Changing Ourselves Is Heroic
Last December, I hit a threshold with a pattern in my life, one that I had been aware of for years, one that I had done massive amounts of therapy, trauma work, journaling, analysing, somatic experiencing, and damn near anything else you can think of to stop bumping up against it. Things would get better for a little bit as my brain and body would entertain the healing, and I would feel clear and connected to the high of an expansion that always ended up being temporary.
The shift was impermanent because I wasn’t integrating the foundation of what needed to shift. And that’s because the one thing I hadn’t done—the one thing I had tried to subvert and shortcut and avoid—was actually change my BEHAVIOR. I desperately wanted my awareness and exploration to be enough. I did not want to have to act differently, because it meant that everything would change. Even though I knew I could not go on another second of my life living in that pattern, the thought of everything changing felt terrifying.
But nothing changes if nothing changes, so I started choosing differently. I started acting differently. And it felt confusing and disorienting and clumsy, and it was fucking hard. So hard that I felt foolish for not anticipating it, even though it was clearly why I had put off doing it for so long.
I was confessing this to my dear friend Juliet one night, and she said to me, “You know babe, it is nothing short of heroic when we commit to change.”
Her words opened an immediate well of self-compassion. She was right.
This happens when we’re being called to change the way we live, ways that are for the nourishment of our highest good but that ask us to abandon comforts that have held steadfast for our entire journey. We are being called to admit we want a different career. We are asked to leave or restructure a relationship. We are backed into a corner of shifting the way we spend money, the way we indulge in pleasure, the way we communicate. Our bodies request we change our diets and the way we move, and suddenly we have to break emotional attachments to things and habits that have created ritual in our lives so deeply that we do not know who we are without them.
I thought about all of the times I’ve witnessed loved ones and clients navigate this tipping point, the vulnerable wells of giddy trepidation and cellular fear that are palpable when someone finally decides to take that leap. The moments of holding someone through the inevitable resistance and grief that is ceremonious to this space, the moments when everything is begging to abort and reverse course, and being able to celebrate the precipitous expansion and growth that follows—it is awe-inspiring.
It is HEROIC.
What is that thing that has been knocking at your door? What is the whisper in your life that is slowly becoming a scream? What dynamics and relationships are feeling like a pair of shoes two sizes too small for you?
If you are navigating this sacred ground, here are a few suggestions for holding yourself:
Unleash your truth. Often times we avoid admitting our desires and our truth out of fear that we will be forced to do something about it—and the idea of that is paralyzing. You do not have to do a damn thing you don’t want to, especially in regards to the paths you choose in your own life. But stuffing what is true for you, not giving it a voice, creates stagnation in our energy. It is suffocating. Write it down, tell a friend, say it aloud to yourself in the mirror.
Get curious. Curiosity is the antidote to fear, and fear is the thing that keeps us stuck, that tells us we are ridiculous for thinking we deserve different or, heaven forbid, better. Curiosity allows us to dwell in imagination and possibility, and the practice of curiosity allows our bodies to tell us precisely where we need love and gentle coaxing.
Build your team. I can’t think of a single truth I have tuned into, a relationship I have moved on from, a business idea I have birthed, or a pattern I have shifted that did not beg for the deep nourishment of having a support system. A friend to listen, a therapist to make sense of things, a bodyworker to help me go deep, a shaman to hold me in ceremony, or a coach to guide me through the parts where I wanted to turn around and run back to where I was. There are droves of people in this world dying to support you and guide you and teach you and hold you. You deserve to not do this alone, and you deserve to be celebrated and cherished while doing it.
Happy Hero-ing, lovebugs.