Necessary endings.
In a world that shouts with RA-RA music blaring, “Never give up!” It takes a lot of courage to end things. So we continue to beat the proverbial dead horse and continue to pour our most
valuable resources into deep hungry holes in the insanity cycle. You know, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.
My most dominant theme in CliftonStrengths is Positivity, which for me plays out in being the Hope bearer or the champion of hope. I have the gift of finding the silver lining no matter how dismal the situation, so learning to not only recognise but initiate endings isn’t an easy thing for me. And that is because in order to bring a necessary ending you have to lose hope in something.
It may be an expectation.
If misery lays in the gap between expectation and reality, then change can only come when we are courageous enough to give up hope in either the expectation or the reality we want. We need to create the change or adjust either the expectation or the reality.
It may be an unhealthy relationship.
Dr Henry Cloud talks about four corners of connection in his book, The power of the other. 1. No connection (Isolation), 2. Bad connection, 3. Fake connection, 4. Real connection. Life is too short to be in anything else but real connection. This is where you belong rather than fitting in and where people love you for who you truly are, who are not scared and are welcome to speak into your life and they do it with honour and truth.
It may be processes.
Just because we have always done it this way, doesn’t mean it still works even if it did before. Necessary endings are like pruning. We prune when things have grown out of hand, it has become diseased or it’s dead. Pruning isn’t the end, it actually creates life and allows the right resources to get used in the right places. It’s healthy!
So? Where do you need a necessary ending? And what are you going to do about it?
