,
which is prioritize what is important and what is not important.
And if this person is no longer a part of
(18:05):
your life, we want our brain to deprioritize the information
that it has about this individual. When we continue to
find opportunities to talk to them, to reach out, to
call see this person, all we are doing is keeping
this connection alive. We are keeping it strong, We are
keeping that pathway and those memories present, and we aren't
(18:28):
letting ourselves move on the way that we should. This
neural explanation is not to claim that you shouldn't reach
out if you really need to, But I do believe
that one closure conversation is probably enough. You have a
right to ask for closure, but you need to ensure
that you want it for the right reasons. And I
also don't think you should expect to leave the conversation
(18:51):
feeling completely sure of yourself and renewed. Those expectations once
again contribute to the closure seeking cycle, because when you
go into it thinking I just need to hear this
one thing and I'll be okay, It's never just that
one thing that you need to hear, and so you'll
keep going back wanting more and more, waiting for the
(19:13):
right thing to be said, when it won't be said
at all. So when going into that conversation, if you
choose to have a closure chat, make sure firstly that
you have a time limit. Do not find yourself talking
to them for six, seven, eight hours, staying over, you know,
going for a long drive, like don't find yourself in
(19:34):
a situation that is reminiscent of your relationship. You need
to have your questions ready and you need to have
your intentions clear. What are you actually hoping to get
out of this? Is there actually a reason that you
need to be there right now and you need to
be discussing this with them. Remember as well, that this
is also a controlled conversation. This is not a time
(19:54):
to try and get them back. It's not a time
to bring up old arguments. This is a space for
understanding and moving forward. It's also important to acknowledge that
there are a lot of situations where we are not
provided with that opportunity to talk it through with someone else,
(20:16):
especially in some of those situations that we spoke of before,
where the other person has just chosen to break all contact.
They've chosen to block you, to ghost to you. And
this might sound controversial, but as hard as that is,
that is their right to do. I usually see these
situations and friendships when someone has actually just been unable
(20:37):
to set boundaries or communicate. Maybe they are very conflict averse,
so something has been bothering them for a while. They
just don't know how to talk to you about it.
You remain unaware. It's not like you've done anything wrong.
Maybe you have, but you just haven't been given an
opportunity to rectify the situation or to apologize. And so
this person eventually snaps and their only option they see
(21:00):
in their mind is to just go completely no contact
with you. I know it doesn't feel fair that we
are left to navigate the aftermath of this ourselves, but
we cannot control what other people see as best for them.
What you can control is what you do next. And
I think it's your turn to do what's best for
you and to find a way to move forward and
(21:21):
provide yourself once again with closure. So that is what
I want to discuss next. How do we find closure
without reliance on others? How do we move on successfully
well all of that and more after this shortbreak, providing
(21:41):
ourselves with the emotional, psychological, mental closure that we need.
Doing it all by ourselves officially closing a chapter in
this book is not going to come without some challenges.
I know this all too well. I'm sure that you
do as well if you're listening to this episode. And
there are so many times where we sit back and
(22:03):
I think, just wish and pray that we could be
over it by now. We just want to be over it.
We're ready to just have moved on, But sometimes we're
also not willing to do the work to get there
because the path through is of you know, the path
that is hardest. But I have five tips and kind
(22:24):
of pieces of instruction for you, and I think following
this process releases a lot of the grief and the
anguish that otherwise keeps us quite trapped in the past
and quite trapped in the closure cycle. So my tips
are as follows. We're going to talk about changing your
mindset around what the end of this relationship has brought you. Second,
(22:48):
how to not be afraid of negative emotions. Thirdly, how
not to be afraid of memory flare ups, How to
take responsibility and then finally how to release the pain
that is wanting you to go back and ask more
questions and look for more answers. And I have a
specific exercise for this that I think is so important.
It has been so helpful to me in those times
(23:11):
that I really needed closure. So to begin, let's talk
about changing your mindset. We hear this a lot, and
I understand that when we hear this, we talk people
talk about mindset shifts and whatnot. It's very easy to
dismiss this and just be like, that is a that
is nonsense, that it's a bunch of garbage, Like, let's
just skip this step. I don't need to change my mindset.
(23:33):
It's just a terrible situation. I get it, and in
many ways it is a terrible situation. But we're going
to trust the psychology on this, and the psychology says
that we have control over our cognitions and our thoughts
about a situation, and these cognitions can be changed to
better suit us. So instead of sitting there and thinking
(23:55):
this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
This is so terrible. I'm never going to recover from this.
I'm never going to find love again. I'm never going
to have a friend as good as her. This is
the end for me. Replace those thoughts deliberately with ones
that suit you better. Yes, it sucks, but this ending
(24:16):
was a gift. This has given me things that I
wouldn't have imagined for myself. What doors are opening because
that relationship ended? What is it teaching you about yourself?
I always say that the best beginnings are truly hidden
in the endings of things, because it's there that the
story really gets to take like so many different turns,
(24:38):
It's where the storyline is most open for change. That's
the point that you're at right now. I think, stop
those negative thoughts and replace them with a deliberate thought.
So when you think I just want to get over this,
I'm so this is just the worst thing that's ever
happened to me, stop and say, this might be the
(24:58):
best thing that's ever happened to me. Can't see it yet.
I just don't know what my future looks like, and
that is really exciting. When you continue to interrupt those
negative thoughts and replace them, that repetition will mean that
you get to a point someday where it becomes automatic.
You don't need to try and convince yourself. You just
(25:20):
believe it. You just believe that maybe this happened not
for a reason, but there is something that is going
to come out of this that you would have missed
if that relationship had continued. I really think that understanding
that and having a more positive not just positive, but
a different mindset towards the end of a relationship, towards
(25:42):
snika for closure gets us to a point where we
are not scared to let ourselves move on, and this
is where the next step comes in. True closure is
about facing unfortunately negative emotions and sometimes what keeps us
in the memories of a lot of a relationship, what
keeps us going back, what keeps us unable to move on,
(26:05):
is knowing that the next step after that is going
to be really painful. Once we acknowledge that the relationship
is truly over, that there is no more that they
can provide us that it's going to make us feel better,
There is no more bargaining that is going to naturally
trigger a lot of grief, and so we engage in avoidance.
But when we allow ourselves to realize that, you know,
(26:29):
true closure is about facing these negative emotions. There will
be hard times when we no longer avoid the tears,
we no longer avoid the fears about the future, the anxieties,
the dark emotions, but we find an outlet for that energy.
I really think that we get to a closer point
of being able to live with these past experiences and
(26:50):
the knowledge that they didn't work out. It is not
as scary as it has to be. I also want
to reassure you that subconsciously unconsciously thinking about this person
having them pop into your head does not mean that
you are not ready to move on. Do not confuse
that with a need to reach back out to this person.
(27:10):
It is totally entirely normal to still have the occasional
thought about them, especially if you've been with this person
for a long time, or they are a friend who
has been with you for your whole life, or the
situation you're trying to find closure from was particularly upsetting
or traumatic or really frustrating. It takes a while for
(27:34):
that memory to be dulled and to feel like it
has a place. I think we all know that weird
feeling where you wake up after a dream that you've
had about someone and you haven't seen them for months
and suddenly there they are popping up in your subconscious
or strangely, you just can't stop thinking about the things
(27:55):
that you did. You know, two summers ago, you can't
stop thinking about this situation. These are called memory flare ups,
and they are totally normal. Especially when we are dreaming.
Our brain just tends to fire off a lot of
random energy and that sparks old connections, old paths, old feelings.
It doesn't say anything more than that. It is not
(28:17):
a secret sign to you to reach out. It is
not a secret sign that you are not ready for closure,
that there is something left to be said. It's just
likely that something in your environment has subconsciously triggered these
memories to reappear. It could also be what we call
the anniversary effect if these memories are occurring around a
significant date, maybe on Valentine's Day or their birthday, or
(28:38):
six months since your breakup. The anniversary effect is a
term used in the PTSD space that refers to the
tendency for us to start reliving past experiences and events
when a significant date comes around, because it's the significance
of that anniversary that cues our memories. So don't fear it.
(28:59):
There is no hidden mesas for you in this You
are not doing anything wrong. You are not, I think,
unprepared for closure. Just let it come and let it go.
The fourth step is around accountability. Now I think we've
taken this perspective for most of this episode, of like,
someone has wronged me, someone has left me. How do
(29:19):
I find closure? How do I move past this experience?
Sometimes though we have been the one who has done
the wrong thing, even if we didn't mean to, and
it's actually that urgent and that craving foreclosure that we
have to reach out to that person is really just
the urge to resolve the lingering guilt that we feel.
(29:39):
We want this other person to forgive us. We want
them to accept our apology because we weren't happy with
our behavior and we cannot move on from this place
of guilt and remorse and regret. I think in those
moments it's really important to actually examine the role you
had to play in what ended up occurring. If you
continue to ignore what is so blaringly obvious and wrong
(30:03):
maybe about your behavior, it actually doesn't help you in
the future. All it's going to do is ensure that
you make that mistake again, and you go through what
you are going through again with another person you care about,
facing the same kind of emotional turmoil and regret and
resentment even that you're feeling right now, Really take a solid,
(30:26):
hard look at what about this situation were you responsible for?
Did you not respect their boundaries? Maybe did you ever
step their boundaries? Were you not really on your best behavior?
Was there something happening in your environment that you allowed
to be projected onto them? What was your role in
creating this situation. It's very easy to blame others, especially
(30:49):
since we like to protect our self esteem and we
like to feel like we are good people. It is
only natural to feel that way. But the older you get,
the more you realize that that really does it make
you a better person. You're just suppressing the parts of
you that might actually end up hurting other people. And
this moment, right now, this moment where you're looking for closure,
(31:10):
is a great time to turn to yourself for answers,
and turn to yourself for the promise that this won't
happen in the future, because I'm going to take responsibility
for my role in this. Finally, if you're looking for
the closure that we have been talking about all along.
You are unable to get it. You are searching high
(31:31):
and low for some kind of answer or explanation for
why this has happened. It might be time to do
some further digging and further self forgiveness, but also forgiveness
of the other person for what is essentially the pain
that you're experiencing, whether it is deliberate or accidental. So
(31:52):
we've talked about this exercise before, but I want to
speak about it again. This is around. It's like a
letter writing ethie, and you're going to write two letters.
You are going to write a final letter to this person, apologizing, acknowledging,
expressing how hurt you feel, but why you are ready
(32:14):
to let go. Why now is the time that you're
going to move on. I want you to write that
letter and give as much detail as possible. You are
going to detail every emotion that you have felt, why
it was directed towards them, the emotions that have been
directed towards yourself, every confusing thing about this situation, everything
that you are mad about, everything that you are maybe
grateful for. Write it in that letter and then get
(32:38):
rid of it. I know this sounds super silly. But
do something that symbolically kind of represents that you are
like cleansing yourself of this past, kind of removing or
cleansing yourself of the guilt that you're feeling or the sadness.
Not going to promote arson, obviously, but like burning the
letter is in a controlled space is actually really deeply
(33:03):
moving because it does feel like quite poetic and symbolic
that you have had this pent up emotional landscape and
pent up emotional state for so long that you're finally
letting yourself physically like burn it down, physically destroy some
of these emotions. That's the first letter. Write the letter
(33:25):
to them, and then write the letter to yourself, to
the self yourself right now, who is experiencing this? What
do they need to hear from you? Is it that
it's going to get better? What do they need to
hear about what you're feeling? Especially when we think about
this in terms of reading it back in the future,
what would you want to remember about this experience that
(33:48):
it is going to teach you something and that it's
going to serve as a landmark in three months six
months time for you to look back on and say,
I've actually done a lot of work. From here, I'm
actually feeling a lot better. I am no longer in
that intense, exaggerated state of needing, needing to see them,
needing to get an answer, needing that closure like its water.
(34:12):
There's been a lot of research on these kinds of exercises.
The first thing that they're really helpful with doing is
preventing you from ruminating in your own mind over and
over again about every small detail, and therefore allowing yourself
to kind of be beholden to these memories. But research
has also shown that this type of writing that allows
us to examine what we've lost through a redemptive lens
(34:36):
without blame, and that focuses on your current emotional state
and focuses even sometimes on the positives, it can be
very useful in helping us to achieve closure, whereas when
we simply just vent and rant to our friends. Actually,
what you're doing is just maintaining this cycle of feeling
like this situation. This person has control over you in
(35:01):
some senses. I want to say this again, the answers
do not lie in someone else. You can provide yourself
with closure, whether that is through a mindset shift or
kind of a cathartic release, making some changes to how
you see yourself, but also understanding that this relationship maybe
had to end for a reason, this situation had to occur.
(35:25):
There is something contained in this that you might not
be able to see right now, but is really important
for your journey. I think that that really allows us
to come to peace with the situation and not feel
like it has total control over who we are and
who we're becoming. I want to say this final thing,
but time seriously does heal all wounds. Your grip on
(35:46):
these memories and this experience will loosen as time goes on,
and as those experiences are replaced with better ones and
novel experiences as well, and new things, new relationships and
new people and new things to be happy about. So
I really hope that this has provided you with an
(36:06):
overview of why maybe you don't really need closure from
someone else, why you can provide it for yourself, some
of the pitfalls of looking for closure and being desperate
for it, and whatever you're going through. Whether I describe
your situation or not, if this related to you in
any way, I'm sending you a lot of love and
a lot of strength. I know it can be incredibly difficult,
(36:28):
but I think you're doing the right thing. You are
obviously listening to content about this, and you are searching
for answers that lay beyond this other personal lay beyond
these circumstances you can't control. So I'm proud of you. Congratulations.
As always, if there is someone who needs to hear
this episode, please feel free to share it with them.
(36:50):
Make sure you have left a five star review and
that you are following us on Instagram at that Psychology Podcast.
If you have an episode suggestion, if you just want
to say hi, if you have feedback, if you have
any further tips for getting closure in these tough situations,
I would love to hear from you. We will be
(37:10):
back next week with another episode. Until then, stay safe,
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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