Conclusion, resolution, understanding, clarity…

As humans, we crave a circle; we crave a story arc that brings us back to where we began. That is why our brains automatically depict a picture from abstract clouds, fill the spaces in a paint by number, or write mythical stories to explain our birthplace.

So let’s start with compassion for the part of us that craves completeness - the part of us that desires 100% confidence & absolute assurance. Our desire is human. It is survival.

And. From here, consider:

An invented answer provides the same calm for our mind as one of truth. And we can utilize this power to ease unnecessary suffering. Sometimes, the most powerful gift we can give ourself is permission to make believe.

Because we can spend a lifetime questioning if I should have been a doctor, wondering what went wrong in that friendship, considering if it was a mistake to move away from this city…

Our mind can & will replay the story again and again and again, in anticipation for the grand finale - the part where we return home and it all makes sense. Because if the concluding storyline doesn’t show, our brain hits rewind to find the resolve we must have missed; to make sense.

Maybe this torturous cycle depicts an option you cannot let go of - a career you still desire, even after attempted distraction, or a word you must share with another. Pursuing what you at one time dismissed could be your resolution. In which case, do it.

Or maybe your thought circle simply illuminates a desire for any resolve at all. In which case, make it up.

Your resolution exists in decision. Either “go back in time” by pursuing the career you constantly wonder about or the person you wish you’d spoken with a decade ago.

Or. Decide why you will not. Give your circular story the conclusion it craves by creating a reason it didn’t work out or proving your current circumstance to be better. And although you are are well aware that you just made it up - believe in your resolve, whole heartedly. Stop creating suffering where it needn’t be.

Choose to let go of the past. Leave your mental continuum of “if only,” abandon “what could have been” to realize “what can be.”

You have more life to live, beyond the heartbreak or regret or hurt or confusion… Learn from it. Respect it. Permit it. & then release it. Gift yourself the conclusion your mind demands. Decide, and move on.

You are incredible, & there is always more to come.