Stepping into transformation has opened the door to a whole new world. I have experienced change throughout my life, but not like this. This transformation journey has created massive changes in short periods of time and they feel abrupt.
I wish I would have known a little bit more when I first started my transformation journey. Here are nine things that come to mind now that I don’t feel like I grasped completely when I first started out.
The longer I allow something to affect me, the longer it’ll take to get through it.
I am in control of the time it takes to recover from everything. I noticed that I was avoiding feelings because I didn’t want to cry in certain situations. I’ve always been an emotional person and I was always told not to cry because it would trigger my asthma. As an adult, I learned how to manage my asthma and can tell when an asthma attack is coming. When I avoided my feelings, I would experience situations or events that would eventually make me feel my feelings. Then I word-vomited everything that was on my mind without paying attention to how it would affect the people around me.
I am at a place now where I can tell when I need to feel the feelings that need to be felt and I can distance myself to allow myself space to feel. I’ve noticed that the feelings aren’t as strong when I feel them right away. I’m also able to process them and get back to a happy state faster than if I just let them brew.
The moral of the story, feel your feelings as they come up and process them right away so you don’t become a soda bottle all shaken up and ready to explode.
“Friends” will be revealed.
When we begin to shed the old layers of who we used to be, we begin to reveal our true colors. We meet people at different stages of our lives and oftentimes, when we shed that version of ourselves, we also shed the friendships that came with it. For example, in high school, we connect with certain people. Then when we graduate and go our separate ways, we lose connection with those people. High school was one period of our life. Every day we are growing and evolving to become who we were meant to be. Connections are meant for us in certain phases. When we’ve completed that phase, we also complete that connection. If you’re struggling with someone complaining because “you’ve changed,” I share my advice for dealing with them here.
There will also be people that stay in our lives for long periods of time. We can go months and sometimes even years without talking, but when we meet up again, it’s like we never spent a moment away from each other. I like to call those people my soul sisters because it’s like our souls stay connected when our physical bodies are separated.
Don’t get so caught up in who is or isn’t in your life. There is a reason for every connection and disconnection. Keep living your life the way you want and enjoy the connections you have now.
Your life will change drastically.
When we see our past experiences in a new way, it opens our eyes to what was and is now possible for us. We see our true potential because we understand what it took to get through what we went through. We begin to harness this power and become the most courageous version of ourselves. The opinions of others don’t get to persuade our decisions. We’re no longer worried about the time it’ll take to get where we’re going. We’re no longer trying to change the past and instead focusing on all the amazing things coming our way. This creates HUGE shifts. It accelerates healing and growth in new ways. It feels like a rollercoaster. There are really fun times and some not-so-fun times. Embrace every moment in the present. You’ll never have this moment again.
Be okay with not being okay during transformation.
There will be days when you feel like the whole world is against you. Sometimes, you won’t want to get out of bed. Other times, you will have little to no energy. It’s okay. It’s important to pay attention to your needs.
If you need to rest, cry or scream, do it.
What do you feel like you need to do? Listen and act. The more you listen to your body and take action, the more flow you will create and it’ll allow you to process what you’re feeling. There will be a day when your low moments are few and far between because you are truly healing. Slow down, but never stop.
Resistance will show up and it’s okay to sit down for a bit.
As I just mentioned, slow down, but never stop. If life feels too heavy or you feel like you can not take one more step forward, sit down, take a breather, and reflect on where you’ve been. What have you accomplished? What have you survived? When we start living life the way we want, resistance will show up to see if we were serious. How you handle resistance determines what will happen next. Will you make a shift or will you give up completely? Transformation is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time and allow yourself a moment or two to rest.
Distractions delay healing.
This was the most difficult reality for me. When I started my healing journey, I was an alcoholic. I used alcohol to drown out the pain. The more I dug up, the more I drank. It felt good at the moment until I pushed past my limit and spent the night with my face in a toilet. I woke up most mornings with a hangover because I didn’t drink until after 5pm. While drinking, I experienced many emotional outbursts. Many time, I fought with multiple people because our emotions were high and we had no filter.
I used social media and shows to avoid the voices in my head. The negative thoughts flooded my mind when I sat in silence so I avoided it as much as possible. I knew if I wanted to experience the effects of transformation, I had to get really uncomfortable and sit in silence to dump every thought out of my mind so I could figure out what my subconscious was trying to tell me.
When I chose sobriety, I experienced emotions and pain at a new level. I spent weeks crying about what I had experienced. I spent a lot of time grieving the loss of connections. The longer I processed the hard stuff, the less it affected me. During a retreat in November 2021, I went up to speak to the attendees and I took a kleenex in case I had an emotional breakdown. Not a single tear came through. I had healed that part of me.
Essential self-care is a necessity.
First, let’s be clear, self-care is whatever you need to do to fill your cup. It can be anything. For me, it’s laying in a very hot bath with calming music playing. I sink down in the tub and put my ears underwater. The only thing I can hear is the music. Why is it important? It’s important because avoiding what makes us happy leads to burnout.
Self-care can be participating in your favorite sport or hiking in nature. It’s the act of taking your mind off of work long enough to rejuvenate your brain space.
Process your feelings completely.
Are you seeing a pattern here? Your feelings and emotions are the most crucial aspect of transformation. Here I want to overemphasize how important it is to feel through your feelings. If you’re in the middle of a breakdown and someone asks if you’re okay and you respond with, “I’m fine,” and you dry your tears or stop feeling your feelings, you are cutting it short and delaying the healing process. You will more than likely stub your toe on the table later and be reminded of those feelings that you didn’t process. It’s okay to pause your feelings, but I can assure you it’s much easier at the moment before they build up too much and cause even more pain.
Work on the root.
There is a root to every problem. Sometimes it’s difficult to see on our own and we need someone to ask us the difficult questions. For example, I’m an adult who struggled with being alone. Anytime I was alone, I would get a stomach ache and my neck would hurt. I reached out to my coach to figure out how to work through it. I gave her a quick default response that I gave every time. She pointed it out and it made my wheels spin. Why was I giving a default response?
I was avoiding the true reason why I hated being alone. It went all the way back to when I was five and I witnessed my dad physically abusing my mom. I was alone and I felt helpless. I was scared and couldn’t do anything. When I was able to see the root cause of my issue, I was able to remove the negative feelings. Now, I am able to sit alone because I understand that I am safe now.
Transformation isn’t something that happens over night, and it’s worth it to stick with it. Looking back at the last four years of my life, I’m grateful that I was supported in my transformation and had a place to share my thoughts! I have created so much more in my life because I cleared my mind often.
If you’re new to transformation and need a space for support, join us in my free private community on Facebook.