When I was younger, I felt deeply and strongly that if you love someone, you never leave them.  You stick by them, you help them, you accept them, you do anything for them, you give them anything you have.  I now believe with even more fervent depth and strength that there is a higher love than that – and it knows how to pause, how to wait, and how to walk away.

Why I believe in walking away from people I love

I believe that loving people is eternal – bigger than this life.  When people stay with each other out of a sense of loyalty, they are often protecting each other from fear and discomfort – from their dark places, their discomfort with growth or change, or even their fear of some brilliance that is so bright it is scary.  I love you, so I won’t make you face the reality you are making – and doing so will protect or distract me from mine.  We love each other, so we keep each other safe from life.

It’s not love – it’s a selfish and fearful act that traps both you and the person you are trying to love, spreading blame onto both of you.  Love is bigger and stronger than that.  Love can do hard things.  Love is accountable.  Love is adaptable.  Love is never, ever afraid and love is eternal.

I believe in walking away because I believe it is my singular job to show up to life in a genuine way.  As I protect my ability to do that, I am also accountable for doing my best to not hinder someone else’s ability to do the same, whether they want to or not.  I will not be the reason that you aren’t fully here and fully free.  I will not protect you from the outcomes of the choices you make.  And if I allow you to be the reason I’m not fully here and not fully free, then I have wronged you.  If we are using each other as protection from life, then I have wronged you twice.  And that is the opposite of love on so many levels.

When to walk away

There is exactly one time to walk away:  When a person is violating some boundary or value you’ve established in a substantial and repeated way and it is keeping you from showing up in your life – and there’s nothing you can do to protect that boundary or value in some other way.  If you allow this violation to become an ongoing reality, you have betrayed yourself, you have betrayed the person you love, and you have perverted the very idea of love.

What is feels like to walk away

Once you get the hang of it, the loss of walking away has a beautiful sadness to its pain.  You feel clean.  It’s different than the kinds of endings you may have had before.  It can hurt a lot and it has dark places and includes the complexities of all grieving:  anger, doubt, regret, abandonment, guilt, you name it.

But it also has a beauty to it that you may not have felt before.  It feels like love.  Like a love much bigger than the day to day.  Like an eternal kind of love – ironically, the kind that never leaves.

“1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War (The 5 essentials for victory)

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