As the old adage goes, "Growing old is mandatory but growing up is conditional."
Gaining wisdom as a person is not a given.
In the realm of relationships, no one ever wanted to experience a heartbreak but learning to recover from one is an essential step to growing up.
Here are five times letting go of "the chase" is an integral part of growing up.
Accepting a Heartbreak
Denial during a heartbreak is one of the silent killers in growth. The initial feelings of pain and betrayal may make it tough to accept the heartbreak.
Like moving a rock from its state of rest, accepting the fact that a relationship has reached its end needs you to cross the initial hump, which is daunting for many.
Taking this crucial first step of acceptance is key to learn from the relationship. Accepting that this phase of your life has concluded also gives you courage to face your world again after a breakup.
Resolving to Stop Being Controlled By Your Failed Relationship
After accepting the lost relationship, your next challenge is to develop your resilience in the absence of your ex-lover.
Decisions in your daily life may still be influenced by your attachment to the loss. Attempts to recreate the experience, to rekindle the interactions, to re-immerse in the warmth of the love would perhaps be your biggest Achilles's heel.
This period of loss is like withdrawal symptoms experienced when trying to quit from drugs. The chronic agony is difficult but is a rite of passage if you want to grow up and mature.
The struggle will garner the strength within you that you perhaps never knew you had and give you a deeper appreciation toward love.
Moving On
Once you have cleanse yourself of any lingering negativity from the failed relationship, you should start taking baby steps to open up your social circle again.
By letting go of the familiar thoughts, feelings, actions and habits associated with your failed relationship, you allow a closure to that phase of your life.
Letting go of any morsel of hope of salvaging the lost love actually liberates you, enabling you to grow from the experience and move on to the possibilities of the future.
Have A Wider and Deeper Appreciation in Your Future Relationship
The fringe benefits of experiencing a failed relationship is that you learn to have better perspectives in situations and interactions.
If you are willing to let go of "the chase," you begin to realize the little nuances, tendencies and triggers that caused your conflicts in your failed relationship.
Pick yourself up where you have fallen. Learn from your mistakes.
You can learn from them. You can grow wiser. You can rehearse what you can do differently in such instances to preserve your future relationship.
Each setback and failure does not go to waste if you can learn from it.
Stop Finding the Perfect Person and Start Loving that Person You Found
Once you have stopped chasing the hope of a lost relationship, you will learn how to better cherish whoever you meet at any point in time.
What's the use of finding the perfect partner if you have not learnt how to make good your time with your lover?
Rather than being obsessed with finding the perfect lover, why not learn to make yourself easier to love and be better at loving others? Because whilst you are looking for love, others will also be looking for their love too.
So if you learn to be a better lover yourself, lovely people will be more likely to gravitate toward you and increase your chances for an ideal fit.
