I’ve written this many times before. I’ve almost finished it a few times and then started rewriting when the inquiry presented itself again. What I intended to use it for I wasn’t quite sure, but the query lingered with me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve stayed too long; in relationships, places or at parties. I didn’t want to be the last person standing at a party or linger in unhappy relationships hoping for change anymore. I wanted to learn how to end things. I wanted to learn how to leave. 

I sit here on the bank of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok feeling tiny butterflies gently flutter. It’s my first morning in a new country and I am so excited for this next chapter and all it has in store for me. I reflect upon the grieving process I’d been going through in Mauritius, realising that it was most certainly time to leave.  

Since returning after Christmas in London, so much had changed and I didn’t feel like I had a place there anymore. What I have come to realise is that what has changed the most is me. I was trying to fit back into my old place but I am no longer the same. I’ve changed shape. And like a circle trying to fit into a hexagon, I can do it but only if I make myself small. And small is the opposite of my intention. I have been craving expansion and inspiration from what Mauritius was offering for some time. It had served it’s purpose and taught me a lot of amazing lessons. Lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. But (and it’s normally what comes after the but that really matters) I had outgrown it and it was time to leave. 

My sister has a little book called “How to be Alone” and she had joked with me a few years back, when I was asking to borrow a book, that I wasn’t ready for it yet. Little angel of wisdom that she is, she was right. But it was something that played on my mind that I really wanted to be ready for. I wanted to know how to be alone. I realised that the ability to be with one’s self and actually love it was key to unlocking a happy life. Then you aren’t scared of the silence with yourself. Then everything you welcome into your life is out of choice not out of fear of being alone.  

Mauritius was that personal journey for me of learning how to be alone. Don’t get me wrong, at times I got very deeply lonely, but it taught me a lot. I feel like I needed to go through that to learn that my own happiness is my responsibility. To sit with and accept all the changes that were going on in my life. Take some accountability and get my power back. But most importantly to learn how to really enjoy spending time with myself. I found myself most at ease in nature. I spent countless days exploring all the forests, mountains and oceans. Connecting with nature, reading, journaling, cooking and learning about me. 

In the initial months of Mauritius I’d become aware of and uncomfortable with my drinking. I think in the deeper stages of my loneliness, and excitement at the decent wine selection compared to the Caribbean, wine became my friend. Before I found my feet and got myself into the mountains, choosing and drinking wine was company. I justified it as classy by choosing high end wines. Drinking enabled me to stay up past my natural bedtime and talk to people that the time difference wouldn’t otherwise allow for. It stopped me sitting with actually being alone and the changes in my reality that I was scared of facing. It helped me avoid dealing with all the hurt and anger towards the relationship I had finally grown the strength to leave and the dynamics of my parents’ separation. I felt so alone in dealing with both of those situations that I found, when I started drinking, that I didn’t really want to stop. It was rare that a bottle of wine got opened and not finished. Even when I did make friends in Mauritius, I noticed when we would go out that I had the same feeling, of not wanting to stop. And not stopping. Like I didn’t really care what happened to me.  Like I was looking for someone else to notice and care.  Thinking back about it is pretty scary. Thankfully the awareness along with a few loud and clear messages from the universe allowed me to accept that I needed to change my relationship status with alcohol as there were wounds that needed to be healed. Sober. 

Knowing when to leave something because you have outgrown it is one thing. However, a bigger conundrum arises when you know you need to leave something that the true nature of your self never really wanted in the first place. An attachment that you had in your life because of a wound, habit or pattern. Something that you said yes to and had gone along with knowing it wasn’t right for you to begin with. Tirelessly holding hope that it would become something else. How do you leave when you never wanted to stay? 

Entering relationships on the basis of what they could be or might give you, rather than what it already is, means it’s something that you don’t want. Focusing on what you’d like to change means your focus is on the lack rather than an appreciation of all that is. Our energy flows where our attention goes. If we create more of what we focus on, then we are essentially perpetuating a situation we don’t want to be in by wanting it to change. Wayne Dyer has a brilliant quote:  

You can never get enough of what you don’t want

Wayne Dyer

I have had this quote in my head since reading it last year. A synchronous meeting with a beautiful soul on a beach one day at Full Moon brought Wayne Dyer’s book, “Change your Thoughts, Change your Life” into my life. It has become my favourite book and has indeed changed my life. On NYE, as I walked to the gym, rethinking the commitment to myself to not drink for the 56^th time,  I randomly picked a chapter to listen to. This is a fun little game I like to play with myself, as I know I always hear what I need to in that moment. This time it was so spot on I chuckled to myself.  

Knowing ignorance is strength. 
Ignoring knowledge is sickness. 
 
If one is sick of sickness, then one is not sick.
The sage is not sick because he is sick of sickness.
Therefore he is not sick.

Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu – Chapter 71

I had become sick of the sickness. Sick of ignoring what I know is best for me. Ignoring knowledge that impacts my wellbeing and disconnects me from who I am. Sick of the physical manifestations of the sickness that stops my body and mind from being all they could be. Of the addiction, however big or small, and the shame that surrounds that. 

I want to experience the full capacity of my brain and I want to be in alignment with my source. 

Pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice. Life is hard. It’s beautiful and filled with love but it is also hard. And we have to choose our hard. The hard of leaving an attachment or the hard of slow subtle suffering. I’m not saying this choice is easy. AT ALL. And I think to some extent it’s something that can’t be taught. Sometimes experience is the best teacher. I have had romantic relationships where there was a knowing in me from the beginning that I was going to live that relationship to learn how to be able to leave that relationship! And in growing strong enough to leave and heal, I learned to trust that the voice of knowing in me was always worth listening to. 

I think a lot of it the difficulty in leaving comes down to fear and trust. Fear of moments of joy ending. Fear of what comes next, of the unknown, of sitting with uncomfortable feelings that you don’t know if you can handle. Of, maybe if I leave I will miss out; on this man finally loving me the way I’ve always wanted or this party becoming the night of my life.  

Knowing when to leave comes a lot more naturally when you trust in yourself. Trust in your intuition, trust that you have the resources to handle it, trust that there are even more beautiful moments in store. Clinging on tightly to the end of the nights, relationships for what you want them to be or places for what they were only delays you from getting what you truly want. It’s about being brave enough for you to own what is best for you. To be in tune with yourself enough to listen to the whispers. To trust that you are being guided to where you need to go and let go of the past to get there. Beautiful new beginnings are often disguised as painful endings. You have to let go to create space for change and growth and love.

Ultimately at the crux of it all. After my elongated reflections and musings. I think what really enables knowing when to leave is Love. A deep worthy love for yourself. A knowing that you are your ultimate love story and the greatest relationship you will ever have in your life. When you love yourself, know yourself, your values and your boundaries, the knowing when to leave becomes simple. Because you know you are worth all the love and joy in the universe and refuse to settle for anything else.  

And so that’s how I learnt how to know when to leave. I learnt to love myself.