There are a lot of articles, influencers, and people talking about the rise of people cutting off family members.

And as the forgiveness, love, compassion guy, you may think I’m anti-cutting people off, which actually isn’t true. I have had to cut people off, and I know that a lot of people are struggling with it.

It’s one of the hardest things in most people’s lives — this idea of wanting someone so badly to understand us, to evolve, to see things differently, to understand the hurt they’ve caused, and to change.

We cherish family. I don’t think it’s easy for anybody who is in a situation where they’ve had to cut someone off. We all would prefer to get along, to have a big, loving, supportive family. And for so many people, that just isn’t the reality.

When You Truly Need to Leave

Here’s my take on cutting people off.

When you truly need to cut someone off, there is usually no debate. There is no wondering. There is a clear knowing that I’m not safe. My peace is not safe. My life or well-being is not safe.

This person can cause tremendous harm, and your body is screaming that it needs to get away. Your mind is screaming too, and there is an alignment within you.

Now maybe there is fear. Maybe there is abuse talking. Maybe there is that conditioning that makes us doubt and second-guess ourselves.

So often with abuse comes the message: It’s your fault. You brought this on yourself.

And because of that, we start believing that we are the broken ones, that we somehow deserved the mistreatment.

But when we truly need to cut someone out, and we can sit with ourselves in some calmness and clarity, we can begin to unravel where these voices are coming from.

We can begin to see whether it is our highest self trying to protect us, our wounded self wanting to lash out, or the manipulation of another person clouding our judgment.

When there is stillness in the body and some stillness in our life, that stillness can begin to translate inward.

Don’t Give Them Power Over You

What we want to avoid, when and if we cut someone out, is doing it in a way that still gives them power over us.

If thinking about them drives us crazy, if we have to move cities, avoid places, stop listening to our favorite band, or constantly change our life because everything reminds us of them, then we are not healing. We are avoiding something within ourselves.

And whenever something reminds us of them, it triggers a flood of painful emotions, thoughts, and memories that completely disrupt our inner peace.

So before cutting someone off — or even after already doing it — the practice becomes letting them go internally.

Not avoiding them mentally, but truly releasing them.

We can think about cutting someone off as letting them be free and letting ourselves be free.

They may change. They may not. But we can still leave with love.

We can leave them with wisdom, with honesty, with parting words that may someday help them grow and understand the harm they caused.

At different points in life, we all have to leave certain people in order to become who we are meant to be. So why not point them toward a better path before taking a different road ourselves?

Why leave carrying bitterness, resentment, or emotional baggage?

The Difference Between Boundaries and Avoidance

The ego can sometimes get carried away. It can want to cut out everybody we disagree with.

And if we cut people out because we blame them for our emotional state or for all of our suffering, eventually we will end up completely alone.

Once we start looking inward and developing a practice of presence, we naturally begin to understand who nourishes our lives and who drains us.

We naturally spend more time with people who support our growth and less time with people who pull us away from peace.

And often, that alone is enough.

We do not always need dramatic endings or declarations. We don’t have to officially cut people out of our lives, but we also do not have to give everyone unlimited access to our time, energy, and peace.

Cutting someone off is a huge decision, and it is a painful one — for us and often for them. It should be reserved for people who are truly abusive, cruel, remorseless, unpredictable, or deeply harmful.

Not simply for people who disagree with us politically, religiously, or ideologically.

We all live inside different information bubbles. We all go down different ideological paths. But those differences do not always determine how two human beings are capable of treating each other.

Sometimes, maintaining difficult relationships is exactly what helps bridge those divides.

It helps people realize the world is not as divided and frightening as they imagined.

The Power of Human Connection

I always think about that beautiful man, Daryl Davis, an African-American man who befriended members of the Ku Klux Klan and ended up receiving over a hundred robes from former members because they changed through connection and conversation.

He treated them with compassion. He listened to them. And through friendship, many of them came to realize that Black people are human beings worthy of dignity and equality, and that they themselves had been deeply conditioned and misled.

These are the exact kinds of people most would assume should immediately be cut off forever. And yet the power of connection, communication, and two opposing worldviews peacefully coexisting became a force for transformation.

If someone can build bridges even there, then perhaps many of us can still maintain peace with family members we simply get too heated with during holidays or disagreements.

Similarly, many of us have family members who struggle with mental illness or emotional instability.

They may be unpredictable. They may be unkind at times. But because we recognize their suffering, we continue trying to love them through it. We look beyond their difficult moments because we know there is a deeper person underneath.

Sometimes this happens late in life when people lose memory, become confused, or grow angry from fear and disorientation. And we respond with patience because we understand what is happening.

But one of the hardest truths in life is that there are also forms of suffering and dysfunction that are never officially diagnosed.

There is no diagnosis for cruelty. No diagnosis for chronic bitterness, hatred, selfishness, or emotional thoughtlessness. And yet many people suffer deeply from these conditions. It affects their relationships, their work, their peace, and the lives of the people around them.

We often assume that because someone does not have a diagnosis, their mind works the same way ours does. But that is not always true. When someone repeatedly behaves in harmful, irrational, cruel, or deeply selfish ways, we can recognize that there is suffering and dysfunction there, even without a medical label.

And the more we understand that different people have different levels of awareness, emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and psychological health, the less personally we begin to take their behavior. Understanding creates distance from emotional reactivity.

Leaving With Love

So even if we have to cut someone out, we can still do it with love.

We can do it without trying to hurt them back.

We can do it while hoping that one day they find peace, wisdom, healing, and understanding.

We all have the capacity to grow and learn, though for some people the path is far more difficult. And perhaps we can simply feel grateful that we have the awareness, influences, and willingness to cultivate mindfulness and compassion within ourselves. Because the more we embody those qualities, the more we help others embody them too.