- When we complete the year with honorable closure, we take into account what we have learned,
- the gifts received, accomplishments made, challenges experienced and gratitude for all the blessings.
- When we have completed any relationship, job, friendship, marriage, adventure, class or any other rite of passage, we are at peace and feel benefited by all that we experienced.
- When we have experienced completion, we feel peaceful and enriched by the experience we chose.
- When we are truly finished, all is forgiven and is seen as a blessing for greater understanding and Love.
What have you experienced in 2011?
What have you learned in 2011?
What goals have you completed?
What challenges have you overcome?
What regrets do your have?
Are you holding onto any unforgiveness?
What do you seek to change or choose again in 2012?
Have you counted your blessings from the year 2011?
With honorable closure, (see below), there is a simple effective process you can do for yourself that will bring completion to whatever you are ending.
Remember whatever is not complete, is simply repeated or carried over in the next experience.
Whenever we continue to hold negative feelings, we set up the next experience or relationship to experience the same, until it is forgiven, healed, understood and brought to honorable closure.
It benefits us to always bring every relationship or experience to a close before moving on.
Take some quiet time:
Complete what you started this year. (Set a timeline for intended finish)
Let go of the projects you do not intend to finish.
Make amends and apologies where you have regrets.
Acknowledge promises you have not kept with yourself and with others.
Change agreements overtly where you have changed your mind.
Forgive conscious and unconscious errors of commission and omission.
Communicate directly verbally or in writing all withholds.
Acknowledge where you are learning and growing.
Create a step by step plan for healing and growth.
Notice all areas where you intend to take better care of yourself and your affairs.
Remember:
· What you leave undone, may be your undoing.
· Where you hold secrets or withholds are areas of vulnerability.
· Unfinished business is a source of guilt and fear.
· When we hold judgments against ourselves (unconscious guilt), we set up unconscious punishment.
The end of the year is a great time to forgive all and choose again.
The New Year is a time to use ritual to clear, complete and finish the year past.
Create your own complete tradition, so that the canvas is clear to begin anew.
Loving you in loving you!
Betty Lue
Honorable Closure
How do you complete a relationship, a marriage, a teaching-learning experience, a job, a friendship? How do you know you are really complete?
Often people walk away without really finishing the spiritual work, because it is easier emotionally. People don’t know how to come to a truly peaceful place, where “good-bye” is really “God be with You.”
When we are complete, we are at peace and in love.
We have no regrets, no resentments, no unhappy memories.
Honorable closure acknowledges:
1) the learning and growth received,
2) challenges and difficulties experienced,
3) appreciation of gifts and blessings,
4) forgiveness and amends made.
Acknowledge within your self and with the other person all that you have learned and how you have grown and benefited from the experience.
Honor and express the challenges and difficulties that occurred and perhaps were endured during the time together.
Offer your gratitude and appreciation to the other for the benefits you received.
Share your forgiveness and/or make amends for those places of unconscious or conscious errors of omission or commission. Often neither party is aware of what went unexpressed until the two have an opportunity to talk together. This is very valuable when done with the conscious intention for a peaceful conclusion.
And lastly, give your full appreciation and blessings to those whom you are leaving.
Honorable closure always includes a face to face or heart to heart connection so that all parties have a full opportunity to express their piece of the whole. Incompletion is never one sided. If one party loses and is in grief neither person is at peace.
Do your part when you part.
When we complete a relationship, job, living situation with honor for all, we are free to choose again without being haunted by the past or unconsciously repeating the same patterns.
To move on, to create anew, to be fully inspired requires honorable closure. Begin now.
Saying good-bye can be done with love, respect and profound gratitude and inner peace.
Betty Lue