The Death of My Old Self

Why I’ve been away for a while…

It felt as if it happened in one moment, like I woke up one day and things were just different, I was just different. We all know that nothing happens overnight, you don’t wake up and suddenly have the life that you’ve dreamt of, that person you’ve longed for, that perfect body, etc.

But there are moments, where all the hard work starts to show and things start falling into place, and suddenly but not so suddenly, It’s all different.

That’s what has happened to me.

Like many or most of us, 2021 was up there as one of the most challenging years of my life. Just about everything fell apart: jobs, finances, friendships, dreams… In every area, I was faced with having to choose myself and fight for my boundaries and worth. It was a year of constant death and grief, important and necessary death and grief.

At the beginning of 2021 I had this dream:

I was running through a field barefoot and I came across a thicket of tall weeds, I stopped and almost went around, but decided to run through them instead. When I got to the other side of the weeds a huge Phoenix flew right up to me and looked me dead in the eyes. I felt like I was looking at myself.

After that dream, it seemed I hit a large thicket of weeds in my life, painful ones. They pulled at my skin as I made my way through, running at moments, and at other times a slow crawl. But I kept going, and it kept tearing at me.

The weeds were demanding something of me, and nothing felt safe or untouchable in my life anymore.

I took it all as it came, learning it’s easier if I put my fists down and stop fighting it all.

The end of the year came, and I was never happier to see a year be finished. But before it was, I had a dream of the Phoenix again:

I was walking down a dark street at night, alone. I saw this large figure to the left of me, I didn’t know what it was, but I walked right up to it. There was a blanket covering it, and when I got close it lifted its head, it was the Phoenix. The feathers were gone and its eyes were sunken, I was looking at myself once again.

I had been facing different kinds of deaths all year long and I knew I finally reached the end of it. The last two weeks of 2021 and the first two weeks of 2022 were the worst of it.

I felt worse than I had felt all year, lost in the darkness again, doubting it all.

And then it all came together, the phoenix dreams, the death, the grief, the letting go…

The weeds were demanding my old self, my old life, and I had been giving it.

Everything that was “taken” from me, was every place that I was still allowing old thoughts, old patterns, old wounds, old toxic behaviors, to still exist.

That old self needed to die so that I could get to where I am today. In a place so unfamiliar I thought I was far away from myself. But I’m not far away from myself, I only feel far away from myself because I am no longer who I was, and who I was is the most familiar place I know.

I am not far away from myself, I am unfamiliar with who I am now, and where I am now.

I think previously I would have run back to the weeds to feel something more familiar, but not this time.

It’s hard to wrap my head around it. It’s weird to look down at my hands, feet, and body and see that they’re the same but somehow they look different. Somehow they’re safer than they were before, somehow they’re more beautiful than they were before, somehow they’re more loving than they were before.

The narrative has shifted.

Our narratives decide our lives. Whatever narrative we are loyal to, we will bend to. If we are loyal to a narrative that says we are undeserving of love and happiness, then we will push away love and happiness especially when we feel it. We will find the evidence for what the narrative says, and we will allow ourselves to be undeserving even when love finds its way to us.

There’s nothing wrong with us when we do this, the narrative we allow serves a purpose for us that we feel we need. And we will choose that purpose over good things if the narrative doesn’t allow for the good things.

Does your narrative allow for good things?

Mine didn’t for a long time. My narrative didn’t allow me to truly forgive, trust, believe in goodness, receive fully. It didn’t allow for healthy romantic relationships, family, true joy, dreams, or hope.

My narrative allowed for woe is me, bitterness, unworthiness, being unloveable, being paranoid and suspicious, only surviving, isolation, self-sabotage, doubt, etc.

And anything that didn’t line up with my narrative, was pushed out.

I couldn’t understand how I wasn’t broken because my narrative said I was. I couldn’t understand how people wanted to hear what I had to say or read what I had to write because my narrative said I wasn’t heard or seen. I couldn’t understand how friends loved and cared about me because my narrative said love is abuse in a mask and they only want something from you. I couldn’t understand how to dream because my narrative said you only have nightmares.

The first time I noticed this was this one morning that I woke up and smiled. I genuinely felt happy for whatever reason, and I heard my narrative: “You’re not a happy person, you’re anxious.” And you guessed it, I was suddenly anxious.

The rest of the day I paid attention to this, which feelings or experiences do I welcome, and which feelings or experiences do I push away?

Not what comes to me, but what do I accept?

It was shocking, it all showed up, but I did not accept it all because my narrative didn’t allow it.

That was when my narrative started to shift, it was another death of my old self that the weeds demanded. I gave it up over and over again, I had to because it never leaves fully in one go.

Fast forward to now, I’m in a new place within myself, hearing a new narrative. A narrative where love is welcome, forgiveness is welcome, acceptance is welcome, and healing is welcome.

Suddenly I have the urge to have fun, not because I’m hiding from pain, but simply having fun for funs sake. That’s new.

Forgiveness is abundant and it released me from the need to be wounded and hurting. Being wounded and hurting served a great purpose in my life for a long time, an important one. But I no longer need these wounds to prove that I matter anymore. Now healed serves a greater purpose than hurt. That’s new.

There’s so much love and acceptance now, that the protective woman in me that was my greatest ally is now at peace and the things that hurt me before have been put to rest. Love within myself is no longer blocked, and it can be fully present in my life. I’m excited for love instead of afraid of it. That’s new.

I am not under the impression that death is no more, the struggle is no more, suffering is no more, etc. Such is life.

It is simply that I am no longer looking for the dark to “prove” that the light was a “lie.” I understand now that there is no dark without the light and no light without the dark. We must welcome this balance, it serves an important purpose.

It’s not about what shows up in your life, it’s about what you welcome.

It felt like it happened in an instant, but it was the slow and steady small moments that made it possible.

Keep going, you’re making it possible right now.

With love,

Sarah.