Love Matters: 3 Ways to let go of someone when you are hurt and move on

Letting go and moving on from a relationship is often fraught with uncertainty. Even if your relationship had ended or if one or both of you were extremely unhappy, there was still a sense of certainty that was reassuring. Learning how to let go of someone you love – someone with whom you've shared your life – is likely to be one of the most difficult things you'll ever have to do. That is why so many people break up but never really figure out how to move on. 

Here we suggest 3 ways to let go of someone who has hurt you in your past and move on.

1. Express your pain and understand your responsibility

Express the pain that the hurt caused you to feel, whether directly to the other person or simply by getting it out of your system like venting to a friend, or writing in a journal. Get everything out of your system at once. This will also assist you in determining the source of your pain. While you may not have had the same level of responsibility for the pain you endured, there may have been a small portion of the pain for which you are also partially responsible. Try to figure out how you could have contributed to what happened.

2. Make emotions work for you

When a relationship ends, it's normal to feel a great deal of rage and frustration, especially if you weren't the one who decided to call it quits. Perhaps you felt justified at first, as if your rage was assisting you in moving forward. However, after a while, you realize that it's unhealthy for you, and you're not sure how to let go of someone you love and move on with your life. If you're looking for advice on how to proceed, you're already on the right track. The good news is that while learning to let go, you can also learn to control your emotions.  

3. Forgive them- and yourself

We may not have to forgive someone else's bad behavior, but almost everyone deserves our forgiveness. We can get so caught up in our pain and stubbornness that we can't even imagine forgiveness. But forgiveness does not imply "I agree with what you did." Instead, it says, "I don't agree with what you did, but I forgive you." Forgiveness is not a sign of immaturity. Instead, it simply states, "I am a good person." You're a decent person. You did something that caused me pain. But I want to move on with my life and reintroduce joy into it. I won't be able to do that until I let this go."

The key to letting go of someone you care about is confronting what has occurred, accepting that you cannot change it, and then moving on. Better opportunities will present themselves once you've been able to move on and appreciate the growth that came from the relationship.

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