Walking away from a relationship:
Whether it’s in business, intimate relations, family or friends, ending relationships are usually pretty tough to do. What I’ve found works best is not violating two principles:
Don’t lie
Don’t harm
And, of course, our natural reactions are the exact opposite:
When we’re fearful we make up lies to try and ‘let’ them down easy
When we’re angry we do harm by making them feel it’s their fault
It’s no mystery why we behave the way we do when we look back at our ancestry. In the old days, anger and fear kept us alive. We still carry those responses inside us big time, so when tough situations happen, and walking away from a relationship can be very tough, we revert back to our fight and flee instincts.
When I started to try something different; not lying or doing harm, I started to see many different results. Over time I started to see this new strategy was far superior to my anger and fear. Now, when I need to separate from someone it’s not nearly as painful because I’m showing respect to the person I’m leaving and doing all I can to make it as peaceful as possible. This allows me to not be afraid of moving on and knowing no matter how the other persons feel about my actions, I’ve done the best I could
Note: Not lying in the context I’m referring to is to only share whatever truth I can that won’t belittle the other person. This sometimes is the hardest part but it makes me think through why I have to leave and word it in a way that makes it about me, not them.