Are we done yet?
I’ve ended plenty of things in my life. Some of you might have, too?
I’ve ended friendships, broken up with boyfriends, and stopped seeing the hair stylist in whose chair I sat monthly for over a decade. (My short hair during that time required a lot of maintenance!)
I’ve ended relationships with coaches I’ve hired, and let clients know it’s time for them to move to a different coach.
I’ve left jobs, and even careers.
Most (not all) of these endings I’ve handled with deep care and intention.
And in most cases, I didn’t fully complete the ending process.
Sticking around.
How do I know this? In many cases there’s a lingering sense of unfinished business, unresolved “stuff.” Feelings like guilt, judgment, anger, or even grief still bubble up when I think about those endings.
And that unresolved “stuff” has a way of sticking around in another form:
That same stuff shows up in my next relationship, just wearing a new outfit. New coach, same pattern. New client, same pattern. New job, same pattern. Different friend, same pattern.
Completing is different from quitting.
Quitting gets us out of the situation. Completing allows us to learn everything there is to learn from it.
Most of our endings land somewhere in between. Sometimes quitting is absolutely required — for safety, to protect boundaries, or for other important reasons.
And, figuring out how to get more complete, even when we’ve quit, can be incredibly valuable.
When we leave without asking ourselves deep, challenging questions, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to understand the many ways we created that relationship through our own actions and non-actions, what we said and didn’t say, the many choices we made along the way.
Completing asks us to take full responsibility for everything we contributed to the situation or the relationship. It also asks us to take full responsibility for learning everything we can from it. Sounds straightforward, but in reality this is a deeply vulnerable process.
Good news.
The good news is that I’ve learned I can return to the completion process at any time — on my own or with the other party — and move closer toward a sense of inner peace and true completion
This isn’t about being a “good person” or doing it “right.” It’s about recognizing that when we skip the full completion process — and don’t learn what we were meant to learn — we are likely to recreate our same patterns in the next relationship or similar situation.
Doing the work.
Here are some questions that can help you complete:
Have I said everything? What remains unspoken? What have I withheld from myself, and from the other party?
Am I truly open to hearing everything? Have I listened to the other person’s truth, believing their perspective is just as valid as mine? Or am I listening to prove I’m right?
Am I willing to see this experience as something I co-created? Or am I blaming them (or myself)?
Have l learned everything there is to learn here? Have I grown as a person as a result of this experience?
For me, these are very challenging questions. The first time I encountered this list my heart sank with the recognition that I haven’t come close to fully completing some pretty big endings.
But after my heart sank it lifted again with a different realization: these questions offer a path towards more peace and resolution. What a gift!
I now get to work toward more completion with each ending, past or future. I can explore where I can move closer toward completion and take more responsibility for my part of the process.
This is the path I’m on. And it’s a path I’m helping my clients travel, too.
Endings are part of life. They have so much to teach us, if we're willing to learn.
What about you? Do some of your endings feel incomplete? Is there more for you to learn?
INVITATION TO REFLECT: What is one step you might take to bring more awareness and completion to an ending in progress right now? What is one past situation you might revisit, to get closer to completion? (Remember, you can take this on as a solo process.)
PS — I was first introduced to the quitting vs completing distinction in this powerful article. It takes what I've shared and goes even deeper.