I’ve recently been hearing a lot of chatter from people about their inability or avoidance of letting people go. Whether this be from grief of a loss (death or end of relationship, both the same really), or from realizing the toxicity of a relationship (friendship/romantic/familial). So I really wanted to talk about this issue today.
I’ll begin by saying that we, as humans, will always grow out of situations and relationships as we progress through this human experience on Earth. This is natural and normal and not to be feared or avoided. Sometimes our personal growth requires an acceptance or acquiescence of knowing that in order to continue to elevate, we have to drop dead weight. Baggage. Sometimes this baggage comes in the form of a person who is weighing us down or sucking our life force (Qi) (Remember those Qi vampires I warned about in a previous blog? If not…review.)
Just remember: if we are to follow our own path, we have to rid ourselves of anything (or anyone) who is holding us back from our full potential. So, how do we identify these people?
- They have caused you trauma or abuse, repeatedly (one-timers get a pass)
- They continually drain your Qi (leave you feeling depleted of energy)
- They take advantage of you, take you for granted, or cause you pain often
- They question your desire to elevate yourself in any way (it leaves you less time to focus on them)
Whenever we make a decision to do something good for ourselves, whether it be regular self-care, taking a vacation, changing careers, quitting bad habits, seeking new relationships (just to name a few); we will naturally lose people. Realize that these people we shed were meant to be in our lives for a purpose – but that purpose was always temporary. Think about what they taught you. Think about where you’re leaving them, and understand that you’re going places those people aren’t invited to. That’s not supposed to sound snotty; it’s just real talk.
Going back to my post on Qi Vampires, I see looking back all the reasons why what happened to me years ago with my so-called “best friends” breaking up with me, ghosting me really, and never telling me why, was actually several blessings in disguise. I went from YEARS of being with those friends almost daily. You know those kinds of friends that you could go shopping for because you know all their sizes and preferences? That was us. But we ALL were going nowhere special, that’s just facts. I was making bank at Boeing during my pregnancy but that was a contracting job and I knew it had a shelf life. Besides, it wasn’t what I went to school for or even what I enjoyed doing. Everyone else was working some type of what I call “Joe Job”…something anyone could do. It’s cool; we were in our 20’s after all, but my pregnancy shook me to the core. I had come to the realization that at age 27 it was time to GROW UP. A few of us had our babies at the same time and I may be repeating myself here, but it disgusted me the kind of things that my friends were doing with these infants. Feeding them junk food in their high chair. Letting them crawl around on a dirty carpet. Mildly entertaining them while we adults played cards or sat around watching mindless reality TV.
I knew something was wrong. I just couldn’t voice it. I began to pull away, to become more independent, to start saying “no” to dates, to stop talking shit on people, to take better care of myself. I was in grad school and I made that choice when I was pregnant, to show my kid better, to show my daughter there are no excuses for not excelling: even if you’re a pregnant single mother (solo mother, actually). And I was met with a deafening, resounding silence and acquiescence from those besties. I’ll admit freely…it hurt. Bad. Especially that people I had been friends with for many years could just ghost me and straight up refuse to give me any explanation whatsoever. Even though I had been drifting away, ultimately it still felt like a rejection of our entire relationships. I felt “not enough”, a common plaguing issue among my clients.
It took years to come to terms with the fact that it was just another circumstance of evolutionary connections. It wasn’t me. Or at least it wasn’t personal. They chose to handle an eroding situation with methods that I could not fathom doing to someone I cared about. Hell, I even had problems blocking people on social media, so far out of the way I went to avoid those incidents. But that was the choice that they made, individually and collectively, and it was the right choice for them. It was an appropriate lesson for me, as well.
To make any sort of transformation, you have to make the unfamiliar familiar, and vice versa. What had been familiar to me was to take rejection personally, to overanalyze every situation and dissect exactly how I could have done things differently to produce a different result. To mourn relationship transitions far too long, allowing the pain to fester and create resentments. In order to transform, I made those responses unfamiliar. Now what is familiar to me is added measures of compassion and disconnect in equal servings. To allow things to be what they are, without feeling the need to box them in or categorize them to anything other than a stepping stone. To recognize that I learned something from the relationship that will allow me to grow, and give me an opportunity to change my mindset and attitude from a shifted perspective.
The result of this journey hasn’t been easy to achieve, but I can assure you it’s been well worth the work. Why?
Because now I attract true Tribe – people who live on higher energy vibrations, people with integrity at their core, like-minded and like-hearted, who live in service of a greater good. These are by no means perfect people, but they’re *my* people. And I could not have attracted them into my life, or strengthened my bonds with them, while I was still living in that old, outdated headspace that expected people to leave, to disappoint me, even to use me or harm me. That was no way to live. And yet I’m grateful that I had the experiences that I did, the heartbreaks and the heartaches. Because they taught me how to elevate myself. And this is a very beautiful place to be.
How long will it take you to let go of attachments, LET GO, and elevate? Talk to me if you need help doing that. I offer a phenomenally powerful cord-cutting component in my sessions. Let me help you to let go and experience ultimate freedom.
