exercise · all tools
Authentic Goodbye
One person lies on the floor, still and eyes closed, standing in for a relationship or a part of the other person that has ended; the other says what they are letting go of and completes the stems — what I will miss, what I won't, what I wanted to say, how my life is different without you — then says goodbye, and only then brings their partner back and thanks them for holding it. Adapted from a break-up ritual in the book Make-Up Don't Break-Up; the manual advises choosing something you are over in your head but not yet in your heart.
Prerequisites
- Something the participant is 'cognitively over but not emotionally over' — the manual's own criterion, which also rules out fresh loss
- This is grief work in fifteen minutes: the manual's de-roling step (bringing the partner up from the floor, thanking them) is structural, not a courtesy, and must never be skipped for time
- Whoever lies still is holding a projection of someone else's loss and gets no words until the end; the manual notes this is 'especially powerful' in threes, which also gives the still partner a witness
Practical
- Time
- 15-30 min
- Group
- 2–∞ · pairs, triads, small-group
- Settings
- in-person
- Mechanisms
- ritual-container, emotional-processing, narrative-identity
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- authrev.org/ar-games-manual — Authentic Relating Games Manual, paid
- Availability
- In the source document — the instructions live inside the material linked, on its terms
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0 (Authentic Relating Games Manual)
Source link checked 31 Aug 2026 — unchanged since we recorded it on 29 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Introduced to the AR community by Becky Kangas (Austin); based on a goodbye ritual in Make-Up Don't Break-Up — Ritual from couples therapy; carried into Authentic Relating (Authentic Relating Games Manual, 2025 edition)
In this directory via Authentic Relating Games Manual
status: checked · added 2026-08-31