Finding Closure: A Path to Personal Growth

Understanding Closure

Closure, often misunderstood as a definitive ending, is more accurately described as a psychological process of acceptance and resolution. It's about letting go of the past, processing emotions, and moving forward. When we achieve closure, we free ourselves from the emotional baggage that can hinder our personal growth.

Why Closure Matters

• Emotional Freedom: Unresolved issues can lead to chronic stress, anxiety, and depression.

• Enhanced Relationships: Closure can improve your ability to form healthy, fulfilling relationships.

• Personal Growth: By letting go of the past, you can focus on your future goals and aspirations.

  
  

Steps to Finding Closure

1. Acknowledge Your Feelings:

   • Identify Your Emotions: Pinpoint the specific emotions you're experiencing, such as sadness, anger, or confusion.

   • Validate Your Feelings: Accept your emotions without judgment. It's okay to feel what you feel.

2. Process Your Emotions:

   • Journaling: Write about your thoughts and feelings to gain clarity.

   • Talk to Someone: Share your experiences with a trusted friend, family member, or therapist.

   • Practice Mindfulness: Techniques like meditation and deep breathing can help you stay present and calm.

3. Let Go of Control:

   • Accept What You Cannot Change: Understand that you can't control the past or other people's actions.

   • Focus on the Present: Shift your attention to the present moment and what you can control.

4. Practice Forgiveness:

   • Forgive Yourself: Let go of self-blame and self-criticism.

   • Forgive Others: Releasing resentment can be incredibly liberating.

5. Set Boundaries:

   • Limit Contact: If necessary, reduce or eliminate contact with people who are toxic or harmful.

   • Establish Healthy Boundaries: Set clear boundaries in your relationships to protect your emotional well-being.

6. Seek Professional Help:

   • Therapy: A therapist can provide guidance and support as you work through your emotions.

   • Counseling: Counseling can help you develop coping strategies and improve your mental health.

     
     

Remember, finding closure is a journey, not a destination. It may take time and effort, but the rewards are significant. By taking these steps, you can achieve emotional freedom, improve your relationships, and unlock your full potential.

Diving Deeper: Forgiveness and Boundaries for Closure

Forgiveness: Letting Go of the Past

Forgiveness is a powerful tool for achieving closure. It doesn't mean condoning the hurtful behavior of others, but rather releasing the negative emotions associated with it. Here's how to practice forgiveness:

1. Understand the Benefits: Forgiveness can reduce stress, improve relationships, and boost overall well-being.

2. Choose Forgiveness: Actively decide to forgive, even if it's difficult.

3. Practice Empathy: Try to understand the other person's perspective, even if you don't agree with their actions.

4. Let Go of Resentment: Release the negative emotions that hold you back.

5. Practice Gratitude: Focus on the positive aspects of your life.

   
   

Setting Boundaries: Protecting Your Peace

Setting boundaries is essential for maintaining your emotional well-being and achieving closure. It involves communicating your needs and limits clearly and assertively. Here are some tips for setting effective boundaries:

1. Identify Your Needs: Understand what you need and what you're willing to tolerate.

2. Communicate Clearly: Express your needs and boundaries directly and assertively.

3. Enforce Your Boundaries: Be consistent in upholding your boundaries.

4. Practice Self-Care: Prioritize your own needs and well-being.

5. Learn to Say No: Don't feel obligated to agree to everything.

   
   

Remember: Finding closure is a personal journey. It's okay to seek professional help if you need it. By practicing forgiveness and setting boundaries, you can move forward and live a happier, more fulfilling life.

Ebonnie's Story: A Personal Journey of Closure

Further below I share her powerful story of how I found closure after years of struggling with unresolved issues from my past. By digging into my family history, confronting difficult emotions, and practicing forgiveness, I was able to achieve a sense of peace and acceptance. I hope my story serves as an inspiration for anyone seeking closure in their own lives.

I like to watch videos on self-improvement and this new one popped into my suggested playlist. If you’re interested in a power-packed video on Becoming Unstoppable, check out

[Become Unstoppable (20 mins)]

Now let’s talk. I’m about to get really personal here. There were so many self-development nuggets to digest in the video, but the biggest one to hit me was closure. Like many people, I've struggled my whole life with closure over different parts of my life. It's one reason, out of many, that I've been diving into my family history as part of my self-discovery journey. For me, it's simply a part of self-development. Though my most recent car accident literally flipped my world multiple times, becoming disabled enabled me to concentrate on healing on the things I could control, like personal development. Within personal development, the subject of letting go seemed to keep popping up in my life, and with that, a search for closure began. I had many doors in my past that were still open and I wasn’t ready to let them be just yet. However, what I didn’t know was that life had already set me on the path to confronting them whether I was ready or not.

To heal forward I was going to have to turn to the past and forgive myself for being the person I was during certain parts of my life, the woman who did the best she could in those moments to survive or thought what she was doing was to thrive. I had to learn to forgive the woman who had the best intentions but simply didn’t know how to do things differently. With extending myself grace, I also had to learn to do that for others, for the sake of my own healing. I had to take that power back and learn to forgive them for the decisions they made that affected my life.

Everyone has decisions they feel caretakers made that didn't sit right with them as adults. For whatever reason, they felt it was right at that time of survival in their life. Whether we feel it was right or wrong, it was made beyond our control. But today is within your control. You can create the reality you want to see, with resilience and focus on your goals. I must remind myself of this often, especially during hard times in life or the even harder times of healing.

Have you ever had those periods where there seems to be a war going on inside your life, and as you're healing from one battle, another breaks out? Well, battle after battle calls for deep healing. And that's just what I dived into this summer, with the help of professional therapy, of course. There was no way I was emotionally ready enough to take on all that was coming without gearing up with some extra mental health techniques packed into my toolbox. With that said, what was coming was going to change my life and provide more than just closure; it would provide peace, healing, love, and growth all in one. But with growth comes pain, and that's what I had to dig into first. For me, I had some questions that arose about my own history, and I couldn't get answers without digging into my family history. It was going to take revisiting old wounds, ones that were just covered but not healed.

"Your heart as dis-ease will put disease in the body." - Women of Impact Podcast: Women of Impact with Lisa Bilyeu

This quote connected with me because I’ve learned how physical pain can be connected to the mind and vice versa, but so can healing. I'm at a point in my life where I'm trying to heal through all forms of pain and grow through it. I'm becoming more comfortable with embracing the good and bad parts of life. (Inside Out 2 is a perfect movie to self-reflect on that by the way.) What has helped has been the lessons I’ve learned through digging into myself and my family history. And I was going to need this stronger mindset to take on my next battle.

One day, when I was trying to be more tech-savvy and go through my Facebook, instead of IG, I found a "Message Requests" button lit with lingering curiosity. Just like a red button in a movie scene, I pressed on it, and my entire life blew up before my eyes. I had some spam messages of course, but there were a couple of messages from some family members that I didn't have much of a connection with. One family member was reaching out to get in contact with my grandmother. But the other was a Happy Birthday message from three years prior, reaching out to speak to me. Me?? Woah. Plot twist. It was my biological father. Recently searching for answers to my history, it was mind-boggling that this message was sitting here waiting for me to open it. A voice of my maternal grandma seem to whisper repeated Bible verses in my head of asking and receiving. It's funny how life works out. Sometimes when you knock, you don't realize the potential options hiding behind the door.

I found myself contemplating that this truly might be a message from my father and wondering what steps should I take? While I anticipated having questions, I was not prepared for this. The emotions were quite overwhelming and complex. It was difficult to grasp the reality of it. But through personal development, I had learned that as an adult, I have the autonomy to decide whether I want this individual to be part of my life after our conversation. Regardless, it seems prudent to hear what he has to say. What could possibly go wrong?

So I opened it...

Now I want to walk you through why this was hard for me. At a young age, my parents made the decision to become a blended family. There are many ways to blend a family, but for various reasons my family chose the closed adoption route. My parents thought it was best to then cut all ties with anyone who didn't support this viewpoint and almost anyone from outside the immediate family. This mindset was instilled and sealed within even the language of how we spoke about each other to others, beyond just the usage of the words "sisters or Dad" versus “step-sisters or step-dad”, but also in inferring that we were genetically related. The world seeing a black mom, white dad, and children with different skin complexions, seemed to create an open season for people’s questions and curiosity. We were taught to defend any notion other than the one we so deeply tried to present. Person after person was removed, as they tried to protect the viewpoint they had created. This, mixed with being a military family provided us the perfect set-up for restarting our lives and keeping the metaphorical picture frame intact.

One thing I unknowingly carried to each family move was a broken inner self. What I didn't realize is that I was quietly packing on generational traumas in addition to unnecessary mental weight that I’d have to unpack later in adulthood. That pain helped to fuel my drive to prove myself to my parents who were there, the woman who birthed me, and the man who chose to be my father through adoption. Not feeling wanted, or left and forgotten about, were words that pummeled through my head throughout various life scenarios and with different synonyms. Without knowing, those words ripped into my self-confidence, my feeling of belonging, and my self-worth, leaving secret feelings of inadequacy. Little did I know at the time, they weren’t the truth. Those words formed beliefs that only diving into my self-improvement journey was going to heal. I not only wanted to heal, I needed to heal. I was tired of the pain and negative viewpoints I held onto so deeply inside.

So now you can understand why I had to open the Facebook message. It became the first step to building a relationship that provided not just healthy love and healing between us, but also in relationship with myself. Taking that step to be open to communication allowed me to receive healing and peace beyond my imagination. I also learned how stories change depending on the viewpoint from which they are given, which helped me to forgive the negative version of my biological father I had heard about as well as the version of me that so easily believed it without question. I learned that parenting is a learning experience just like any other, and trust and believe that my parents made the decisions they felt was best at the time. Regardless of the man or woman my parents were before, I'm thankful that I'm getting a chance to form healthy relationships with them today. Within that, gaining closure I also learned how I can set boundaries moving forward so that I can navigate life in a healthier manner. There’s power in being able to decide that for yourself.

People always ask me why I am digging into my family history. While there are many reasons why, getting to know my whole family has given me a sense of belonging and peace that remains unmatched by any other part of my healing and self-development journey. Going through this journey has provided closure to parts of my life left unhealed previously. What was anger and pain, has been replaced with love and strength. I’ve learned that pain is simply a part of the story.

Closure looks different for everybody and different situations. It's not delusional to desire closure. We are practically programmed in society to desire it. But we can take that power back. You can't expect someone in that old narrative to apologize for that version of themselves that doesn't even have the capabilities to see the pain they caused, including that old version of yourself. It's a mindset transformation that’s needed. That person or that past version of you simply can't truly understand. That’s a version of you or them that needs growth. It doesn't make how you were hurt okay. But it does return the power to forgive and receive closure so you can grow forward.

The good and the bad are a part of your story, and it's time to own all of who you are. Pain aids your purpose. So step into it. Grow through it. It's time to evolve into the next best version of yourself. Now that we know better, let's do better. Let's elevate.

"Progress is the key to happiness and the glue that makes it stick." - Women of Impact

Now go live your best life!