Dr. Orenia Yaffe-Yanai
“Every parting is a form of death…” says Tryon Edwards. We fear departures as we do death. And similarly to death – it is an irrevocable renunciation of a relationship we were once part of. A relationship is a familiar state of mind for us, one we have invested in and where we experience growth, and during which we take in – emotions, accomplishments, pain and joy. We poured into a relationship parts of ourselves and in turn parts of the other or the state of mind have been woven into us. This is true because a relationship can exist between one and another (person) as well as between one and a state of mind (illness, stagnation, failure, etc.). It is curious but not surprising that we are people of relationships and habits. The act of stepping out of habits requires change. People of habits attempt to prevent any meaningful change, that may require not only separation, parting and departure – but also enables making a new connection with a state of mind or another person. This other person is unknown and unfamiliar, and requires building new communication systems that entail new mobilization of energies… Thus, a sick person, or one that experienced failure, upon seeking to depart from these states of mind, must change into a new state of mind – one of “non-illness” or “non-failure” and perhaps even connect with a state of mind of “success.” Such processes require changes in one’s entire being: one’s behavior, attitude towards events, the interpretation of these events and an adoption of a new belief system and a different attitude towards oneself and those surrounding him. These are complex processes. Essentially, one’s attitude towards the process of “Departure”, leting-go, involves- 1. Separation and “leaving” what one is holding on to. 2. Parting – a process requiring remaining in a state of mind of “emptiness” – Nothing from the old we used to “hold in our hands” and nothing new yet. 3. Completing the departure from the old. 4. Choosing – a process of searching and golding onto something new. 5. Building a new relationship that may also be qualitatively different. This process begins at birth and continues to its next dramatic phase in the first year of life. One of the healthy baby’s most significant practice is taking an object in its hand, holding it strongly and… letting go of it. A sufficiently attentive parent will approach the giggling or crying baby and hand the toy back to it, to enable the baby to throw the toy again and again. Much joy and meaningful learning are involved in this process. The baby engages in a so called “training” in departing, letting go of holding something, activities. He also in experiences events by coming back to them, in one variation or another, through the experience of holding new things… At first, the baby does not distinguish between itself and its mother/caretaker. They are one. The task of distinguishing himself from the other, as separate (but yet connected and present to one another!!), is still ahead of him. Gradually, the departure process unfolds: I am separate from you; I am different than you; I am left without you. The transition from a symbiotic phase in which” me” and “the other” are one and the same, to a phase in which “I am me and you are you”, is indeed a state of mind of separation involving departure and parting. It requires a higher level of self and being, which is separate and can potentially raise emotions of isolation and solitude, alongside sensations of independence and uniqueness. Departures are an essential part of growth. Every new stage requires departure from an one. Yet, the new stage incorporates within it both the previous and the next phases. Even when a relationship is over, it is not gone. It changes the emotional context in which the person lets go of it. It becomes a part of one’s reservoir of past experiences, making room for new live experiences. People, who find these processes difficult, or “get stuck” in them, have hard time growing, and developing. These are processes that can be learned, but they require attention, sensitivity and personal responsibility towards oneself. I often meet people who suffer, either physically (Migraines, anxiety attacks, etc.) or emotionally (people who perceiv themselves as chronic failure, “curse,” black sheep and etc.). They seem to refuse to “depart” from the state of mind of pain or harsh emotional experience. One of the most effective tasks with which I can help them is to offer them to write a farewell letter to the “Cause of stagnation”. This writing task is difficult, yet has the potential of being a liberating factor. A client of mine wept for many hours when she made a decision “to let-go” of a symptom of highly accelerated heartbeats she had for many years, after medical-electrical intervention was unsuccessful. “How am I going to live without the fear that something is wrong with me…? It’s a part of me… the many years of accelerated heartbeats are what connects me to myself… what will connect me to the core of my existence, to my most powerful emotion if I let go of this invigorating and powerful fear?” A Gradual discovery of alternative ways to access her own emotional world, enabled her to complete the process of parting, to thank for the service that had been provided by the accelerated heartbeats and to learn to emotionally express herself in other ways. Departing from a relationship with another person can be difficult as well. Weather it is had been a perceived good, fruitful and satisfying emotional bond, or bad and blocking bond, the end is painful. The “emptiness” is freighting, being alone, without the familiar “other” is frightening. If one lacks the skills of separation, parting and departur, it is extremely difficult to build an independent and authentic “self” which is not “False” (in Winnicott’s terms). As long as one does not separate from the “significant other” – whether a person, a blocking/excessive relationship or a state of mind or one that is functionally over, the stagnation experience will linger, affecting both the emotional and the self actualization experiences, and hence, in one’s doing. When one faces challenges in the realm of achievements, actualization, and emotional authenticity in the “here and now”, one is obliged to practice the processes of parting, separating and departure. Only in this way can one grow and accomplish. Practice: 1. Think of a state of mind/person with whom a relationship has ended or you wish to end. 2. Examine your relationship with him/her/it. 3. Describe the Level of “connectedness” or level of “inseparability/seprability” 4. Make sure you want to depart from him/her/it and to be in a different state of mind/relationship. 5. If the answer is “yes” – choose one of the following actions: • Write him/her/it a farewell letter • Write and describe to yourself about the essence of your “connectedness.” • And what will happen if/when you depart and there will be a distinction (separation) between the two of you. • Describe to yourself, write or draw yourself without this connection: i.e. distinguish between “I am the most successful child” and “I am who I am.” How does the difference feel? What does it require… what is the difference between the old and the new to which I connect? How does this feel?
