Show up for yourself!

How many times have you let the wants of others eclipse the needs of you? How many times have you chosen to stay with something, without caring for your own pain, just so you don’t hurt someone else? I tend to struggle with this more often than I’d like to admit. It’s easier to shrink into something you’re not just so you feel accepted by those around you or fabricate words of truth for the comfort of others. It’s much more arduous to walk away from something when it doesn’t serve you any longer, when it doesn’t align with you who are anymore. Invariably at some point, the burden of being what or who you are not becomes an indomitable task to carry on. The insurmountable debt of all the lies you tell yourself begins to suffocate you. 

Perhaps the discomfort of embracing who you are is, in fact, of greater service than the pain of being enchained by the illusion of someone else. The thought of walking away from something in this moment - something that no longer serves you - might be gut-wrenching but quite insignificant compared to the monumental grief it might bring in the future. Trading a little heartache now is worth the unbridled joy you would create for yourself. 
​
So, walk away from that which no longer brings you joy. Take up the space you need, speak the words you want, and extend to yourself the compassion you so easily show to others. Show up as yourself, for yourself - not as who you think someone else would want you to be. It’s not selfish — it’s self-preservation, it’s self-healing.

-d.h.