The journey of self-awareness and healing evokes enormous transformation, but with this transformation comes the required release of relationships, environments, and activities that you once connected with.
- Navigating Change: Embracing growth means releasing the past and accepting that friends, family members, partners, and environments may no longer align.
- Embracing Solitude: Isolation is necessary. It can feel scary to let go of relationship but you must trust that you will find stronger and deeper connections elsewhere.
- Empowering Choices: Walking away from toxicity empowers you to prioritize your own self.
When you start to become aware of yourself, you grow.
When you heal and release the past, you change.
When you grow and change, things that used to align with you no longer will.
On your journey of self-awareness and healing, you will have to accept letting go of the people, places, and activities that no longer resonate with you. This transition will be lonely and isolating. Your whole world, to which you once clung to, will naturally fall away. It's at this point that you will feel the most alone in this in-between place, as old friendships and connections slip away, and you have yet to connect to people who align to your new, higher vibration.
Some of your closest friends, family members, and loved ones may no longer resonate with you. Instead of feeling uplifted or excited around them, you will feel drained and disappointed. It's eye opening and terrifying at the same time. There will be a part of you that wants to hold on, but there will be a bigger part of you that wants to let go. Not only will you start to recognize that you no longer align on the things that once connected you with these people, but you'll also start to recognize how poorly the people around you have treated you, and you'll recognize wounding within them. You won't let people get away with disrespecting you due to their lack of self-awareness because your newfound self-respect and self-love will no longer allow you to stay in toxic relationships and environments.
This is the part of healing and growing that isn't talked about enough. The realization that you need to walk away from people and things that once brought you some sort of safety, love, and joy is a confusing and challenging part of the process. It's an additional curveball on top of the already very confusing and challenging aspects of healing.
This place in your healing journey is not something that happens within a week or two, it could be months or even years down the road. It comes on its own time.
I had heard about this phase happening and was, in a sense, anticipating it's arrival. Within the first 6 months of working on myself I felt like I had done so much – I had realized so much about myself, and I had spent so much time focusing on my inner world – yet I felt like maybe I did everything wrong because, to me, it seemed like I hadn't changed and nothing in my external world had changed. Fast forward to over a year later and EVERYTHING has changed.
This change feels like it happened all of a sudden for me, but this is what I didn't realize:
When I was going through this very dark period of my life, just trying to survive and heal, I had to isolate. This is something we all need to do when healing. You need this time alone to sit with yourself and become aware of your past, your inner world, your mind, your actions, and your self-harming ways. It is natural to isolate, so don't fool yourself into think it's a bad thing. The worst thing you can do when going through something traumatic or painful is to distract yourself and suppress your pain with people, places, and things. What I wish someone had told me was that you are not going to be in a position to see the growth and changes within you until you are ready to reintegrate into society. You will see the differences within you, specifically your reactions and actions, once you are surrounded by people and experiences that will test you.
Throughout the first year of my healing and awakening journey, I would meet up with friends maybe once a month, but for the most part I didn't want to be around anyone. It was too painful being around people while trying to hide my pain. I was in a constant state of anxiety and on the verge of tears at any moment. Trying to suppress those feelings over hours and hours was so incredibly challenging for me. I knew isolating was the best thing, and since I was isolating, I felt like I was doing all this inner work and yet didn't have any opportunities to see the changes within me. But as I started to reintegrate myself into society I could see how much I had changed – and HOLY have I changed.
My reactions are different. My actions towards myself and others are different. The way I speak to myself and others is very different. My internal dialogue is different. How I allow people to treat me is different, and how I treat myself is also very different. I have no fear of walking away, of saying no, of doing what is right for me. Boundaries that I didn't consciously think about or decide upon have manifested very naturally (and will for you too)! As you start to embody self-love, compassion, and self-worth, you will naturally walk away from people and situations that do not respect you.
With all of these beautiful changes and unreal revelations that I'm so proud of, comes that challenging realization that I no longer align with many friends or family members. I've entered a phase where I no longer feel connected to many people in my life. Instead, I feel used, I feel disrespected, I feel drained, I feel angry, and I feel sad to walk away, but I also know it is the right thing to do for my own happiness and self-respect.
This does not mean I do not love them. I have unconditional love for everyone (that's the essence of being souls in this human experience – to love and understand we are all one). However, holding unconditional love for people does not mean letting them walk all over you or cause you pain. You can walk away from energy that no longer aligns with you and let it all go.
We are all on different paths, we all have things that we have to learn, and we all have growth to experience in our own divine timing. You are ALLOWED to grow beyond your current friends, family, and romantic partnerships. You're actually EMPOWERED to do so by the universe. This is why life is full of ebbs and flows. The ebbs are pushing you to expand and change. Not everyone is meant to be in your life forever. If people and activities no longer feed your soul, congratulations, you're raising your vibration, you're learning, you're growing!
Welcome to the next chapter in your journey!