Know When It’s Over
It can take a lot of courage to know when to throw the towel in. Very often we hold onto our careers/jobs, business ventures or relationships well after they have passed their expiry dates. Recognizing that it’s over, and it’s time for something new requires clarity of heart and mind enveloped in a lot of self-respect and self-confidence.
When I was in London recently, I met with two friends. One who wanted to pack in her 25-year-old pickle business after a lot of success. The other who had just heavily invested in, and opened his new Indian restaurant but realized he was not happy with his decision. Both were in a ‘pickle’ as to what to do! I could see both struggling with the thought of ‘what if…?’, and they were trying to bounce the pros and cons off me. They asked: How do you know when it is THE END?
I also met with a young adult, one of my nephews, who wasn’t sure whether to study further or to just pack it in. He was caught between ‘getting on with his life’, which is what other relatives were telling him and his own personal thirst for knowledge and education.
Then we come to relationships. The other day someone called me from another country and told me that he has been married for 30 years, but it had been such a struggle all those years. Husband and wife had never seen eye to eye, yet because he is old fashioned he would not divorce her. He asked: What is my karma with this person? And when will it end?
When flowers wilt, we know their lifespan is over and it’s time to throw them away. Yet with real life issues, it’s not always that easy to know when something is over, but the signs are there if we want to know the truth. I don’t claim to have all the answers but if you are struggling with this issue, then these thoughts may help to guide you.
Firstly, it depends on each person, their lifestyle and personality, what their hopes and aspirations are in life and what they hope to get out of life in the end. So one needs to do a self-check on that. Another person’s advice may NOT be what you need. Then timing (in life) also plays an important part. Further, understand karma – the ‘as you sow you reap’ theory! We can never know the depths of Karma… both the happiness and sorrow that we feel today is a return of the seeds that we have sown earlier. So, to take full responsibility for them. We can understand that some situations are karmic, and while they may be difficult, we are being given the opportunity to learn something about ourselves, and also settle that karma. We can see it as a lesson in self-growth that the universe is bestowing upon us.
Your intuition plays a big part in understanding when something has come to an end. Your head will try and weigh up the pros and cons, but your heart will intuitively know when you have come to the end of something; the death of something. It will appear as a natural distaste, a natural distancing. Very much like when the halwa (a sweet pudding made from semolina) will easily separate from the sides of the pan to let you know that it is cooked.
In the case of the business, you will feel it’s enough, you are content and done with it (BTDT-been there, done that!). Got the success, or execution of the desire out of your system. In the case of education, you will feel restless and want to use and apply what you have studied rather than sitting in a classroom. In the case of relationships, the happiness you felt in the beginning will have turned into sorrow, and you will feel you deserve better than what you are receiving. That it’s indeed time to
re-turn to the self and to give the self all that love and attention you were giving to others.
Holding onto that which is decaying and decomposing is not healthy on any level. As we hold on tightly to the old, as we withdraw into the comfort zone of what we know, we are becoming more and more stale and less and less creative.
It might feel painful, and it takes a lot of courage to accept that something is over. Much like mourning death. Yet the soul understands that all good things must come to an end and that in its place a new bud is emerging and becoming ready to bloom into something even more beautiful. Once you take that step of courage, you feel strong and light, as if a burden has lifted from your shoulders.
Death (of anything) is part of the cycle of life that we must understand deeply. We almost always begin something excitedly, and live happily with it, but when it is time for closure, why is there the pain then? We take sorrow from the closing of a chapter, when instead we need to focus on the new chapter and adventures ahead! As you change your attitude towards the words – ‘THE END’ – you will be able to embrace the words – ‘THE BEGINNING’ – with great joy and glee!
It’s time… to take courage and to feel your intuition.
© ‘It’s Time…’ by Aruna Ladva, BK Publications London, UK