In life, there are times when we have to close doors. Put an end to the chapters that no longer have reason to exist. It is not always easy. Resistance to change, attachment to the known and the fear of leaving the comfort zone are factors that keep us tied to the past, even if that past harms us. However, these endings are necessary, sometimes even essential to protect our psychological integrity. Having to close doors, however, doesn't mean you have to slam them.
Slamming the door expresses the inability to handle the situation with maturity
Slamming the door, figuratively - although it can sometimes be literal - is an unmistakable sign that the situation has overwhelmed us. Slamming the door means being the victim of an emotional abduction, which anger and frustration have taken over. And every time that happens, our ability to think rationally is "deactivated".
Slamming the door expresses the inability to deal with the situation in a more mature way. It implies not having the psychological resources to deal with circumstances more assertively. It is like returning to our infantile and reactive "I", an "I" that does not think but simply responds to stimuli in the hope that this attack of anger will relieve some of the emotional pressure.
Slamming the door means that even though we closed that door, we are still locked in the room. If we continue to harbor hatred and resentment, these feelings will turn against us, making us their prisoners.
Ending a relationship hating a person does not mean that we have broken up with them, in reality we are still in their hands, we remain entangled in that emotional web at least until we free ourselves from the influence it exerts on us. We must remember that the strongest bonds are precisely the invisible ones.
Slamming the door will make us suffer
Slamming doors can cause us pain. Even though we need to close chapters in our life, that doesn't mean we have to make others suffer. In some cases - for whatever reason - our path may differ from that of others and therefore, we have to say goodbye to those people.
We must be aware that separations are always painful in and of themselves without adding an extra dose of suffering to them by getting angry or adopting conflicting attitudes that only serve to create deep emotional wounds.
Therefore, before closing the doors, it is convenient that we put ourselves in the other person's shoes and try to understand what he / she might feel. This does not mean remaining tied to a place or a relationship that has lost its meaning and no longer satisfies us, we have the right - and almost the obligation - to close the chapter, but we must make sure that this closure causes the least damage. possible to others.
Gently close the doors
The Dalai Lama said that anger is like that annoying family member we cannot avoid. When we know it, we realize how difficult it is to manage it and how much it can affect our mood. Since we cannot completely avoid him, we prepare ourselves psychologically for each meeting, we take the necessary precautions so that his words and attitudes influence us less and less. We can do the same with anger, when we stop to manage it, stop being in its hands and regain control. When the anger subsides or subsides, we can gently close the door.
To achieve this, we probably need to step out of the victim role and forgive. This does not mean that we have not been victims, but that we have decided not to embody that role anymore, we have chosen to no longer identify with the role of the one who suffers and endures and, instead, we choose to move on. Nor does it mean that we have not been hurt, but that we have consciously decided to forgive and move on, not because the other person deserves forgiveness, but because we deserve to find inner peace.
Why is it so difficult?
Closing the doors gently is difficult because we wait too long before putting the final point. We both wait because of the fear of uncertainty generated by important decisions or because we feed the illusion that everything changes without anything changing. Then, problems, conflicts and injuries build up, generating a huge emotional load that ends up exploding and translates to "slamming the door" in a figurative sense.
But it is never too late to make peace with ourselves and with the situation we have experienced. From that peace comes the serenity and strength needed to gently close a door. Because it takes more courage and inner strength to close a door gently than to slam it.
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