breaking up with "you"
What does it take for you to end an unhealthy relationship with someone you’re deeply connected to? --usually distress or heartbreak that appears to be bigger than the relationship itself. In order to motivate you to let go and say goodbye to a relationship you know and have invested in so deeply, the injury or revelation has to be seriously compelling.
And this my friends, is the function of the “Oh my god, how did I ever find myself here?!” plot twists of your story. Not necessarily to affect your relationships with others (although that may happen secondarily), but to allow for radical growth in your relationship to yourself.
We spend the first decades of our lives largely crafting ourselves into characters that we think will make us lovable, who will be worthy and who will keep us safe from danger. Through a number of influences we (mostly unconsciously) write a very detailed rulebook of what this person can and cannot do, as well as who this person can and cannot be.
Somewhere in our 30s or 40s we start to get this nagging feeling that we are missing something. That all of this rule writing and crowd following and staying between the lines didn’t yield the feeling of wholeness and connectedness we desperately craved all along.
Some people are brave enough to respond to this call as soon as it starts to whisper, but most of us resist it. We believe that we are safer inside our detailed plans, so we hear the call of our souls for change and then cover our ears, recommitting to the status quo our carefully crafted personalities feel identified with.
The thing is, the soul is persistent. If we disregard its cries it will cry louder and louder and louder. It will start to set off alarms: relationships will come into crisis, jobs will become unstable, we will make choices that shock us and catch our deliberate personas entirely off guard…
Our unconscious will seem to collude against the creation of our characters. It will do so in bigger and more outrageous ways until we finally create so much discomfort within ourselves, that there seems to be no other way than to break up with any parts of ourselves that serve no other function than to surreptitiously keep us small under the guise of keeping us safe.
It is only in this level of distress and heartache that we find the nerve to abandon what we have always believed were the versions of us that made us worthy or lovable for the truth of our souls and our authentic greatness.
Don’t fear your messy turns and disorganized chapters. Let these seemingly terrifying stories liberate you to begin to live the most meaningful, empowered and soulful rest of your life.
Dearest You,
Discomfort aims to break the rules you’ve written for life that surreptitiously keep you small under the guise of keeping you safe.
Love,
Me
