Closure is something that is deemed crucial for women to move on, yet often disregarded as necessary to men. Leaving many to question its significance.

But closure certainly is necessary.

Closure is often regarded as "forgetting" or "eliminating" memories of a person in your life that has made a significant impact on your life.

But, I'm sure we can all agree that any attempt to "forget" someone who has left an imprint on your life is extremely hard. And that is because we don't need to forget them. We learned lessons of love with that person, so to try to forget this experiences shared and lessons learned is just not beneficial.

What is beneficial, is learning how to operate in the presence of that individual, under new circumstances.

"The greatest test of forgiveness is coexistence..."

Closure is however, by my definition, a necessary adjustment to the loss and/or critical change in one's personal life that results in an emotional tragedy.

The adjustment to that tragedy is the process of closure.

Key word in that being emotional.

The loss of a significant has other such a large effect on our emotional state, hence the reason closure is so necessary. Not only to deal with the emotions, but to answer the nagging questions, the "Why did he/she do it?", "Was it me?", "Why me?", etc.

The process of closure looks something slightly different to everyone. Not everyone is left with questions, some just need to adjust to the emotional tragedy/event.

"Time DOES NOT heal all wounds..."

The notion that time heals all wounds suggest that time is a lone factor in healing, which is misleading.

While any process can take time, depending on how quickly an individual adapts, it is not true that time itself heals.

Time alone will cause someone to go into a state of depression, if he/she does not tackle any other issues and/or actively heal during that time.

So know that forgiveness, closure and time work together to get you back to "the way you were" before you experienced any emotional tragedy.

They work together to get you back to a state of peace.

SO HOW DO I GO ABOUT SEEKING CLOSURE?

Well, just like the act of forgiveness, there are necessary steps to achieve closure. And while this can be done in the presence of the lost love one, their presence is not a required.

HERE ARE 4 STEPS TO CLOSURE

STEP ONE: ACCEPT THE LOSS!

Acceptance of what is (the loss), is the hardest step of closure, and the most necessary. And it is also the reason the process of closure could take a long time to complete.

Why?

Because it requires us to accept our new reality. Most often we refuse to admit that it is over, so we hold on the the possibility of reconnection, which totally contradicts this process.

In order to move forward to the next step in this process, one must admit that the relationship has concluded at this point in time, with small possibility (if any) of reconnection. Because even if there is a possibility for reconnection, we still need to get past the current emotional tragedy.

So regardless to if we reconnect or not, after each loss, closure is NECESSARY.

STEP TWO: ASSESS THE DAMAGE!

Step two allows us to answer questions like "Why do we hurt?" or "What is the source of the pain?"

Most times we do not realize that the source of the pain is not just no longer being able to share our world with someone we love, but it could be also that we suffer from the feeling of failure, or inadequacy.

Now take a moment to think about that one.

The feeling of failure is most often the hardest of the damage to recognize because we have to admit that we may have taken part in the loss. We may have to accept responsibility for our role, and that we may have done this to ourselves...

Recognizing what the current situation is, and knowing that while you may be to blame, you tried the best you could with the knowledge you had at that time, should be enough to accept that you too contributed to the damage. Which makes it easier to move on from.

Assessing the reality of the situation is necessary to being able to coexist (STEP FOUR).

STEP THREE: ACTIVELY HEAL!

Healing is a process that REQUIRES OUR PATIENCE!

Too many want to rush the healing process using another love interest, or dating to assist when this is counterproductive in the healing process.

The healing process needs your focus! You can not give 100% to the process if your attention is elsewhere. Take ownership of the necessity to heal and be active in the process.

Closure requires conscious recognition of its necessity in order to successfully complete each step of the process.

STEP FOUR: COEXIST!

Once you have reached STEP FOUR you should be able to successfully coexist with your lost loved one.

Again, closure does not equate to forgetting someone or trying to eliminate them out of your world in order to process. You can't forget someone who means so much to you. You will always love someone who you truly loved. You can't erase those memories and act as if they never existed.

But to be able to coexist in the world or space with that individual accepting the change of dynamic in your relationship, is CLOSURE.

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