(Artwork by Banksy “Girl With the Red Balloon.” Photo taken from Art.com)
The last part of the Four Fold Path is Renewing and Releasing the Relationship.
Renewing is not restoring where we pretend the hurt didn’t happen but instead we create a stronger relationship without the suffering.
Releasing a relationship happens when renewing isn’t possible. It is a completion of your healing journey. You choose a path without wishing ill and you refuse for that person to occupy space in your head and heart any longer.
For me I feel caught between both. I am co-parenting so there is a renewal yet the person I thought he was never existed so it is less renewing and more understanding the new version of someone I thought I knew and recreating as the renewal. No doubt part of my healing is releasing the relationship I believed I had with him and acknowledging my truths. And even when I write down the hard truths I do know it is heartbreaking. His distorted reality is his truth and I know my truth and it is damaging enough that there is no renewing a relationship. I refuse to give him anymore of me because he took my good and bad and used it against me.
I love this picture “Girl With Balloon” by Banksy because she is either releasing or receiving. For me it’s the release of my losses from someone I trusted and loved. But I am also celebrating the arrival of hope and love.
God is so mindful of each of us. I am often asked “How can you still believe in God when he didn’t let you know earlier?” I do know that God can’t prevent free agency but He never left me alone. He has heard my prayers and blessed me still. I have had moments of loneliness but it has been replaced by even the prayers and love of others letting me know God is mindful of me. Part of the representation of the balloon for me is my willingness to receive Gods love for me and to utilize the Atonement in my own healing and forgiveness moving forward.