Why Is It Hard To Let Go?

 

On the surface, it can appear as though the struggle or difficulty is moving on or letting go but there’s more to it than that. It’s not about time or how long it’s been, it’s about the beliefs that our emotions are tied to. In other words, out soul isn’t tied to them, you’re not bonded to them — trauma bond, you’re bonded to beliefs that cause or contribute to feelings that make it difficult to rightly divide the truth. This is not to mean that there’s something wrong with you or that you’re weak, it’s about the truth. Emotions respond to beliefs, beliefs trigger feelings and feelings influence our thoughts.

 

Every relationship that ends, had a beginning. Almost every love story begins with a belief that the person is our person, the right person, the person that we will spend the rest of our life with. We invest in that story with love, time and emotional commitment — sometimes, for years. We can’t ignore this truth because it is a part of the story, the history with that person. There may be children involved in your story, which creates a different hope, expectation and commitment. We don’t intentionally or knowingly invest in a losing cause or a relationship that has no hope of happily ever after, and we have to keep that in perspective when we are trying to navigate emotions that linger or are difficult to evolve after a relationship ends.

 

There’s another side to this as well. Relationships represent not only what we hoped, imagined or dreamed the future would be, relationships also represent our internal truth. Our internal truth is what we bring to the relationship table. This is often viewed as a negative or as implying something negative but what I mean by “What we bring to the relationship table” is, our emotional truth, our history, our beliefs and our influences. We all bring something to the relationship table that represents our predisposition — emotionally, spiritually and physically. That doesn’t mean having a predisposition is bad, it means that predispositions can and do play a factor in our relationships. Our style of relating or the way we relate to and in intimate relationships is our truth. On a deeper level, our style of relating can stem from false beliefs, contaminated teachers, toxic religious influence, developmental trauma, or even an underdeveloped “I Am” or identity. Let me take a minute to explain identity:

 

By identity I mean who we are apart from the relationship. In other words, a relationship doesn’t define who we are, a relationship is where we go to share who we are. Who we are is independent of a given relationship, a role, or status in life. Who we are is our “I Am” statement, which doesn’t change based on whether or not we are in a relationship. Your role of mate or parent is not the definition of your “I Am” or your identity. How you approach your roles in life is a reflection of your “I Am” not the definition. When roles define us, we are no longer the truth, our truth, and a role can take on an entirely different meaning than who God created us to be (John 15:5, 2 Samuel 7:18-21). When roles in life define us, we can, unconsciously, idolize the role — at the expense of our identity. When and if this happens, our world, our entire being is subject to our roles rather than our “I Am”.

 

Who we are apart from roles matters. Not that our “I Am” or our identity makes us incapable of being healthily attached to our roles or incapable of being emotionally invested in relationships, but rather it gives us perspective. It gives us emotional balance and the stability we need for life and in relationships. When a relationship ends or more specifically, when an unhealthy relationship runs its course, we’re left with two things: our truth and our identity. To the degree that our truth and our identity are dependent on our role, the loss of a relationship can make it exceptionally challenging to trust the future, hope in God’s plans for us and imagine life without that person or relationship.

 

It should be said that not all endings are voluntary, some are the result of betrayal, abandonment, abuse or infidelity — or all of the above. An unexpected, abrupt ending to a relationship has the effect of temporarily causing emotions to be homeless. In other words, the relationship didn’t end because you didn’t love them, the relationship ended because of relationship ending behavior. In this scenario, it’s like driving along at 60MPH and suddenly running into a brick wall. The car will stop but the body will continue moving forward. Likewise, when a relationship abruptly, unexpectedly or tragically ends, love keeps moving forward. Your love didn’t stop, the relationship stopped. This is can and does cause a very difficult emotional transition. This can also lead to cognitive dissonance — cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when something causes a person to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. 

 

Cognitive dissonance is often confused with trauma bonding or soul tie. And yes, these too can play a factor in letting go but they are different. Trauma bonding is not our bond with them, trauma bonding is a bond with pain or hurt within ourselves — that false beliefs associate the relief of that pain with being with them or in relationship with them.

 

Trauma bonding is not simply an emotional condition, it’s physiological as well. The two main chemicals that have a huge part to play in trauma bonding are oxytocin and dopamine — the body’s ‘happy chemicals’. Oxytocin, the love hormone, helps us feel connected to someone regardless of how they treat us. Connection is a survival instinct. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and is the body’s transmitter of motivation and reward.

 

Dopamine plays a part in how we experience pleasure and influences how we experience reward and motivation. When dopamine is released, it motivates us to repeat behaviors – it tells us that what we have just experienced is something worth repeating. We want more. The behavior is reinforced/helped by  dopamine, so we go back again and again. In an abusive relationship, an abuser will use intermittent reinforcement — in the context of psychological abuse, a pattern of withdrawing affection and only deliver kindness, love, warmth, and sex in a random, sporadic way. This powerful technique is known as intermittent reinforcement. When affection is withdrawn the body’s fight or flight response kicks into high gear and the victim will experience spikes in the stress hormone called cortisol. The spike in cortisol can trick the brain into desiring to repair the relationship and find the intensity and deep connection of the original love bombing stage — which is helped by dopamine. 

 

Trauma bonding and unhealthy soul ties are the result of a trauma response — internal, not love. If this is you, remember to be patient and compassionate with yourself. Your mind, body and spirit will need to take steps to heal. Recovery from this type of emotional abuse is a process that includes reclaiming your identity, confronting the lies and educating yourself, as well as understanding the mind, body and spirit connection to your growth and restoration: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

 

Whether a relationship ends abruptly or consequentially, there is a part of you that loved that person. There is a part of you that may always love parts of the person or the relationship. But your challenge when an unhealthy or impossible relationship ends is to awaken yourself to the truth — about them, roles and your identity. This doesn’t make moving past a relationship easy, it makes it possible to reposition yourself to heal forward. Renumerating, replaying or reliving the past is less about them and more about what you focus your sights on. A relationship doesn’t end because it was all bad, a relationship ends because it was not and could not be good for your future, your identity and God’s plans for you. Belief in who you are and must always be — independent of a relationship or a role, independent of what you hoped or wanted to be true, is critical to evolving your life and emotions beyond the past or despite the past.

Rewarding yourself for your efforts to move forward is also important. Being honest and intentional about your reason and purpose for healing forward is vital to your progress, recovery and post-traumatic growth. Sometimes, we have to shatter the lies to move forward, which can include false religion or religious falsehoods that make you feel ashamed or unloved by God, as well as unhealthy beliefs that may come from nurturing, teaching or experiences. You can’t answer, “Why they did what they did,” except to say, free will of choice, not you, is the reason that people do anything. When their free will of choice is motivated by evil desires (James 1:13-15), they are just as capable of betraying you as Judas was of betraying Jesus. Judas didn’t betray Jesus because Jesus didn’t love Judas enough, Judas betrayed Jesus because Judas chose to be loyal to his evil desire over being loyal to Jesus — because that’s who he was (John 12:1-6). That’s the only thing worth knowing about anyone who betrays someone — it’s not what you did or didn’t do, it’s who they are. It wasn’t a disorder, it wasn’t because you didn’t love them enough, it wasn’t because you didn’t see the red flags, it was because they chose loyalty to their evil desires over loyalty to you. God tells us what this behavior looks like and what to do when we are victims of it (2 Timothy 3:1-5), regardless of who the individual is, including a spouse.

Love doesn’t cause a relationship to end, behavior does. Love cannot make someone be someone they don’t desire to be or make someone do what they don’t want to do. When behavior abandons the marriage covenant (Ephesians 5:21-33), God’s word defines that as desertion. Desertion is also biblical grounds for divorce (1 Corinthians7:15), despite the false representation by many that adultery is the only biblical grounds for divorce. Divorce based on biblical grounds is, in the bible, confirmed by a letter of divorce. The biblical letter of divorce is the equivalent of a divorce decree. When a marriage is terminated based on biblical grounds, the biblical letter of divorce, or divorce decree, gives the explicit right to remarry. For anyone struggling to move past a relationship based on false biblical teaching about divorce and remarriage, please understand that any teaching that denies this truth is false. The correct translation of “God hates divorce” is not referring to the result but the cause (Malachi 2:10-16, NIV). The cause is always disobedience by a spouse which is what the scripture, “God hates divorce,” is specifically addressing — religious men who were throwing away their wives to have affairs, and without giving the wife a letter of divorce — causing her to suffer for life. The correct translation and rebuke of this behavior is: “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty” (Malachi 2:16, NIV). For a more in-depth reading about biblical grounds for divorce, Click Here to read my short eBook, “When The Vow Breaks.”

Whether you are just starting out or you’ve been on your healing journey for some time, always feed your soul with truth to support for your healing journey. One of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves, our destiny, is support along our healing journey. Find supportive people, people who support your soul’s prosperity and your future potential. Coaching, counseling  or groups can be extremely helpful for your journey — no matter where you are in your healing journey or how long its been. If you’re just starting out, need strength to keep going or would like to equip yourself to help others to heal forward, join me in the Lifting The Burden Masterclass. This transformational, faith-based and trauma-informed experience will position you to heal forward with hope and expectancy. To learn more about this online, self-paced and life-changing masterclass, Click Here or the button below.