Shedding Beliefs

You know that feeling when you’ve made a large internal shift?

The kind of shift where you’ve faced up to a reality you’ve been avoiding. One that you’ve contributed to by avoiding it.

Where you’ve realized your needs aren’t being met because you’ve been convinced you don’t deserve to ask for what you need.

Essential, spirit-level needs.

Yeah, that kind of shift.

That’s where I am today.

I thought it would feel different. Better. Freeing.

But I’m weepy and full of sadness.

I guess maybe I’m sad for the Me I’ve been ignoring all this time, the Me who’s so tired.

Disappointed in the Me who allowed it to go on so long.

Worried that the consequences of course-correcting might mean things will get worse before they get better.

It takes deep heart-work to look at what we believe, and really question whether those beliefs are our own. Or if they’re just beliefs that “attached” to us from other people.

There’s a part of me, too, who’s baffled at what a vast disconnection I’ve had from my own heart. Not that that’s news to me, but it’s like uncovering a whole new layer of it.

Surely keeping connected might have avoided some of this? (And that, in turn, leaves me wondering why Staying Connected to Your Heart isn’t taught in school. But that’s a soapbox for another day.)

Maybe what I’m feeling is a disorientation caused by the crumbling of some core beliefs I didn’t even realize I had. But now I’ve seen that they’re there, and I don’t want or need them anymore.

Without question, this is a good thing. Yet, it’s all so new. I’m in that tender, raw place of weeding out the old before the new is firmly planted.

Even by writing this, I can feel the shifting continue.

The heavy despair is starting to dissolve, and I can offer love and compassion to both the tired Me and the Me who believed my role in life didn’t include being supported.