There is a conversation you did not have.
A relationship that ended very badly. A project you abandoned halfway through. An expectation you had for yourself that never materialized. A version of yourself you thought you would become by now.
You have tried to move on. You have told yourself it doesn’t matter anymore. You have even convinced yourself you are over it.
But it’s still there.
A low hum of incompleteness. Background noise you have learned to ignore but can’t actually silence. Weight you carry without quite remembering you are carrying it. That feeling you just cannot put your finger on…
Here’s what I’ve learned: You can’t think your way to closure. You can’t logic yourself into letting go.
But you can practice it. You can mark it. You can create a container for the release.
That’s what rituals are for.
Not magical thinking. Not pretending everything’s resolved. But creating a deliberate moment that says: “I’m choosing to put this down now. Not because it is fixed, but because carrying it is costing me more than releasing it.”
This post is about how to actually do that.
Why We Can’t Just “Move On”
“Just let it go.”
If you have ever been told this about something painful or unresolved, you know how useless that advice is.
You can’t just decide to let something go and have it disappear. Our brains don’t work that way.
The Zeigarnik Effect: Why Unfinished Things Haunt Us
In the 1920s, psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik noticed something fascinating: waiters could remember complex orders while taking them but forgot them immediately after serving.
Her research revealed what is now called the Zeigarnik Effect: Our brains are wired to remember incomplete tasks better than completed ones.
Why? Because from an evolutionary perspective, unfinished business is a threat. Your brain keeps it active in your awareness so you will address it.
The problem: Not everything can be finished.
Some conversations will never happen. Some relationships ended without closure. Some mistakes cannot be undone. Some versions of yourself will never be.
Your brain keeps reminding you of these things, waiting for you to “complete” them. But you can’t.
This is why unfinished emotional business feels so heavy. Your brain is constantly pinging: “Hey, remember this? We need to deal with this. Why haven’t we dealt with this?”
You need a way to signal to your brain: “This is complete now. We are putting it down.”
That is what closure rituals do.
Why “Just Let It Go” Doesn’t Work
Telling yourself to let something go is like telling yourself to fall asleep. The harder you try, the more impossible it becomes.
Because you are trying to use thinking to solve an emotional problem.
Unfinished business lives in your body, your nervous system, your automatic patterns, not just your conscious mind. You can decide intellectually that something doesn’t matter, but your body still carries it.
Research on trauma and healing consistently shows: Emotional release requires more than cognitive processing. It requires embodied practices, physical acts that signal safety and completion.¹
This is why rituals work where thinking doesn’t. They engage your whole system, not just your mind.
The Difference Between Resolution and Closure
Resolution = The situation is fixed
- The person apologizes
- The relationship repairs
- The goal is achieved
- The mistake is corrected
Closure = You find peace with incompleteness
- The person never apologizes (and you accept that)
- The relationship ended (and you stop hoping it will revive)
- The goal no longer fits (and you release it without shame or guilt)
- The mistake remains (and you forgive yourself anyway)
Resolution is external. Closure is internal.
You can not always get resolution. But you can always create closure.
The question is: How?
The Three Types of Unfinished Business
Before choosing a closure ritual, you need to know what type of unfinished business you are dealing with.
Type 1: External Resolution Is Possible (But You are Avoiding It)
What it looks like:
- A conversation you could have but are avoiding
- An apology you could make
- A project you could complete or officially abandon
- A relationship dynamic you could address
The unfinished feeling comes from: Avoiding action you know you need to take
What closure looks like: Having the conversation, making the apology, completing or officially closing the project
You might need: Courage, support, practice, a plan
Ritual is for: Preparing yourself to take action, or accepting that you won’t
Example: You and a friend had a falling out. You know you could reach out to them. But, you just have not done it.
The work: Decide: Will you reach out or accept the friendship has ended? Both are valid. But not deciding keeps it unfinished.
Type 2: Internal Resolution Is Needed (External Resolution Isn’t Possible)
What it looks like:
- Someone hurt you and won’t acknowledge it
- A relationship ended and you can’t change that
- A person died with things unsaid
- An opportunity passed that will not return
- A version of yourself you expected to become but won’t
The unfinished feeling comes from: Waiting for something external to change that won’t
What closure looks like: Accepting what is, grieving what is not, releasing the hope that the past could be different
You might need: Permission to grieve, space to feel, compassion for yourself
Ritual is for: Marking the acceptance, releasing the expectation, honoring what was
Example: Your relative never acknowledged how they hurt you and likely never will.
The work: Accepting you won’t get the apology. Grieving that reality. Choosing to heal anyway.
Type 3: Both/Neither (Ambiguous or Complex)
What it looks like:
- Situational grief (pandemic losses, collective trauma)
- Relationships that faded without clear ending
- Disappointments with no clear responsible party
- Identity shifts that feel disorienting
- Goals that partially happened but not how you expected
The unfinished feeling comes from: Lack of clear narrative, ambiguity, complexity
What closure looks like: Creating meaning even without neat resolution, accepting complexity
You might need: Space for both/and, nuance, ongoing process
Ritual is for: Acknowledging the complexity, honoring the ambiguity, marking transitions
Example: The pandemic changed your life in ways you’re still processing. No clear “fix” exists.
The work: Creating your own meaning-making around what happened, accepting ongoing grief
How to Identify Your Type
Ask yourself:
- Is there an action I could take that would resolve this externally?
- If yes → Type 1 (and you need to decide: take action or accept you won’t)
- If no → continue to question 2
- Does resolution depend on someone else changing or circumstances being different?
- If yes → Type 2 (internal resolution needed)
- If sort of → Type 3 (ambiguous)
- Can I articulate what “closure” would look like?
- If yes → Probably Type 1 or 2
- If no, it’s complicated → Probably Type 3
Most unfinished business is Type 2 or 3. We are waiting for resolution that will not come or clarity that doesn’t exist.
The rituals below work for all three types. Choose based on what resonates.
Six Closure Rituals (You Choose)
These are not magic. They will not make pain disappear. But they create a container for release.
Think of them as marking a transition: from “carrying” to “letting down.”
RITUAL 1: THE BURNING CEREMONY
What you need:
- Paper and pen
- Fireproof container (metal bowl, outdoor fire pit, fireplace)
- Match or lighter
- Safe space
How it works:
- Write what you are releasing
- The relationship, the regret, the expectation, the old version of yourself
- Be specific. Name it fully.
- Don’t hold back. This is for you alone.
- Read it aloud (optional but powerful)
- Speak the words to yourself or to a trusted witness
- Hear yourself name what you are letting go
- Burn it safely
- Watch the paper transform into ash
- As it burns, say: “I release this with gratitude for what it taught me. I am ready for what comes next.”
- Dispose of the ashes
- Scatter them in nature, bury them, or wash them away
- Complete the physical release
Why it works:
Fire is transformation. The paper doesn’t disappear, it changes form. This mirrors the internal work: you’re not erasing what happened, you’re transforming your relationship to it.
The physical act of watching something burn provides closure your brain can witness. It’s complete. It’s done. It’s ash now.
When to use:
- Releasing anger, resentment, or regret
- Letting go of relationships
- Marking endings
- Symbolic death of old identity
Example: “I’m releasing my expectation that my brother will ever acknowledge how he hurt me. I carried this hope for 20 years. I am putting it down now. Not because the hurt did not matter, but because waiting for him to change is costing me my peace.”
RITUAL 2: WATER RELEASE
What you need:
- Paper and pen (preferably dissolvable paper, or regular paper)
- Access to water (river, ocean, lake, even a sink)
- Optional: flowers, stones, or symbolic objects
How it works:
- Write what you’re releasing
- Keep it concise if using dissolvable paper
- Focus on the essence of what you are letting go
- Go to water
- Choose moving water if possible (river, ocean, stream)
- Even a sink or bathtub works
- Speak your release
- Say aloud what you are letting go and why
- Example: “I release my attachment to how this was supposed to go. I accept what is.”
- Release into water
- If dissolvable paper: watch it dissolve
- If regular paper: let it float away or submerge and retrieve later
- If symbolic object: drop a stone or float flowers
- Watch it move away from you
- Stand there until you can no longer see it
- Feel the physical distance increase
Why it works:
Water carries things away. You can see the release happening. It’s not in your hands anymore. It’s moving away from you.
Water also represents flow, cleansing, and natural cycles. Releasing into water connects you to something larger than yourself.
When to use:
- Grief and loss
- Endings that need gentleness
- Releasing control
- Accepting natural cycles
Example: “I am releasing this friendship. It once gave me so much, and now it is run its course. I’m grateful for what it was. I accept that it is over. I release my grip on what I wish it still could be.”
RITUAL 3: THE UNSENT LETTER
What you need:
- Paper and pen (or computer)
- Envelope (optional)
- Time and privacy
How it works:
- Write the letter you will never send
- To a person (living or dead)
- To a past version of yourself
- To a situation or circumstance
- To the universe, god, or whatever you believe in
- Say everything
- Rage, grief, love, confusion, all of it
- Don’t edit. Don’t be nice. Be honest.
- This isn’t for them. It is for you.
- Read it aloud (optional)
- Speak the words into existence
- Hear yourself say what needed saying
- Decide what to do with it
- Burn it (combine with Ritual 1)
- Bury it (combine with Ritual 4)
- Keep it sealed in an envelope (for now or forever)
- Delete it (if digital)
Why it works:
Getting words out of your body and onto paper releases them from circling in your mind. The Zeigarnik effect weakens when you externalize the unfinished.
Writing the letter completes the communication circuit—even if no one receives it. Your brain registers: “I said what needed saying. It is expressed now.”
When to use:
- Things you can’t say to someone (they died, they will not listen, it is unsafe)
- Apologies you can’t make
- Anger you cannot express
- Love that has nowhere to go
Example:
Dear Dad,
I needed you to see me. Not who you wanted me to be, but just me. I spent 30 years trying to become someone you did be proud of, and I still don’t know if you ever really saw me.
I am done waiting for that now. I see myself. That is enough.
I am letting go of the fantasy of the father-daughter relationship I will never have. I am grieving it. And then I am moving forward.
I love you. I forgive you for being human. I forgive myself for hoping you did be different.
Goodbye to what never was.
RITUAL 4: SYMBOLIC BURIAL
What you need:
- Something symbolic (written words, object, photo)
- Soil or a plant pot
- Optional: seed or plant to grow over it
How it works:
- Choose what to bury
- Write it on paper, or
- Choose an object that represents it
- Find your spot
- In your yard, a park, a plant pot on your windowsill
- Somewhere meaningful to you
- Dig a small hole
- Speak what you’re burying as you dig
- “I am burying my regret about…”
- “I am putting to rest my expectation that…”
- Place it in the earth
- Cover it with soil
- Pack it down gently
- Optional: Plant something on top
- A seed, a bulb, a small plant
- Symbolic of growth emerging from what you’re releasing
Why it works:
Burial is about transformation through decomposition. What you are releasing becomes part of the soil that grows something new.
It is physical, embodied, and connects you to earth’s natural cycles of death and rebirth.
When to use:
- Grief that needs containment
- Identity you’re shedding
- Dreams that need proper burial
- Making peace with death (literal or metaphorical)
Example: “I am burying my 25-year-old self’s dream of becoming a professional musician. That dream gave me so much. It is not who I am becoming now. I am planting a seed here, literally and metaphorically, to honor what was and make space for what is next.”
RITUAL 5: WITNESSED SPEAKING
What you need:
- A trusted witness (friend, therapist, coach, partner, or even recording yourself)
- Time and privacy
- Courage
How it works:
- Choose your witness carefully
- Someone who can hold space without fixing, advising, or judging
- Someone safe
- Tell them what you need
- “I need to say something out loud. I don’t need advice or solutions. I just need you to witness me saying this.”
- Speak your truth
- Say the thing you have been carrying
- Say it aloud, in full sentences
- Take your time
- Let yourself be seen
- Feel the vulnerability of saying it
- Feel the relief of it being heard
- Close the ritual
- Thank your witness
- Say: “I have said it now. It is spoken. I am ready to release it.”
Why it works:
Being witnessed is healing in ways solitary rituals are not. When another human hears your truth and doesn’t recoil, it releases shame.
Speaking aloud makes things real in ways thinking or writing does not. Your body hears you speak the truth.
When to use:
- Secrets you have been carrying
- Shame you need to release
- Truths you’ve avoided saying
- Grief that needs companionship
Example:
“I need to say this aloud. I spent my entire 20s trying to become someone impressive, and I don’t even know who I actually am. I am exhausted. I am releasing the performance. I don’t know who I am becoming yet, and I am letting that be okay.”
[Witness responds]: “I hear you. Thank you for trusting me with this.”
RITUAL 6: CREATIVE TRANSFORMATION
What you need:
- Art supplies (any kind: paint, clay, collage materials, music, writing)
- Time
- Willingness to make something “bad”
How it works:
- Choose your medium
- Whatever you are drawn to
- Doesn’t have to be something you are good at
- Create something that represents what you’re releasing
- Abstract or literal
- Messy or detailed
- Bad art is perfect art for this
- Let it be transformative
- You are not making something beautiful
- You are making something that holds what you are releasing
- Decide what to do with it
- Keep it as memorial
- Destroy it as part of release
- Gift it (if appropriate)
- Transform it further
Why it works:
Art externalizes the internal. When you make something physical out of emotional experience, you have taken it out of your body and given it form.
The creative process itself is healing, you are actively transforming pain into something else.
When to use:
- Complex emotions that are hard to name
- Experiences that don’t fit in words
- When other rituals feel too direct
- When you need to create meaning
Example:
“I made a collage of my year using magazine cutouts. It was chaotic and beautiful and sad and hopeful all at once. Then I burned one piece of it—the part representing what I’m leaving behind. I kept the rest in my journal as a reminder that I made it through.”
What to Do After the Ritual
Don’t expect instant relief.
Rituals are not magic spells. They don’t make pain disappear on command.
What they do: Mark a transition. Signal to your nervous system: “We are putting this down now.”
What to Expect:
Immediately after:
- Might feel anticlimatic (“Is that it?”)
- Might feel emotional (tears, relief, exhaustion)
- Might feel nothing yet (that’s okay)
Days/weeks after:
- Moments where the old pattern tries to restart
- Catching yourself: “Oh, I released that”
- Gradual lightening
Months after:
- Realize you have not thought about it in a while
- Notice you are carrying it differently
- Recognition: “The ritual worked. Just slowly.”
The Ongoing Practice:
Closure isn’t one-time. Some things need repeated release.
Signs you might need to repeat the ritual:
- The unfinished feeling returns strongly
- You’re ruminating again
- Your body is carrying tension around it
It’s okay to do a closure ritual more than once.
Think of it like meditation: One session doesn’t fix everything forever. It’s a practice.
Signs You’re Making Progress:
✓ You think about it less often
✓ When you do think about it, there’s less charge
✓ You can hold the memory without spiraling
✓ You’ve created space for something new
✓ The weight feels lighter
Progress isn’t linear. Some days you’ll feel free. Some days you’ll carry it again. That’s not failure—that’s being human.
When Ritual Isn’t Enough
Sometimes you need more than ritual.
If your unfinished business involves:
- Trauma that’s overwhelming
- Grief that’s paralyzing
- Patterns you can’t shift alone
- Safety concerns
Please work with a professional: therapist, grief counselor, trauma specialist.
Rituals complement therapeutic work. They don’t replace it.
There’s no shame in needing support. That’s wisdom.
Final Thoughts: Permission to Grieve Incompleteness
Here’s what no one tells you:
You’re allowed to grieve things that were never fully yours to begin with.
The relationship that almost happened. The career path you didn’t take. The version of yourself that never materialized. The year you thought you’d have.
You’re allowed to miss things that never existed.
And you’re allowed to mark their absence with ritual.
Closure doesn’t mean you stop caring. It means you stop waiting for the past to be different.
It means you choose to put down what you’ve been carrying, not because it wasn’t important, but because your arms are tired and you have other things you want to hold now.
The ritual doesn’t erase what happened. It honors it enough to let it transform.
Your Turn: Choose One Ritual
This week, pick one piece of unfinished business.
Just one.
Ask yourself:
- Is this Type 1, 2, or 3?
- Which ritual feels right for this?
- When will I do it?
Then do it.
Not perfectly. Not when you’re “ready.” Just do it.
Give yourself the gift of marking the transition.
From carrying to releasing.
From waiting to accepting.
From unfinished to complete-enough.
You deserve that.
What’s Next?
I created Year’s End, New Beginning, a complete year-end reflection workbook that includes:
- Prompts to identify your unfinished business
- Guidance for working through what closure looks like for you
- All six rituals from this post (plus variations)
- Space to process before, during, and after
- Quarterly check-ins to revisit what’s been released
Get it here: [link]
Or just choose one ritual from this post and try it this week.
That alone is powerful.
What’s your unfinished business? What ritual are you drawn to? Drop a comment—I’d love to hear what resonates.
Related Posts in This Series:
- Post #1: Why Most Year-End Reflections Fail
- Post #2: The Energy Audit
- Post #3: How to Use AI as a Reflection Partner
This is the final post in the series. Thank you for reading.
RESEARCH/SOURCES
Footnote Reference:
¹ van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Demonstrates how trauma and unfinished emotional business require somatic/embodied practices, not just cognitive processing.
Additional Research to Cite:
- Zeigarnik, B. (1927). “On Finished and Unfinished Tasks” – Original research on incomplete tasks and memory
- Norton, M. I., & Gino, F. (2014). “Rituals Alleviate Grieving for Loved Ones, Lovers, and Lotteries” – Research showing rituals reduce grief
- Brooks, A. W., et al. (2016). “Don’t Stop Believing: Rituals Improve Performance by Decreasing Anxiety” – How rituals work psychologically
