Though we tend to reserve the word closure for relationships, closure is, in my opinion, the most important concept in someone's quest to overcome life-struggling. To see why, we have to consider what causes struggling in the first place.
The Source of Struggle and Contentment
You can approach struggle (or dysfunction) from a lot of different "zoom-levels" and angles. A biologist zooms in far and see genetics and chemistry as being responsible. A sociologist might see struggle as a result of unevenly allocated resources. I prefer to look at human experience the way it's felt.
There is some struggle that's a natural part of life, but this isn't what I'd call struggling. Struggling is the result of disconnection from ourselves. We disconnect when we get inappropriately lost in our thinking, our worries about what might happen, and our past. When we disconnect, we lose touch with our inner-awesomeness: our kindness, our talents, our insight, our joy, our peace, and our levity. These are all aspects of the same experience. Only if we're self-connected can we form a connection to another person, otherwise it's like trying to have a conversation with someone who's phone is off. For that reason, inner-awesomeness is also the root of intimacy and belonging.
The inner-awesomeness is contentment.* The state of contentment -- which is a state of mind, not a lasting possession you acquire -- opens up new ways of dealing with tricky situations that normally would suck us back into the trance of thought. Not only will you have self-connection, but you will improvise ways to maintaining that connection in the face of new or familiar challenges.
The Role of Closure
There are many self-help gurus and teachers, most of whom have earned by utmost respect, who teach methods of withdrawing from thinking and reinhabiting the body in its present state. The practice is called meditation and while it comes in different forms -- breathing, kindness, mindfulness of a certain aspect of your experience, insight/vipassana -- it always shares the same common denominator: let go of your compulsion to think and analyze and see what's already here.
This is hard for people, me included, to do. We're addicted to thinking and believe that with enough thinking, we'll work our way out of our problems. Sometimes it works, because your thinking can help you compare experiences and arrive at the conclusion that your thinking is the culprit of struggle, rather than the solution. In this way, thinking can self-cannibalize. Most of the time, though, you find that people are deep into their thinking. If it's a trauma, they're lost in their past, replaying memories and continuously reviving their emotional pain. If it's fear or mistrust, they're lost in the future, worrying, paralyzed by their expectations. Either way, the person slowly loses self-connection and inner-awesomeness as thinking overwhelms them and starts to grow lonely.
A good counselor might advise this person to start practicing mindfulness by surrendering the need to think and to start watching what's already here. But there is another way to surrender the need to think: closure. That's precisely what closure is, a device used to interrupt a pattern of habitual thought (or behavior triggered by thought) and surrender to the current situation. It is the event that convinces a person to end habitual thinking. Closure is condensed meditation and requires an equal degree of surrender.
Closure allows a person to make major life transitions and climb out of spirals of shame, grief, guilt, anger, worry, fear, obsession, and loss. Fostering it is an crucial tool in an Amateur Psychologists kit.
Recipe for Achieving Closure
Common sense tells us that there's no right way to get closure. There is no trick or special forumla to produce it. The most important thing is that the event (a letter, a discussion, burning something) is significant for the person. If it is not significant, it won't convince the person to surrender their habitual thinking. For that reason, a good guide should suggest ways to achieve closure but ultimately put it in the hands of the person seeking relief.
A second consideration is make the closure lasting and memorable with something ceremonial. The ceremony can involve 2 stages. The first stage is related to the trauma or issue the person faces and is a symbol of surrendering the old patterns. If they lost a loved one, they can gather belonging together and wear them, or make a website dedicated to the person, create a collage out of their best pictures and memories, or create a personal momento. The second stage has to do with creating a new, fresh path. To accomplish that, they might dye their hair, change their room, or change their wardrobe. These changes symbolize a new direction in life and offer the seeker an alternative to the old patterns.
A third consideration is to remind the seeker that revisiting the old thought patterns is a normal part of the closure process. Closure doesn't mean the old ways will suddenly evaporate. The thoughts may continue, but in a less severe manner, and should be viewed as a relic from the past rather than something to freak out about.
Final Thoughts
This is the reason I don't knock New Age-type therapies. It's not that I believe in them, but the consumers do. That's all they need to take a troubling issue, find closure, and move on.
If you think about your life, you can probably recall moments where you achieved closure. It feels freeing. Here's a picture where I had it. You can see how the face is relaxed and the eyes and soft and calm. There's a smile waiting to erupt. As you can see with my brother, sometimes it does.
* Fuck the word "happiness" and avoid it at all costs. It sounds like someone no one can ever get without a book deal, good teeth, and a job that pays more than whatever you're already making.
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