Every Goodbye Is a New Hello

We dread endings. We try to delay them, pretend they aren’t happening. We drag bad relationships, stay in toxic jobs, live in unhealthy places and avoid letting go of friendships that have run their course. But what if we looked at the dreaded Goodbye and saw a new Hello instead?

If I think back at my bad relationships, toxic jobs and poor friendships I have to admit they all have one thing in common: I stayed for far too long. And if I search hard, really hard, I cannot remember one instance where I look back and tell myself “I should have stayed longer”. Not even one. 

Why do we stay too long?

Because we don’t want to say goodbye. These simple words have that finality about them that we unconsciously associate with death. And we don’t want to die, we don’t want any reality that we know to die. It’s as simple as that.

So we artificially keep it alive. We put up with things. We find excuses, justifications. We rationalise bad behaviour. We believe we’re strong enough to bear it. We take the blame, we strive to do better, to be better. We take the whole world and carry it on our shoulders. We do anything to avoid saying goodbye, to avoid that little death. And by doing this we let our souls die, one little piece at a time.

How many people would embrace death if they knew for sure that what comes after death is a million times better than what we leave behind? Similarly how much easier would it be to say goodbye if we were convinced we are saying hello to something new and much better?

Because you see, the new cannot come in when the space is taken. That perfect relationship cannot find you as you go home to your abusive husband. New friends who treat you better cannot come into your life when all your socialising time is taken up by friends who treat you poorly. A job where you feel valued, respected and rewarded cannot coexist with a toxic work environment that you refuse to leave. Simply put, there isn’t enough space and time for these realities to coexist. Or, a more in-depth explanation would be that when we align ourselves to a certain vibration (a low one in the case of these examples) a higher vibration cannot reach us, we become invisible to anything better. That’s because the world as we know it is not just one world, it’s an infinity of worlds all coexisting at the same time, in the same space. The world you live in depends on the vibration you send out. And when you force yourself to stay in bad situations your vibration will match that of those bad situations. And you will attract more of the same.

Hence, the excuses people usually find to justify their poor choices remain simply excuses. “I stay in this relationship until a better one comes around” or “I’ll keep this job until I find a better one”. You may be still saying this years later.

What’s the solution? Jump into the unknown? Throw it all away and start again?

As someone who has done that more than once I can say that it sometimes works. Some other times it doesn’t and that’s because we haven’t learned the lesson we were supposed to learn before we jumped out. So we go away from one bad relationship to another, from one bad job to another one, straight away.

What’s the way out?

It matters less what you do, I would say. It matters more why you do it. If you stay in a bad relationship because you’re waiting for something better to come along, you’re doomed.  If you haven’t left yet because you feel you haven’t got the full lesson, that’s different. Very often though by the time that thought comes in, the lesson is already learned. In other words, if I fully know this is not for me and I’m thinking of leaving, it’s likely because I have already understood why this is not for me and what is it that I need to change inside to avoid repeating this pattern.

If you’re already there, don’t hesitate. Take your leave. Say goodbye. Close the chapter and move on. And do so before something else shows up.

Because it’s only that clear goodbye that can open the door to a new hello.

Still not convinced? Think of the explosion of fireworks that greets a new year, a second after we said goodbye to the old one. It’s the joy of a new beginning.

The joy of moving on.