Working Through Anger Stops Obsession

The process of letting go of a relationship can be challenging, especially if you are obsessing about "why" and thinking about the good aspects of the relationship. These are normal things that happen when a relationship ends. Even if you are the one who has initiated the breakup, the obsession about letting it go can make for a difficult time.

If you have been together for a number of years there are many good and bad memories that need to be processed. Just co-mingling on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level in a partnership brings a closeness that takes time to unravel and undo. That is why we are warned about rebounding and getting immediately into another relationship.

If you rebound, you do not give yourself a chance to go through the grieving process. This doesn't let you deal with the feelings from the previous relationship and therefore they accumulate and come up the next time a relationship ends. And, it is more likely that relationships do end if this emotional processing is avoided.

Many people can't stand the pain of looking at and feeling the loss of a relationship. This can become a life pattern that follows you from relationship to relationship. This is known as serial relationships, because by going from one immediately into the next, the feelings remain unconsciously buried and come out at inappropriate times and in surprising and often not so pleasant ways.

The relationship I recently got out of was my choice. It was not mutual, but, my ex got into another relationship before I moved my things out. Needless to say, I doubt that she has looked back. Unlike her, I have been dealing with my feelings as they have come up and have embraced the grieving process one hundred per cent.

Obsession was my biggest struggle. I kept thinking about her throughout every day and I could not stop it. It was a combination of remembering good times, bad times, events that made a lasting impression, emotional supports and lacks, sleeping together for all those years, intimacy, and other memories too numerous to mention.

One day I woke up with the realization that I needed to cut emotional cords with her. I imagined a huge pair of scissors cutting the emotional cord that was attached between her and mine bellys. It took a lot of effort and for a while I didn't feel anything. I continued to cut it everyday until it was gone. This helped the obsession some.

Then I decided that I would write about the obsession. I let myself write about anything that was in my mind. I found out many things I hadn't been aware of in this process. I did this for about a week. Then the strangest thing happened. The obsessive thoughts began to turn into angry thoughts. The writing turned from writing about obsession into writing about my anger.

Writing about my anger took me more than a week because I had a lot to say. Then, one day, I noticed that my writing had shifted and I was no longer obsessing or angry. I still have thoughts once in a while, which I think is totally normal, but now I have the power and strength to let myself think about something else. I have chosen, when I think about the old relationship, to think about my sister. My sister is and has always been a steady, supportive, "I've got your back" relationship and is very positive for me to think about.

So, I have learned some very valuable lessons about dealing with feelings when a relationship ends. Underneath the anxiety and obsession is anger. I got to mine through working with the process and I am grateful that I was willing to go through the feelings rather than pushing them under the carpet so that they come out some other time.

Relationship Ends

When a relationship ends, the grieving process happens no matter what the circumstances of the breakup are. The feelings of loss are present regardless of how the relationship ended. Endings and change bring loss and loss brings grief.

Some of us are extremely uncomfortable with these feelings. Everyone has moments when they don't want to deal with them. It is important to let ourselves experience all the feelings that come up or they will more than likely accumulate and cling onto other feelings of loss that we've had in the past that still linger in our psyches.

One of the main feelings of loss of a relationship is hurt. So many of us have had our feelings hurt as children and as adults. Sometimes it is difficult to know where the hurt is coming from. Is it the past or does it have to do with the current situation? Hurt is a normal feeling of loss that the heart experiences when change happens.

When we are in a relationship, no matter what the quality of that relationship is, our hearts open up to the other person. Intimacy, trust, and love all make us vulnerable to ourselves and the other person. When that person is no longer there, we are left feeling even more vulnerable.

If the feelings are not felt, they can turn into anger. This kind of anger is a protection from all the vulnerability that we don't know how to deal with. This can lead to all kinds of projection on the other person. One of the symptoms of protective anger is blame. Another is changing the past to reflect only negative things. Another is to hang onto little annoyances and make them big. All of these activities of the mind help protect us from feeling loss.

Another common way to avoid feelings of grief is to get immediately involved in another relationship. In this scenario, we don't have to feel the uncomfortable feelings because we are attaching to someone else. Falling in love is a lot more exciting than healing from the relationship we have just disassembled.

Feeling loss can bring with it the experience of helplessness and of being alone and not in control. It can make us feel little, like a child. It is important when these feelings come up to remember the choices we have made or that we have now. This will remind us of our strength.

We can feel all the feelings and still stay empowered in the present. This requires us to steadily allow and monitor all the feelings that come up for us. Sometimes the mind will try to distort the hurt feelings of grief to cover up the feelings of sadness. It is important the not let our minds run the show.

Ending a relationship is difficult no matter whether you are the one who left or the one who was left. It is difficult to understand the meaning of why it happened until much later. Initially though, we can expect grief. How we deal with it is what matters.