How To Let Go Of Someone You Love & Miss Every Day

How To Let Go Of Someone You Love & Miss Every Day

You will never run from anything in your life faster than you’ll run from trying to figure out how to let go of someone you love and miss every day. It goes against your DNA and the very fiber of your being. How can you just let go of your home, your engine, your wheels, your legs… your emotional air supply – HOW? 

Although it’s not easy, we can deal with finding out that we need to get surgery to repair something that is physically broken. But if we’re told that we need to get a limb amputated immediately… that’s obviously a whole different story.

We aren’t wired to emotionally digest having to amputate that which is not only essential to fully functioning on the everyday basis that we’re used to, but that which is a part of our body – be it emotional or physical.

So what do you do when life suddenly gives you a diagnosis of emotional amputation?

Where’s the manual for how to carry on?

HOW do you live with a missing emotional limb? A limb that was essential to getting you back to a home that you’re now locked out of.

Just like that, you inhabit a colorless existence – alone, homeless, scared, cold, and placed on a never-ending treadmill at a speed that your heart hasn’t built up the strength or endurance yet to sprint.

Weeds don’t need anything to grow. They’ll grow through the concrete without a drop of water. Flowers need consistent attention and nourishment.

The day I stopped trying to believe that my weeds would one day, magically turn into orchids, was the day that I had the courage to uproot the weeds. EVEN IF that meant facing my fear of having an empty garden for the time being.

So, with that intention… I’m going to share a little more of my story with you.

Here’s how to let go of someone you love & miss every day…

Ever since I was a child, I longed to have normalcy which now, looking back, I can define as a sanctuary; a place to call home.

I didn’t have any siblings and my parents divorced when I was five years old. The thing about my parent’s divorce is that no matter how amicable it was… in my mind, it marked the loss of any hope for the stability of an intact and “normal” sanctuary/home.

I felt like I had no emotional legs to pave my own path with because, in my mind, Mom and Dad being apart meant that I was defective.

My parents both moved on with their lives, married, and no matter how amazing they were and how many truly incredible grandparents, godparents, and family I had around that supported and loved me, I was emotionally paralyzed. I was homeless and never felt like I had a reliable and consistent sanctuary where my feelings were understood and my heart was at peace.

I was always with a different family member or parent and never wanted my time with them, which was fleeting, to be marred with anything other than my disease to please, “everything’s alright!” persona (which would oftentimes entail lying – to myself and others).

Because I was always around family that was much older than me and I didn’t have siblings at the time, I became a very old soul at a very young age. I observed and felt on a much different level and because of this, I was told by friends, family, teachers, school counselors, and coaches that I was “too sensitive;” that I needed to “toughen up.” After hearing this so many times, I began to believe that something was seriously wrong with me. I felt ashamed and guilty for wanting to express my feelings.

And so, little by little, my light dimmed.

At the age of eight, I shut down.

I felt invisible; unworthy of love because I didn’t have an identity, a home, emotional “legs” to walk away from toxicity, and any kind of sanctuary to call my own.

I was okay with being invisible because I trusted the opinions of those who made me feel this way. So, I became a quiet observer that longed for a home, emotional legs, and a sanctuary that I was convinced, would come rescue and complete me if I was “good enough.”

Before I knew it, the concrete of that belief system had dried and I was dating – on the SIDELINES of my own life.

I met someone who touched my soul, allowed me to realize that I had two emotional legs of my own all along, and was a sanctuary of safety, peace, and ovulatory bliss…

until one day he was gone and just like that… we were strangers.

The breakup hit me so hard, I spent the next eighteen months back in that completely cold and colorless existence. I was once again, without legs. The emotional paralysis hit me even harder than when I was a child because when I was a kid, I didn’t yet know the kind of nirvana that I had now been exposed to.

It’s one thing to not know what something is like and acquiesce to an existence based on the status quo, but when you get a taste of the kind of heaven that makes you wonder how you ever carried on before… letting go and going back to that “ignorance is bliss” is impossible. 

Every breakup following that one was earth-shattering.

And because I was too scared to feel what I knew I was going through, I’d just bounce into the next toxic relationship or friendship. I never really got over my exes completely. Everything was just triggers, slot replacers, and fillers.

Years later, I realized what I was doing and was able to finally put an end to that era.

Although I loved and missed them terribly, I was able to gracefully let go of toxic exes, friends, and even family members.

And the grace in which I let go ended up allowing me to be the one who was the hardest to forget. 

Here’s how to let go of someone you love and miss every day…

Five realizations that changed my life:

  • How to let go of someone you love and miss every day – REALIZATION #1: Identify where you are building. I realized that because I never had a home, emotional legs or a sanctuary of my own, it was more painful to survey the damage and desolation of my own empty land than it was to build a sanctuary within my partner (and gain the emotional legs that I believed were missing). I built the most magnificent sanctuaries in my partners and I based my value on the level to which they would allow me into the home that I BUILT. I based my value on how far I could walk because of the legs that a product of MY CONSTRUCTION had given me. I shined MY light on others and then, marveled at their illumination.
  • How to let go of someone you love and miss every day – REALIZATION #2: THIS is why the breakups were so debilitating. The breakups were so debilitating because it was a breakup with my own masterpiece – the sanctuary that I had created within another person. I was left without an identity, a compass, a home, and no legs to walk. This made me pedestal toxic people to an unhealthy level and drained me of my power. And because I was then, catapulted back to that feeling of emotional homelessness that I had as a child, I regressed back to the same fear, insecurity and emotional PARALYSIS of my eight-year-old self. There was no room for growth or evolution.
  • How to let go of someone you love and miss every day – REALIZATION #3: Knowledge is power. When I realized that I was essentially constructing in other people the very thing that I was lacking, I was able to see how desperately I needed to build a sanctuary and a home within. I started to build my own home by digging deep into my pain. I felt every ounce of it. I wrote, I cried, and the deeper I went, the stronger the sanctuary that I was simultaneously building became. Make sure that you allow yourself to feel your pain so that it can leave because IT WILL.
  • How to let go of someone you love and miss every day – REALIZATION #4: It will still hurt. Yes, loss and breakups will still hurt. But if you stop trying to construct in other people the emotional home that Mom and/or Dad (with the best of intentions), deprived you of, your life will T R A N S F O R M. Yes, you will still feel the pain of your breakup. However, you will be able to disable that emotional regression back to the paralysis of an age in which conditions were put around love that should have been given to you unconditionally. You’ll bounce back from situations that you could have never imaged before. By creating a home for that child, you allow him/her to grow up and no longer look for outside sources of identity, meaning construction, and completion. This doesn’t make the pain of letting go of someone you love go away completely, but it gets rid of the hopelessness. It puts space around the pain because you now know that you’re ALREADY home.
  • How to let go of someone you love and miss every day – REALIZATION #5: It may all fall down again at some point. And that’s okay. I’ve spent the last few years building the most magnificent home and sanctuary within. I was taking care of all my emotional needs and although at times I got triggered and felt insecurity, and pain, I was really solid… until eight months ago… and again recently. It was the perfect storm of so many things that happened all at once. My home came crashing down and again, I was homeless. As I gravitated toward my old habit of building a sanctuary in someone else, I realized the most amazing thing – all these years that I had been building a sanctuary, a HOME within, I had attracted and maintained relationships that not only reminded me of the framework of my home that was STILL there (and the capability of the emotional legs I used to get myself up off the floor), but they also celebrated and ENCOURAGED the rebuilding within (instead of exploiting my vulnerability to make themselves feel better).

Trying to figure out how to let go of someone you love and miss every day is hard. But when you focus on building a home within, you’ll always have the security of your OWN place to return to. And even if that place is temporarily empty and without furniture, at least it’s YOURS.

When learning how to stop missing someone, it’s essential to remember that if you’ve built a home within yourself, a breakup won’t leave you stranded and isolated. You won’t be LOCKED OUT of a sanctuary that YOU CREATED.

You were BORN with the tools to build the most incredible sanctuary with the most able-bodied legs. And you’ve already proven to be the best general contractor on the block (as long as it’s a toxic person’s land you’re building on).

Reclaim your tools, empower your innate skills, and build within. You will then know how to let go of someone you love and miss every day.

If I can do it, so.can.you.

+ the beginning of this post was inspired by the amazing Najwa Zebian.

Written by: Natasha Adamo

If you’re looking for further and more specific help; if you’re tired of waiting to be chosen and ready to choose yourself, personalized coaching with Natasha Adamo is the answer. Book your one-on-one session today.

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Author of Win Your Breakup, Natasha Adamo

About Natasha Adamo

Natasha Adamo is a globally recognized self-help author, relationship guru, and motivational speaker. With over 2.5 million devoted blog readers and clients in thirty-one countries, she is a beacon of inspiration to many. Her debut bestseller, "Win Your Breakup", offers a unique perspective on personal growth after breakups. Natasha's mission is to empower individuals to develop healthier relationships and actualize their inherent potential.

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