Monday 14 March 2016

Managing Endings

Managing Endings

When some people think of endings; they automatically have A.N.T, an automatic negative thought. However, endings can be just as important as beginnings. Endings can also herald completion, a grand finale but it can also signal death or even major change. How well are you at managing endings? Can you manage the end of a relationship or a job? Can you manage ending a relationship that has become toxic or a friendship that is destroying your family or marriage? Let us consider some tips.

Necessary endings
There are some endings that are absolutely necessary. Without these endings, things could become abnormal. There are times when people struggle to accept that a certain season in there life has ended. They try to resurrect old behaviours and mindsets. It would be abnormal for an adult to act like a baby and when we do, it is abnormal. Emotional gaps occur, when we miss a key stage in our emotional development as a child or teenager and then when we are adults, we try to reenact what we have missed out on. In these cases, individuals refuse to accept that a development stage in their life has ended. I remember accompanying my son on a giant roller-coaster. I felt like a teenager for a day! The experience was exhilarating as well as frightening at the same time. I enjoyed it but if the ride had never come to an end, my well-being would have been severely compromised.

Unexpected endings
These are probably the hardest types of endings. When we are in shock, we temporarily lose a sense of perspective and reason. We struggle to accept that something has ended because we didn't prepare or plan for this ending to happen. The key to managing unexpected endings, is to take regular mental and emotional steps towards acceptance. You may not have any control over an unexpected ending but you can have control over how you respond.

Enforced endings
I remember once, how my computer forced a shut down because a command process failed. It was an enforced shut down because the normal protocols had failed. There are times when people in our lives fail to respond to our requests, fail to be sensitive to our needs and fail to acknowledge the injury they are causing us. It soon becomes apparent, that the relationship will not end naturally. Therefore, for your own personal well-being, you have to enforce the ending. This can be painful but is often necessary in order to preserve your own well-being and other inter-connected relationships. I have found so many useful parallels between why people sell their homes and purchase a new home. They reach a time when they deliberately enforce change by selling their home but the home they walk away from becomes the new home someone else can move into. If no one sells their property it makes it very difficult for people to buy. Someone in the world needs what you will release. Time and time again, I have seen individuals end a romantic relationship only for them to find the right relationship they had been longing for.


In summary, we can all have special moments that we can relive in our hearts but in our minds, we must be conscious of the truth, that something has indeed ended. Some endings are necessary for your personal well-being and some endings need to be enforced before they cost you more than you intended. Life will have many unexpected endings but make a commitment to live with endings rather than deny them.

Noel McLean