Podcast: Closing a Chapter
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.
Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.
But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it maybe!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the ideal moment. Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person. Nothing is irreplaceable. A habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.
[Text: Closing Cycles, by Paulo Coelho]
Listen to the podcast: (8.5 mins)
Download this episode (right click and save)
Possibly Related Entries:
- Letting Go May Be The Best Option
- Know What You Want
- The Querida
- Falling in Love with A Straight Guy
October 20th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Migs,
Noble a sharing of your sentiments on love loss, tis love that you and those of us are lucky to still able to feel thus. “The heart that breaks is reborn”. So, may you continue to know always that you’re born of, born to and born for love, Migs.
A fan from Vancouver, Canada and in friendship,
Jef
October 20th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
hi migs, i don’t know you (well, you don’t know me too hehe!), but i perfectly understand your story in a been-there-felt-the-crunch kind of way. i salute you for choosing to move on, it’s most definitely not easy to do after a heartbreak, but in retrospect you’d almost always surely say it was the way to go. coelho is a personal favorite and it’s exactly what i would have shared to you if you hadn’t already known about it. may you find the one guy you truly deserve to have and who deserves to have you. be happy migs, you should meet me hahaha!
cheers, man!
“I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
–Alfred Tennyson
October 20th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Migs i will pray that your perfect match will come soon and to the rest of us longing for a lasting relationship. Just keep praying and believing that everything is possible in this world. Take care.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
magandang resort sa mga moments of emotional downpour is to read!
that’s pretty good, migs.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
hi migs, i got two beautiful CDs of Patrizio Buanne, the italian and forever begins tonight. it’s good for the heart!
October 20th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
my personal favorite is his italian version of robbie williams angels, un angelo. very nice.
san ang punta mo migs? mag caribbean cruise ka na lang! hahaha
October 20th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
hey i know you’ll be ok :). take this time off to relax, but don’t be gone for too long or we (esp. me) will miss you oh so terribly. i know for sure that this will open up a better future for you. some things do happen for a reason.
across the miles,
tim.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
hahaha grabe talaga ang mga legions of fans mo migs!
October 20th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
i just read your post and am now downloading your podcast. it reads and feels like lois lane’s pultizer winning editorial in superman returns, “why the world doesnt need superman.”
as I told you kanina on the phone,
dont throw everything away—you risk missing out the lessons you need to learn.
he pushed a technicality—that you were not formal—but after a profession of feelings—that technicality seemed evolved into a deception. people who hide behind technicalities instead of addresing the substantial issues are usually people who cannot be trusted.
i say keep some of the memoriabilia—burn them onto a cd or put them in a box somewhere—one day youd wanna look at them again—or you may need to look at them again to learn very important lessons that will prevent history from repeating itself. take care and have a safe trip. mwah!
October 20th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
i know you’d get through this on our own. you are way much better and smarter to do this. i’d just like to let you know you have many friends here, who listen and emphatize. letting go is one thing i am never good at. i just hope you didn’t loose both, or even the friendship to both. you’ll get through. this too shall pass.
October 20th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
one more thing. we love you migs!
October 20th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
I think im falling in love with migs!
October 21st, 2007 at 12:37 am
MIGS, I’m a very superstitious guy, and I could see meanings by numbers. This podcast ended at 8.29 a significant one for me coz its the date of my birthday. What I am trying to say is this: WE ARE FATE! Whatever we want to be and wish to become, is already pre-determined by the Omniscient Being. Although the course of our lives meander tru trials and tribulations, rest assured that in the end, the same Omniscient Being would carry and bring us all into ob’s manifold and purpose. It’s only up to us therefore to experience and learn the gifts we were given. For these, I CAN ONLY PRAY!
JIMG29
October 21st, 2007 at 2:00 am
Beautifully written piece, Migs. Have a good trip and all the best to you.
October 21st, 2007 at 1:13 pm
“A habit is not a need.”
Striking. Very striking. I share the sentiments.
October 21st, 2007 at 5:08 pm
migs.. available pa ba ang yung tungkol sa theater with floy q.? message me sana…im intrested sorry kung late..
October 21st, 2007 at 7:27 pm
It’s always a blessing!
October 21st, 2007 at 8:43 pm
I feel your pain. VERY NICE AUDIO QUALITY for the music.
October 21st, 2007 at 11:22 pm
the past is no longer an option . . .
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:13 am
migz, i also feel the same. i want to move on, but i don’t know what really happened.
I have a boyfriend (virtual actually) and I promise I really love him. Everytime we talk at the net, i really feel complete. but now, it’s been a month and he haven’t contacted me yet. The last email i received from him was distressing. I don’t know whether he’s still alive actually. It’s as if he’s very existence was cut off. But above all else I promised to wait. In a year or so. If he haven’t made a contact for a year, then I consider myself free. It’s a year of misery, I know. But worse is, what if I moved on without knowing everything? It’s a dilemma actually. Anyway, migz, I pray that you’ll be okay. Every gay has his knight waiting for him. It’s up to us to have faith.
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Stop looking at his pictures then! >:P
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:32 pm
i felt ur pain migs…sometimes we have to endure pain of loving sumone. maybe thats the certain results once he/she left in the middle of a relationship.
“Love is not blind,it sees more.But because it sees more,it allows to see less.”
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:42 pm
ay i love paolo coehlo. kaya lang lately kakaiba mga books niya. medyo may fixation ata siya sa female face of god hehehe