Two steps forward, one step back. I fell into some old habits recently. I couldn’t make myself focus on writing, reading, or really doing anything that resembled a routine consisting of adult responsibilities. Instead, I distracted myself with activities that didn’t feel good and attention from sources that didn’t make me feel anything. I believe in astrology and how the movement of the cosmos affects our moods, luck, success, love, etc. I attribute a decent amount of my numbing and distracting to the partial solar eclipse and new moon on 9/21 and the Fall equinox on 9/22. The events on 9/21 impacted my relationships and partnerships and centered around releasing old patterns. So naturally, I embraced them instead.
I’ve had some unsavory habits in relationships—perfectionism, people-pleasing, codependent-adjacent behaviors. A lot of these habits are a result of how I grew up. Feeling like I needed to earn love, be perfect to be loved, be needed to be loved, chase love or else what’s the point of winning love. I gamified love for most of my adult life, and I was pretty good at playing. This applied to friendships, jobs, and romantic relationships. I got most of the jobs I really wanted, I had the friendships I wanted, I had the experiences I wanted, and I had relationships with most of the guys I wanted. I think I was addicted to the adrenaline of it, but it’s not a fun game for me to play anymore. I’d actually like to fall in love and experience what it’s like to build a life with someone, but that doesn’t mean the adrenaline addiction has left my system.
For as much work as I’ve done reparenting myself—developing self-respect, self-worth, self-compassion, and self-love—I still have these other behaviors inside me. I believe we all have a duality inside of us, but it’s about learning how to consistently manage myself through those triggers. Letting them happen without acting on them. Making better choices. Emotional maturity. I’ve been doing this work so that I can make better choices in relationships, and then the universe made it even more clear that it was time to fully release my old habits.
It triggered the little girl inside me. These habits have been like a security blanket. They’ve kept her safe for a really long time, but as an adult they’re making it nearly impossible to attract the relationships I want for myself. Instead, I attract relationships from that wounded self, and then those people and circumstances unknowingly confirm everything that little girl believes to be true about herself (I’m not enough, I’m not worthy, I’m unlovable).
Releasing my patterns requires me to start showing up as myself—consistently—in relationships, work, and every other area of my life. This can be scary for a girl who has spent most of her life shape-shifting. My instinct is to worry about the “what if’s”. What if people don’t like me? What if I’m actually a loser? What if being my authentic self gets me nowhere? On the flip side I’m also like… who cares. At least I won’t be exhausted from trying to be a mind-reader and change who I am depending on who I’m with. Also, maybe it’s alright to feel like a loser sometimes. Maybe it’s alright to feel insecure sometimes. Maybe it’s alright to not be liked by everyone. Maybe I don’t need to get anywhere because I’m exactly where I need to be.
I’d like to think of this rendezvous with my old habits as a last hurrah, but I can’t be sure. What if instead of being a last hurrah, I acknowledge, accept, and integrate them so that I won’t feel like I’m losing part of myself. Maybe if I don’t resist they won’t persist.
