We can’t just go and get rid of the one thing we want and then move on

What if we believed we could afford to relax?

What if we trusted that we had plenty of time to all the things we wanted to do?

Maybe we wouldn’t have to keep pushing ourselves beyond our natural capacity, and we could actually be present in this world that so many people take for granted.

My realization of this truth showed up on the day of my retirement. The time had come for me to walk away from entrepreneurship, aka, the unmanageable workaholic mindset that had become toxic to myself and others.

In the spirit of twelve step recovery, I created a fearless moral inventory of myself, specifically by writing a ten page letter of resignation to myself.

This document was an admission to me, to the universe, to my wife, to some trusted friends and family, the exact nature of my wrongs.

The whole experience was euphoric. Felt like being in the womb. For the first time in over a decade, there was a part of me that was finally resting. My body knew it was time to live in a new way, still doing the work that I was sent here to do, but from a place of love rather than fear.

But to my surprise, that inventory was only the beginning of my healing journey. Turns out, we can’t just go and get rid of the one thing we want and then move on. There are always layers.

To quote my therapist, it took your body a long time to get this way, and it’s going to take a long time to come out of it.

That’s the hardest part about any journey of recovery. Whatever dysfunctional habits we’re sobering up from, we can’t just clean up in a day, week, month or year. Hell, it might take multiple years.

Because there are so many other things underneath the core issue that require attention.

Reminds me of the popular study from the journal of social psychology about habit formation. Researchers showed that the time it took participants to break their habits ranged from eighteen to two hundred and fifty days, which indicates considerable variation in how long it takes people to reach their limit of automaticity.

Proving, that there’s a lot for our minds and bodies to unlearn. We have worn the groove of habit into our character, carving into our life over and over by repetition.

And so, it’s crucial that we’re patient and forgiving along our healing journey. As we figure out how to successfully unfuck ourselves, we have to take it one whatever at a time, having faith that eventually we’ll arrive at a place of wholeness.

And in the meantime, digging deep into ourselves to find the broken parts, seeing what kinds of love we might use to fill the cracks.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How long has your journey towards wholeness taken so far?