perspective shift

There is freedom in letting go, obviously; so how hard can it be to let go of a past version of yourself that no longer serves you? I long outgrew this body yet keep attempting to shove myself into places I knew I didn't belong in, and ways of being I hated existing as. I was constantly scared of showing my own light, I put out my own fire before I even got it sparking.

The first step before any form of growth is always letting go; because it is shedding everything that you were and no longer want to be. Make room for what you are trying to step into, clear space for room to grow, room to glow. The process of coming to terms with what could have been and accepting what is, the process of seeing my missed opportunities and having to take them as lessons instead. It is also realizing that some doors aren't just sitting open but are waiting for you to answer the knocking to see that the door of opportunity is open; because you have to realize you are your own opportunity.

In order to move forward with life, we have to let go and trust fall into the experience.

My ego likes to be five steps ahead and rarely is patient; I have a bad habit of thinking negatively and acting impulsively and rashly to try to get where I want to be. I constantly assume any sign I get is that I am doing something wrong or I am immediately wondering what it is that the universe is warning me against or advising me that I am failing. I fail to realize that I create my own spiral of bad experiences when I can't even for a second be present in the moment for myself because I'd rather focus on how badly I THINK I am executing my plans rather than be proud of where I am compared to where I came from.

My whole life has been one big trauma response, I have always let my trauma have the biggest voice in my life during my healing. Unlearning all of what holds me back has been a struggle, listening to my own intuition has proven to be the most difficult thing next to letting go. My intuition is what is supposed to be leading me yet my trauma grabs the reigns each time and screams about the fear of the past and how I need a second opinion to tell me I am wrong never right.

At times I find myself listening more to my trauma than my intuition. Listening to what others think of my life rather than what I KNOW about myself and my life. I convince myself that everyone and everything knows me better than I do, yet that has always been my biggest pet peeve, we all know in reality it is that they want control over your life not the best for your life.

Personally, I find it hard to let go because I still so desperately want to wait for the impossible moment where I invent my own time machine to fix everything I junked up from before to lead me to a better now. Rather than focusing on the present moment and making my present better in the power of now, I am stuck on the fact that somehow I have to fix the past before I can live in this present moment happily. As if fixing the past is what makes me deserving of a better future.

Unfortunately, through the path of resistance, I have learned that while our future is not set in stone our past is. There is no changing what has already happened there is only embracing the now and taking control of what our future can look like or what our present moment looks and feels like.

Truly the only thing holding me back is my inability to live in the present. My ego gets so stuck on the fact that the past wasn't perfect and how could I have messed up that many times how could I have continued the cycle this many times and not have just broken it? I am constantly finding myself in a cycle of thinking I am being punished; which is my trauma response. I sit in a victimized state, a deer in headlights.

I am constantly hung up on something rather than setting up and getting into gear for something new. The term ' being hung up on something ' has always been kind of symbolic for me. quite literally I am hung up by noose waiting for the chair to be kicked out from under me and simply end this all instead.

I am the judge, jury, and executioner yet never the lawyer for myself fighting to see what I am worth, whether I am even guilty of any crimes committed. We accept our fate before we even think about how to change it or whether or not WE decided our fate or allowed someone else to decide it for us and we simply go with the flow even if that flow was a raging river we knew we should have turned back from.

I knew I was allowing others to decide my fate for me.

My expectations for life weren't based on my current reality or my own personal desires. I have been basing them on the past and my mistakes and how my actions can fix my problems rather than lead me to live my best life. I've been living in the past of my life, setting myself up to try to recreate the past but perfectly this time. That simply is just not going to happen, especially when each time I think of my past I keep wondering what it is that I am trying so hard to recreate rather than building something different as I have always said I would do.

Moving forward seems like it should be simple especially when what you are moving on from is bad times. How can there be so much comfort in bad times that we choose to stay? It has always been an internal struggle for me to move on and experience different. Yet we are always being placed in positions to experience different from what you have already been through, yet we constantly keep settling for mediocre within ourselves because we are fearful of what we could achieve if we were strong or stronger, OR at times I feel a sense of shame within me because while I am different now I mourn for the time I wasn't and at times that mourning feels more like shaming.

It is okay to not be okay. I have had to learn that this goes along with letting go. I realized it was much easier to gain control by letting it go, I stopped and realized I was focusing more on a to-do list rather than an I want to list. I have to do this, and I have to accomplish this, my life was nothing but a checklist.

letting go gets easier when you surrender to the thought of releasing your expectations and you stop searching for excuses on why the past could have been better and just focus on putting one foot in front of the other, count your blessings and start making this present moment better with what you learned from being miserable in the past.

Personally, the reason letting go is so hard was because I was constantly looking for something physical to let go of, a person, a place, situation, a workplace, etc. rather than look at all the personal habits, emotions, and inner turmoil that wasn't physical but it was still something I had to let go of. The metaphysical is always harder to release than the physical. I always found it easy to tell people to get out of my life or to ghost a situation or job that I felt wasn't good to me but how do I tell myself to get out of my life? How do I leave myself for a better me? I cannot step out of my skin and into a new one.

The second reason is because of our shame, the mourning of "I could have been better" or "I could be somewhere else in life if only I hadn't been this way or done this or taken this job or befriended this person." I tried so hard to find an external force to not blame myself for my own life and the actions I chose but, letting go and moving forward has nothing to do with blame and everything to do with accountability and having the confidence backed by the capability to move forward.

the way we receive control is similar to how a kid only wants to do something when they're told they can't. The universe tells us we can have control once we stop wanting it, once you stop trying to control everything you will realize the control in letting things fall into place for you was the act of letting go of everything you were holding on to.

You let go to fall into place.

I refused to let go for so long because that would require me to look at myself for all that I am and tell myself that it was okay, even if it wasn't it has to be in order for me to learn and apply the lessons. forgiveness is self-given and it has taken me a long time to come to terms with that because I so desperately want someone to grant me the permission to live happily and truly live my truth how I want. It is fighting the concept of why am I not enough, why is my approval not enough for myself because it is the only approval that will set me free.