Intense relationships take many forms that go a step beyond strong and healthy feeling — from desire to obsession, from conflicted to violent and from mutuality to consuming. They burn bright and then fall to ashes for any number of reasons. A counselor could probably explore all the "whys" best, why we involve ourselves in those intense exchanges and why so many of us have difficulty leaving after it becomes clear that energy exchange between our significant others and ourselves is detrimental to us both. Learning the "hows" of departure from these relationships is still up to us.
As a society, we have no foundation for closure. The following simple rituals seek to fill in the cultural blank where closure should rest. They aim to release past ties, let go of past guilt and reshape the soul for a new beginning. For women in particular, the entire process of "letting go" challenges long-held societal beliefs that place responsibility on women for the success or failure of relationships. For everyone, by turning the actual responsibility for failure back to the individual involved, or by splitting it as warranted between the two individuals involved, we can help positive changes begin.
Before engaging in these rituals, it helps to understand that part of our resistance to closure comes from our innate response to a void. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do we. Many people will remain in unhappy relationships because they do not want to feel empty, they do not want to try to fill the space with a replacement or they seek to replace the old relationship with a similar relationship. At the same time, individuals who may have temporarily ended a relationship may come back to the same person because of a feeling of amputation. This amputation suggests impaired growth. We can spend years in therapy trying to overcome this problem; to speed this process, we can clear old energies. Nothing can replace both therapy and the simple time to heal, but therapy can be enhanced and, perhaps, time speeded with a little personal alchemy.
To help this magick process along, begin by cleansing and setting new goals and associations. To do so, take a purification bath in lavender and sea salt to help wash away the negativity and the energy exchange between yourself and the other person. At the end of your bath, have ready a full glass of wine or juice. Name what you would like in this cup, what you would like in your cup, for example wealth, happiness and fulfillment. State that you deserve them, as a new and purified person. Then toast yourself and quaff the drink in celebration of your happiness to come.
When making steps toward closing a relationship, you can also meditate on the ideal of an individual who does not need the polarity of another person. Doing so can aid transformation in forming future relationships. When time comes for a new association, the qualities of strength, independence and the ability to set boundaries will lead to a happier liaison.
Many relationship skills, such as setting boundaries, must be learned in adulthood. Not only does society fail to teach us to end relationships, it fails to teach us how to redefine them when roles such as "housewife" or "soccer Dad" do not totally fit the individual. Although connections between people end, they often do not really end; for example, "old flames" might rekindle a previous relationship not because either of them want to, but because neither of them has a precedent for letting the previous relationship and its standards of behavior end.
A simple ritual for ending and/or for establishing boundaries is to sit with a poppet or doll in a magick circle, with the poppet or doll facing you. Talk to this poppet/doll as though it is the person involved, and in doing so set new grounds and boundaries for behavior. Make sure to only place expectations on your own behavior, rather than magickally forcing the other person to behave a certain way. For example, you might state, "If you approach me, I will be firm and say that I do not want to talk to you. I will not explain, I will not justify. I will simply walk away. If you follow or harass me, I will call the police. I will not be alone with you." Or, in another relationship: "When you try to get the children to take sides, I will have them identify for themselves that is what you are doing, but I will not say anything about my feelings concerning you." This ritual can help reinforce your own personal desired behavior, as sometimes the "wrong" behavior looks tempting when a relationship makes its transition to its end. Old habits, both positive and negative, are often the biggest setbacks in the process of ending a relationship.
The feelings and habits of previous relationships can linger over the years; sometimes the connections between ourselves and our previous lovers and friends can color relationships in our present lives. We might fall into a pattern of attracting the same type of person who is bad for us, and we often wonder why we feel so helpless in the cycle. Sometimes we find it hard to take action to end these auric ties because the helplessness mutates from an emotion to an illness; depression and addiction contribute until we encourage our own negative circumstances. A ritual method of overcoming learned helplessness can aid conventional avenues such as therapy and medication.
To perform this ritual, set a pile of dirty laundry, a mountain of papers or some other never-ending piling project in the center of a magick circle. Take a Tarot deck and pull out the following cards from the major arcana: Death, Strength, the World and the High Priestess for a woman or the Magician for a man. Place the Death card at the peak of the pile. Flank the left with the High Priestess/Magician and the right with the Strength card. Next, jump, run or crawl over the pile — being as messy as desired. Toss the Death card behind, and aggressively grab the World card. Stand up and yell "I have conquered! The World is mine, it is my right, and I claim it!" In this setup, Death serves as the period you go through trying to conquer your helplessness, while Strength and the High Priestess/Magician are your supports within to conquer. The World represents attainment of all your desires.
This ritual should set the stage in your conscious and subconscious mind for overcoming other obstacles less physical than the never-ending laundry. By claiming a right to the world and to happiness, a person can claim a right to start anew — the ending of the last personal cycle completed.
A second ritual can formalize and celebrate that ending. To do so, take a cord long enough to tie around the waist. Have a fire in a cauldron nearby. Next to the cauldron, set a glass of water, juice or wine. Leaving several inches at the cord's ends, tie one knot in the cord for every relationship that ended poorly and/or that has unresolved issues. Then, going back over the rope, stop at each knot and meditate on the person to let go of and all the memories associated with that relationship. Push your emotions into the knot as powerfully as possible. As all of the feelings peak, untie the knot and feel the emotions dissipate. Say the name of the person, as though addressing him or her, and state "I am free from you. We have no further connection. So mote it be!" When finished, throw the cord in the cauldron fire. As it burns, toast the fire, saying "Old things are ended, and the wheel turns. I drink in now the good things that life and love has waiting for me."
These rituals, like all things in life, only form a portion of the process in ending relationships and moving on. It is amazing how, years after we see or speak to a person, that individual can still be an influence in the decisions we make. When such a person has had a negative impact on our lives and psyches, the influence likely only leads to more negativity. With a little help and a holistic approach, that negativity can be subverted, or better yet, transformed.
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