In order for something to grow, it first has to be pruned. If you’ve ever lived in the south, you’ve seen Crepe Myrtle trees surrounding houses and lining neighborhood streets in cities all over the place. There is nothing more jarring than seeing a Crepe Myrtle in springtime. They prune back those trees so much it’s hard to believe they’ll ever produce growth again.

And yet every year, they come back bigger and more beautiful than ever before. And if they hadn’t been pruned, they’d be weak, scrawny, and more susceptible to damage.

The same is true with us. Good growth requires us to leave parts of ourselves behind. And that leaving can even feel like a death. Because it is!

Growth is painful. It requires conscious removal of the parts of ourselves that we still love but no longer want or need. It’s important to know that even though we may need to leave these parts of ourselves behind, we can still mourn their loss.

You may mourn your former life while anticipating a new, better one. You may feel the loss of a person who was once so important to you that you couldn’t imagine your life without them. You may miss who you once were while still being grateful for all the ways you’ve changed.

This is why Embracing the Darkness is so important.

Things can be good and hard at the same time, and when we pretend they aren’t, we learn to believe our own self-deception.

The sooner, and the more often, we can trust ourselves about when it’s time to move on, knowing it may be painful but still good, the easier it will be to step into the life meant for us.

Here’s what I mean…

How much of your life was chosen for you? The younger you are, the less control you’ve probably had over your own life. In the culture I grew up in, it was expected to attend college after high school graduation. I knew many girls who blindly followed their mom or sister’s footsteps by joining the same sorority. I knew young men who, it was assumed, would take over their father’s business. I remember growing up, being at a friend’s house, going through old photos - there was a photo of my friend as a kid in a dress up wedding gown. Her mom said, “I’ve been saving that for your rehearsal dinner one day.”

I know women who save their kids’ clothes/toys for their future grandchildren. The expectation, without it being directly said is, get married and have kids. Today I see kindergarten kids wearing their parent’s alma mater t-shirt. In some cultures, women don’t have much say over their lives regardless of their age. Maybe you know what I mean. There’s a difference between cheering for a school your parents love because you love your parents, and never considering attending another college because you’re afraid of disappointing your parents or never being given the space to explore a different option.

But when we let go of the life we fell into (or were shoved into,) we get to experience agency for the first time.

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Think of how many things are just chosen for us.

Each choice that takes a step toward a life we choose for ourselves requires letting go of an old way of living and blindly jumping into a new normal.

With each choice, there is a small death. A letting go of a story that although I didn’t want, felt familiar and safe. And growth meant going into unknown territory.

And here’s the hard truth:

Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing.

What I know for sure is that making a choice and taking action brings clarity. You WILL end up knowing if that choice was good for you or not. There is no wrong decision. If it gives you clarity, that’s a win. You can always course correct, but how will you know unless you take action?

It’s easy to believe life can never get better when we feel like we have no choices. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a privilege to have those choices.

I believe why so many people are depressed is because they are so fearful of making the “wrong” decision, the “wrong” move that they become stuck.

They paralyze themselves. Energy has to move. It can’t stay stuck. Think of water. Water has to flow. If it sits still, it becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes. That’s a miserable way to live.

Remember, fear is the absolute lowest frequency of energy. This is one of my favorite stories about fear from one of my all time favorite writers, Elizabeth Gilbert:

Dearest Fear,
“Creativity and I are about to go on a road trip together. I understand you’ll be joining us, because you always do. I do acknowledge that you believe you have an important job to do in my life, and that you take your job seriously. So, by all means, keep doing your job, if you feel you must. But I will also be doing my job on this road trip, which is to work hard and stay focused. And creativity will be doing its job, which is to remain stimulating and inspiring. There’s plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us, so make yourself at home, but understand this: Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. I recognize and respect that you are part of this family, and so I will never exclude you from our activities, but still, your suggestions will never be followed. You’re allowed to have a seat, and you’re allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote. You’re not allowed to touch the roadmaps; you’re not allowed to suggest detours; and you’re not allowed to fiddle with the temperature. Dude, you’re not even allowed to touch the radio. But above all else, my dear old familiar friend, you are absolutely forbidden to drive.”

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So what does it look like when what you have to let go of isn’t just a way of life but a person.

Sometimes our souls are ready for us to let go of someone before our ego is. Our subconscious mind is ready to make a change before we know it’s needed.

Oftentimes this will show up as someone “ghosting” us.

Definition: Ghosting — when someone cuts off all communication without explanation — extends to all things, it seems. Most of us think about it in the context of digital departure: a friend not responding to a text, or worse, a lover, but it happens across all social circumstances and it's tied to the way we view the world.

I used to be devastated when someone would ghost me. Until I identified my core lesson and began healing the symptoms. Today, if someone cuts off communication suddenly or doesn’t respond to me as frequently as they once did, I remember this:

This has nothing to do with them. They did not ghost me. This is my soul showing me that it doesn’t want their energy around me. Because of this shift, ghosting leads only to gratitude.

When it comes to people, a word I choose to embrace is surrender. It feels gentler to me than letting go. It feels more soul-aligned. It feels more sacred.

Learning to embrace surrendering and allowing has been one of the most beautiful lessons I learned during my time in the deep dark.

When we trust our reaction to people, we practice radical self love and self trust. That is what we mean when we say selfcare. Honoring your needs above others’ desires. Self care like that rarely feels easy. But it is a gift.

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If you risk losing something because you’re honest about your needs, you have to ask if that’s something worth having. If you set a boundary and someone seeks to punish you for it, it’s time to ask what they were gaining by their manipulation of you.

Speaking your truth will almost never feel easy, so if that’s what you’re waiting for, don’t hold your breath. It will never feel like the right time. There is no “right time.” There is simply time and what you choose to do with it. It may not even feel like peace at first. But over time, when the initial shock wears off, you will reap the benefits of keeping a promise you made to yourself. You’re either choosing to move forward and grow, or you’re choosing to avoid and stay stuck.

People who repeatedly disrespect you are, on some level, asking that you let them go.

- Phil Good

Establishing your boundaries may trigger someone else, but that’s their responsibility to uncover and prune, not yours.

And as someone who always felt responsible for other people's emotions and as someone who never wanted to be alone and deeply feared the trauma of abandonment, I tried with all of my being to save Brian and save our marriage.

But I’ve learned that you can’t chase away someone’s demons by loving them more. And you can’t fight demons on someone’s behalf. You can support them, love them, be their friend, be their companion, but until they face down those demons for themselves, until they conqueror them, they will never fully understand the gift that you were or the gift you could have been had you ever been able to fight side by side.

You can’t heal someone else. Healing is a solo journey.

You can read more about this in my Uncovering Divine Femininity series, but the best thing you can do is work on you.

Find your light. Shine it bright. Maybe that light will be a guiding light for them to do their own work. Maybe it won’t. They aren’t your responsibility. You are.

And when you go on this journey back to yourself, your true self, the people around you might wonder why you’ve changed. Why you’re being “selfish” or “difficult.” You don’t have to explain or defend yourself. You don’t need permission or approval.

You just need to honor yourself and make peace with the pain of letting go. It’s one of the only things we’re guaranteed in this life. So cozy on up to it. It’ll teach you, if you’ll let it.

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Want to know some of the things I’ve had to personally let go of and the issues it’s caused with the people around me, as well as some practical tools for how to let go, like my favorite meditations, affirmations, and steps to purposefully letting go? I’d invite you to my Path Back to You course, a more interactive and purposeful processing of these topics where I invite you into the practice of letting go, not just the theory. Click here to learn more.