By Yael Reiss
There are unwritten laws in life that can be observed, of how things work and don’t work. When we hear about these unwritten laws we tend to feel that, “Yes, actually that makes sense, that is how it is”. And one I want to bring to your attentions today is: In order to move forward in life, we first need to acknowledge what was.
One context that is helpful to apply, is a couple relationship, such as a second marriage. In order to be truly emotionally free to move on to a new relationship, the previous relationship must be acknowledged and honoured. When two people separate they can only truly separate when they are able to say to the other “Thank you for what you have given me, it’s a lot and I cherish it. What I gave you, I gave gladly, and it’s yours to keep.” The separating partners can only separate when they say “I take the responsibility on my part for what went wrong between us, and your part I leave with you.” They also need to be able to say: “With my whole heart, I wish you all the best.” When they can say these three things, then they can move on much more freely with their lives.
Of course, at times it might be difficult to say. When people do not part on good terms there is an anger there, that acts as what I call “a binding material”, which does not allow a true separation to happen. When someone is angry at another, they are preoccupied with them, and thus not fully available emotionally to move on in life. In order to be able to say those sentences and mean them, they must somehow stop being angry. The best cure for overcoming anger is compassion and love. I know, in the case of a bad separation this sounds contradictory, still however it is one of the only true cures.
Acknowledging what was enables us to look at this in the broader context, in a way that allows us to gain more understanding. What I mean by this is, to consider “where did the other person come from, where did their parents come from, what happened in their life that brought them to be the way they are”. Also, to look at “where did I come from, my own childhood, as well as my ancestry”. Furthermore, reflecting on the good that brought the couple together initially can help bring insights and relieve some of the anger.
Something very interesting happens when we take a look at these things. Somehow when we look at the broader context of where we come from and where the other comes from, it enables compassion and love to flow in a way that dissipates the anger, in a way that enables a separating couple to acknowledge the goodness in the relationship as well as their own part in the breakdown of the relationship.
Another example for a way to acknowledge what was, in a way that helps reduce anger, can be to acknowledge the partner for the children they have together. A person can say “thank you for the child we brought into this world, without you I wouldn’t have this beautiful child”. This helps a person feel grateful more than angry; without the partner the child they have would never have existed.
These are just a few points to prompt the mind to think about how acknowledging what was helps us move on and move forward in life. Acknowledging the past can be effectively applied in almost any context in which we feel we cannot move forwards, in our personal life, and even in business and in organizations. “Acknowledging what was” can be even more effective when it goes together with “acknowledging what is”, but that is a topic for another blog post….
