By: Lily Anderson
Over the past few years, I keep hearing the same sentiment told to me: “Your twenties are a time meant for change!” I am told this as if it is something easy to grasp, as if the change will be gone before I even know it’s happening. The reality is the opposite. Change is always circling me like I am in the eye of a storm: ever constant, ever looming over me. At this point in life, everyone has gone through some type of change: moving to a new home, losing friends, loved ones, or ideas you had about yourself and what your life would be like. I consider myself quite nostalgic, so it can be hard at times for me to deal with and move on from change. I find myself thinking about what could have been or how I could have done things differently, and this type of thought pulls me into a hole filled with what-ifs.
Nostalgia can be beautiful, but at times it can make it hard to feel present in the moment. Social media tends to play a big part in this; a single video predicting that in two weeks that person who you had a crush on will re-enter your life will derail your day, and then the algorithms will see that you watched the video and show you a million more. It can also be hard to see others and start comparing. Instead of being happy for them it easily turns to jealousy. From my own experience, I know this is a hard cycle to break out of. The best way that I have found to get out of this is to ban myself from social media, and allowing myself the time to detox from the digital world helps to pull me out of the free-floating, daydreamy feeling of being stuck on something I cannot shake.
Over the last few months, I have been trying different things to move on from various notions that cloud my mind. I’ve seen people online recommend burning candles, breaking plates, or writing a letter and burning it, and I am curious about how much these rituals have actually helped people move past and let go. So, I took to collecting ideas and trying them out. I wanted to share these different activities because sometimes, when trying to move past something, closure is hard to find. It seems that these physical acts might be a good way of getting out feelings in a way that also allows you to find closure. Similarly, in the way that rage rooms are good to get out anger or stress, these activities are positive ways to release feelings of grief, loss, sadness, or confusion, and to try putting them behind you. I would first like to say that doing any of these in a dangerous manner should be avoided. These rituals are not meant to be destructive, so be careful when doing some of them. The goal is to be more present and less weighed down by the past, not to create more grief or sadness.
The cutting of ties is to carve the initials of yourself and whoever you plan to cut ties with into two candles, connect them with twine, and light them both. As the candles burn, the twine will burn as well and disconnect the two candles. This is the most wishy-washy method of moving on I tried; it is considered very witchy, but after reading a couple blogs it seems that people who consider themselves witches think of this as gimmicky and not real witchcraft. I found it therapeutic. As it burned, I was able to do things around my house, and once it got to the twine I sat down and watched as the twine burned and the candles were no longer connected. As the twine burned, I was able to think about who and what I was cutting ties with. Even if this is considered silly, I think it was helpful. In cases like this, is it really about the integrity of it? Or is it about how it makes you feel?
Writing letters is something that many people do to cope with change, and recently I was recommended to set them sailing. While it seems kind of stupid to write a letter and let it sail away, like the candles the element of calm that came over me from watching the little sail boat made from my letter sail away was nice. There are many variations of this: setting your letter to sail, burning it, or tucking it away somewhere hidden. It depends on whether or not you’d like to return to the letter again. As someone who has tried and failed to keep a diary or journal, it felt a lot like how I imagine that would be. So, if journaling is not your thing but you want to get your feelings out somehow, this may be a great alternative that doesn’t require consistency. Warning: if you just write the letters and hide them away, going back and reading them later might make you feel embarrassed of yourself.
In 2019, when I first got on TikTok, I saw a video of people writing a bunch of stuff on large white plates and then smashing them, and since then I have always wanted to do that. Though it is the most destructive method of the three, it was fun and felt like a mini, personal rage room. Once I had a plate, I wrote down all my thoughts and feelings. If you don’t want to clean up all the plate shards, I recommend putting it into two Ziplock bags. I think the part that makes it a good release is the physical action of smashing your feelings. You pour out your heart and then use all that energy to smash it up into a bunch of little pieces.
After doing all of this, I do think that I have moved on. More so, I think I have just learned that feeling sad about loss and change is okay. At the beginning of this I wanted to not think about things I felt weighted down by, and now I feel more content with those feelings. Trying these rituals was fun and did help me to move on, but more than anything it showed me that living in the moment was what I was missing.