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  It is ok to be intimidated by this process because change can be scary. Just remember, change can have tremendous benefits as well.

  Chapter Four

  Changing

  Change is inevitable to growth. It can also be terrifying. Culture teaches us to “commit” to our decisions. “Don’t give up.” There is implicit shame tied up in quitting a job or getting a divorce, because it’s considered “weak” to not stick it out. Something that I have observed, both in my personal life as well as a clinician, is many times people who are the most fearful of change, project that fear on others in the form of shameful judgment. A client of mine was going through a divorce and was on amicable terms with her soon to be ex-husband. Her issue she wanted to discuss with me was dealing with her parents. They had been married for over 40 years. “They hate each other,” she told me with a chuckle. “I wish they would have divorced when we were kids. It sure would have made things better for everyone.” Her mother thought that she was ‘sinning’ in divorcing her husband and expressed severe judgment of my client regarding her divorce. “My mother never took the time to seek out an education or explore her own interests. She was too scared to. So, she married my father and made his life a living hell. My dad was no saint, mind you. He cheated on my mother throughout the years and you would have thought that my mom appreciated the fact that he made her the victim in the relationship. It’s really twisted. I think my mom is jealous of my ability to leave my marriage. I have a successful career and I’m still young enough to find a new relationship if I want to. I think my mom is projecting her own regret upon me for the way her life panned out.” I agreed with my client.

  The things that we find comfort in are the things that we are most familiar with. If you look around you will notice there are many people who stay in questionable situations, simply because they are familiar. Some folks would argue that the most terrifying thing for anyone to experience is the unknown. It’s probably the reason why many of us fear death. It’s also a big reason why it is vital to be present in the moment. However, once you’ve become present in the moment and you’ve started to do some critical thinking, you will notice there are needs to be met and changes to be made in order for you to attain purpose and fulfillment in healthy and functional ways. I seek and desire to find joy in my life, not just a simple homeostasis and neutrality. Granted, a lot of us exist only to pay bills and stay out of the focus of other people. When you take a moment to think about this, you must ask the question, “Is this really the way I want to live?” So, when you embark upon an adventure of life fulfilling evolution, ultimately you will have to make some necessary changes.

  Friends, lovers, jobs, and family situations are all examples of some heavy emotional work that will have to be done in order to live your authentic life. Initiating the first step on this journey, you must acknowledge that the goal is to find your authentic, joy-filled, and purpose driven life. Your joy will undoubtedly offend, terrify, and confuse many people in your life. Much like my client’s mother, she projected her own deeply rooted regret for not taking more initiative in her own life and was harshly judging her daughter for doing so. Can you think of anyone in your life who would potentially feel scorn towards you for making changes in your life?

  This is totally OK, even though it may not feel that way at first. You may be harshly judged for taking the initiative to find a sense of fulfillment for yourself. Why do people find these actions so counterintuitive? The truth is, many of us feel either unqualified, undeserving, or overall not worth embarking upon this type of an evolution. When we see other people seeking to improve and to actualize themselves in their own spiritual and emotional growth, it can be quite off-putting to the person who does not understand this. Not to judge them, but it is a simple, reaction-based thinking. The only thing you can do in this process is smile and allow them to feel the way they feel. You can send out good energy in a positive sense of gratitude, but part of the evolutionary process is to understand that you cannot accept their energy as your own. My client knew that her mother would be a speedbump in the divorce process, but instead of allowing her mother’s judgment to give her pause, she merely refused to accept her negative energy into her emotional head space.

  There is a huge amount of willful intent that is necessary to fully embrace your growth and recovery.

  When you decide to make some changes in your life, you will undoubtedly notice that your relationships with certain people will start to change. Perhaps you notice you are engaging with these people less and less. You must do your own personal inventory on these relationships to determine what they’re worth is to you. Is it more of a drain to you emotionally to maintain and hold space for this person in your life? If so, it might be best to simply cut ties and move forward in your life and your journey, all while wishing them the best. If you’ve pulled away from this person and they mean something to you, but they simply do not grasp or understand your journey, then perhaps a conversation should take place.

  Space is always good. Taking space and time for yourself, particularly in these relationships where you have embedded yourself to a degree of self-involvement that is unhealthy or dysfunctional for you, then perhaps you must have a conversation with these people. Ultimately, if these people are loyal and well-intended, they will understand that you need to regroup and grow. There are relationships that are absolutely worth saving, but at the same time, you must realize that if you are pouring more out of your pitcher into their cup, then you might want to step back and focus on refilling your own pitcher for a while.

  The relationships that are an emotional drain are usually the ones that are most contentious, but at the same time, are often the easiest ones to let go of. There’s almost always no emotional attachment to these relationships because of their drain on you and your energy. Ironically, the fear of a confrontation is typically the reason these individuals have access to your emotional energy stores, simply because you don’t want to have a confrontation.

  Did you know there are worse things in the world than getting into a shouting match with someone who doesn’t respect you and repeatedly fails to hold space for what you need from the relationship? True, confrontation can be uncomfortable and, socially speaking, is counter-intuitive to any relationship, but sometimes it’s unavoidable when enforcing boundaries and refusing to tolerate toxic behaviors.

  You have the right to do it anyway.

  Making the decision to release individuals from your life is not necessarily a positive experience nor one that you do as a first resort, but once you’ve exhausted other options and have made the decision, it is one you should do wholeheartedly, with positive intent for them to secure their own place in a positive space in the future. Regardless, whether positive or negative, their response to your actions is irrelevant to your journey. While you may elect to part ways and wish a person good positive energy on their own life journey, you must remember that your goal is to achieve recovery and wellness in your own life without further depleting your energies in parasitic relationships. Let them go when it is time. Only you will be able to determine when that time is. Change like this is difficult, but is often necessary.

  Familial relationships are a little trickier to maneuver. There is a cultural implication that because of a blood relation, you are somehow connected to that individual for the duration of your life, regardless of the level of toxicity it brings to your life. While it may seem controversial, it is not necessary to maintain any harmful relationship. The same goes for family relationships that go with friendships that have always been toxic. Perhaps those relationships were not always toxic ,but then evolved into a negative place. Again, resorting back to the chapter on boundaries, we hold the responsibility to ensure we are not tolerating behaviors that are inappropriate and toxic. Not only do we have to protect ourselves, but we must hold a protective space for our children and our partners. So, if you have a toxic relationship with a family member, it
is up to you to decide on how to mitigate that. If you feel comfortable having a conversation with that individual, then that might be the route to go. However, typically in toxic situations, more often than not, the toxic family member is not going to receive your message in a positive way nor will they respond in the way you asked for them to. Toxicity is the result of their own trauma and their own unresolved issues. Remember, their response to your choices is not part of your journey. Only you can make the determination on how to move forward. Some people may feel ok with consistently reminding the toxic individual of the rules regarding how to engage with you. Toxic people tend to be triggered by the enforcement of boundaries. The trauma response and fear based emotional thinking is engaged before rational thought can be expected. This is OK. Remember, you are gravitating towards a new role and a new space for your life. Joy has no time for toxicity. The only issues we can positively affect are our own. We cannot change the way other people treat us. We can only choose to decide on what we will and will not tolerate. We can release these relationships without anger or hatred. We release these relationships in a positive frame of mind and wish these individuals well. Expressing gratitude for having known them and having had the opportunity to engage with them will only fast-track your growth and wellness. Our wellness depends upon our willingness to enforce these boundaries. We get to decide who has access to us. If a person doesn’t treat you with love and kindness, then do you continue to allow them to participate in your life? It’s ok to be fed-up. In fact, it is healthy to get to a place where you are willing and able to say, “no more.”

  Changing how we live can manifest in many ways. We can decide that we want to eat healthier, exercise more, and stop abusing drugs and alcohol. We can also decide to give up on trying to improve our lives for the better. We can be influenced by the effects of those individuals in our lives, as well as the influence of mental struggles, such as depression and anxiety. For anyone who has ever struggled with mental illness, they understand all too well the calling of drugs and alcohol to make the pain go away, if only for a little while. Sometimes food is used as a coping mechanism to just “get through the day”. Nicotine is another form of coping that people use. Everyone who uses something to pacify whatever adverse condition in their life knows the long-term effects are considered unhealthy, so why do they keep doing it? It’s easy to understand the benefits of adopting a healthy lifestyle. It’s harder to implement. Afterall, if a smoker were to give up cigarettes, how would they mitigate stress and anxiety? Additionally, would the smoker be able to conduct a thorough personal inventory to identify the causes of stress and anxiety? It’s not likely, which is why it seems easier to maintain the status quo, no matter how unhealthy it is in the long run.

  Fear of failing when someone decides to quit smoking or lose weight is another barrier to change. Why bother if it won’t lead to success? Why is the overweight person overweight to begin with? Is it a sedentary lifestyle? Is it unhealthy food choices? Is it both, perhaps? Maybe the overweight person believes that because everyone in their family is overweight, it’s more of a genetic issue, therefore reinforcing the expectation of failing to lose the weight and keep it off. There are endless reasons people avoid change. It’s important to be able to identify the worthiness of the individual who is attempting to make a change. If a smoker wants to quit smoking, then it’s key for that person to stop smoking because they believe that they deserve to be healthy and they deserve to be able to lead a smoke free lifestyle. A smoker needs to believe that they deserve to better understand the reasons they started smoking to begin with. Anyone attempting to make changes should identify their own value first and understand that they deserve to try to change. They deserve the opportunity to fail and try again without judgment and blame.

  Amazing things happen when we simply believe that we are worthy of amazing things.

  You deserve amazing things because you are amazing.

  Chapter Five

  Clarity

  When you think about your life and where you’ve been and how far you’ve come, do you ever find yourself feeling regretful, or even ashamed, of some of the decisions that you’ve made? The truth is, that we have all grown from our experiences and had it not been for our experiences, we simply would not be where we are today. We grow and we learn. It is not fair to use a present-day lens built with life wisdom to view decisions made in the past, when we did not possess that wisdom. Can you imagine being a 45-year-old woman thinking back on a time when she was 9 years old and drove her bicycle off the side of a rocky ledge and ended up breaking her bike and her wrist? Imagine that 45-year-old woman imparting the life wisdom gained over the years to judge the 9-year-old self. It happens all the time, but it’s not something that we consciously take care and consideration to avoid. The 9-year-old child does not deserve to be judged harshly through a 45-year-old viewpoint. The 9-year-old only knows what they have accumulated in 9 years of life. While unfortunate, the 9-year-old made a choice and learned from it. It’s that simple.

  We tend to be critical and unfair to ourselves in ways we would never imagine treating anyone else. Culture teaches us that we owe more to others than to ourselves, mostly out of the demonstration of this behavior by caregivers during childhood and adolescence. We see others acting this way, and as a result, adopt the same ideals; right or wrong. It is a part of who we are and nothing more. While we may feel a little silly thinking back on the decisions we’ve made, whether those decisions were a type of vehicle we purchased or even someone we dated much longer than we should have, we end up needing these experiences in order to grow and be the people we are today. I use many of my own life experiences in this book, and as such, I’m certain that many of them will color the dialogue that I choose to share with you. Authenticity is another chapter which details how critical it is to become the best version of yourself. In order to be authentic, we must accept our past and our past decisions as a part of who we are today. Judgment and blame are not only not necessary in this process, they are irrelevant to healing and growth. We must fully embrace who we used to be in order to fully understand what we were and to provide the clarity we need in becoming the best version of ourselves today. All human beings are inherently fallible. Making mistakes is part of the fabric of the human experience.

  Mistakes are not indicative of a person’s character. They are merely a part of life.

  Sometimes I find myself disclosing my own personal experiences with my clients not only as a measure of commonality and connection to build the rapport that is necessary, but to also validate their feelings of discomfort in relating to past choices. While this isn’t an approach that all therapists subscribe to it is something that I feel is crucial in building the kind of support I feel is necessary to help others. The biggest fear we all have in this life is lack of connection to others. When a person seeks mental health help, they are already in a vulnerable space. It is my belief that my role in this is to provide as much safety as possible for my client to heal. I can also volunteer that I derive both personal and professional satisfaction out of being able to provide the support necessary to create the fertile foundation for healing for my clients. In my own journey to wellness and clarity, I can detail many instances where I experienced personal growth. For example, I can recall with specific detail the reasons I had in joining the military. I can tell you without hesitation, it had nothing to do with a sense of patriotic duty to my nation (see chapter on cultural influences), but instead my growing desire to isolate a path for my own future. However, my journey to be a part of the military did not begin with my enlistment into the Air Force. My original plan was to marry a military man and have him take me out of Alabama as far away as possible. The schemas that I had at the time were influenced by my family, my social circles and southern cultural rules. As a woman, it was frowned upon for me to serve in the military. No one actually said it to my face (besides an ignorant, elderly great aunt who expressed disdain for my lif
e choices, I digress). Many folks who had been employed as laborers in the factory where I worked were confused as to why I would “give up” my life of operating an automated commercial sewing machine by joining the military, when I could easily just get married and start a family. The irony in all of this was it was my original plan to do just that, prior to deciding to enlist in the Air Force. However, my ex-boyfriend had other plans and extricated himself from my life. So, plan A wasn’t going to work to get me out of Alabama.

  On to plan B.

  As my luck would have it, I had been out of high school for three years and did not have any long-term plans for my future, financial or otherwise. My boyfriend of one year broke up with me, causing me to lose my plans for my future. When I say lost, I mean he chose to end the relationship. Looking back on my situation in third person, I see a young woman setting her claws into an unsuspecting young man who was trying to figure out his own life. I see a young woman so insecure and broken experiencing wholeness for the first time in her life. She felt pretty and accepted. She felt loved. As a result, she abandoned any sense of opinion and as a measure of maintaining this relationship she subscribed to any opinion or desire of her boyfriend. Looking back, I can remember how the relationship was the first time I’d ever felt like I was going to be “ok”. It wasn’t even on my conscious mind to consider having an opinion on anything. The only thing I ever wanted from my boyfriend was for him to marry me and take me out of Alabama, far away from my life, my fears, and my deeply rooted pain. Bear in mind, I can now reflect on who I was and the commonality in my life choices, but at the time to me in my young unwise and scattered and traumatized mindset, was utterly clueless to the interconnectedness of all these events. I can clearly see now, how my behavior placed a tremendous amount of pressure on my boyfriend who was simply not ready to get married. He broke up with me over the phone and the depth of pain I felt resonates with me to this day, though I now understand it. I now have empathy for my then boyfriend, as a woman who has evolved and experienced tremendous personal growth and healing. Back then, however, I could only feel fury. I did everything I was supposed to do as a girlfriend in the relationship and, yet, it still wasn’t enough. When he broke up with me, it triggered my deeply rooted belief that I was not lovable. That metastasized into a level of anger I was not prepared for. What I didn’t understand at the time was that my hostility towards my now ex-boyfriend played a pivotal role in my newfound strength and confidence in joining the military. In the tenure of our relationship and with my need to maintain his happiness and my own sense of safety, I ignored his personal judgments and culturally insensitive comments about women and minorities. I did not agree with him, but I loved him and wanted nothing more than to make him happy. So, I ignored his racist and sexist commentary. Off and on during the relationship, he had made several statements regarding his personal devaluation of women in military service. Because he provided a sense of safety, both financially as well as a dysfunctional sense of emotional safety, I acquiesced to his opinions regarding women in service. Afterall, if he had agreed to marry me then he would essentially have been “saving me” and I should be grateful to him for that. When he terminated the relationship, I contemplated his previous comments about women in the