True Closure or Fairy Tale Closure
True Closure Or Fairy Tale Closure
True closure happens to all of us almost every day. Our life depends on how we use it. When it works, we may not see it as closure. When it does not work, there are those who do not believe it exists. They call closure a "fairy tale". Fairy tale closure is made up by those who misunderstand what it is and how to find it. Closure depends on one's definition of it. The definition of closure is being able to be at Peace when thinking about a difficult or traumatic event. Closure does not depend on what happens to us. It depends on how, not what, we think. There are three levels of closure.
Level One is to change the event to change the feeling about the event. When we feel offended about what someone does or something that happens to us, to find closure we must change what happened to feel peaceful rather than upset.
If we cannot change the event to feel good about it, we will always be a victim of it.
Level Two is to change the thought to change the feeling about the event. Our thoughts create our feelings of being offended about what was done. When we find a thought that can create a good feeling about what happened, we find closure. If not, for us closure does not exist.
Level Three is change the feeling to change the thought about the event. Our conscious feeling of Peace changes how we think and respond in, not about, the situation. We receive a Wisdom we cannot know when we are feeling pain or anger about the situation. The feeling of Peace brings us Wisdom and closure.
When starting this understanding, one must go through all three stages. We must realize in Level Two, our thoughts create our feelings of pain. Unless we know where our feelings come from, we will be driven back to Level One thinking the event, not the thought, creates our pain.
THE THREE CLOSURE LEVEL SOLUTIONS
It is not what we were thinking
It is how we are thinking
Break Up and Divorce
ASK THE REV: I am going through a painful break up and divorce. We have been doing nothing but fighting for the past ten years. She has constantly cheated on me. We have been through counseling several times. The last time she cheated on me was all I could take. I'm doing all the right things. Reading breakup books and living my life. I still feel angry and hurt. She blames me for the divorce when it was her cheating that did it. How do I find closure so I can move on?
Neither of you seem to have had much in common other than fighting. You are hurt and angry about what she has done. You try to find closure by blaming her for your anger and pain. Trying to change the marriage by divorcing did not bring the closure you expected. You both are still playing the blame and shame relationship game. You both will see yourselves as victims.
If you cannot change the circumstances to find closure you need to realize your pain and anger comes from how you are thinking about your past relationship. Find a positive thought to replace your negative blame and shame thinking. If you do this you will find closure. You have tried to change how you think through therapy, reading books and living your new life. Doing these things have not worked to change how you think and to closure.
What you are thinking about the details of what she did is not your issue. How you are thinking is. Trying to change the relationship or your thoughts about it did not bring closure. The thoughts of anger and pain were too strong to change. You cannot change how you think to change what you feel.
You can change how you feel to change what you think. We change how we think by consciously becoming aware of our inner Peace. We discover we can feel Peace in rather than about what has happened. The difference between being in or out of this Presence will lead us to the Wisdom to find the closure we seek.