The initial attempt to create healthy separation will usually be physical - actual physical separation from the other person, by breaking up from a relationship or moving away from a parent, etc. This is only the initial movement however and often gives a false perception of actual separation. Note: If you cannot be physically close to the person physically separated from, without being affected, you have not really separated from them. There is still an attachment.
TRUE healthy separation is emotional and psychic. It involves exploring the dynamics that kept you attached to begin with. Usually a dependency, a fear, a fear of separation, a fear of hurting oneself and/or the other person. A fear of growing into one’s true expression and allowing the other to do so as well. Healthy growth and expression coincide with emotional and psychic independence. Once this individuality is achieved, physical distance is no longer of import. We can be as close to, or as far from, someone or something, but still within ourselves.
The process of true healthy separation may often ask you to revisit the initial separation, either actually, person to person, or emotionally within yourself. To tear away the initial false perception of separation. To explore the wounds and hurts that kept you attached to begin with, the wounds that are most likely still being carried around under a false perception of independence and separation, which may also affect your ability to enter into new or go deeper into existing healthy relationships, with others as well as yourself. True healthy separation takes work. It is not as simple as breaking up. It is as difficult as breaking through.
- Michael Garbe