Healing is the first step to building better relationships and better habits.
In any process of personal growth, the first step is defeat. It sounds hopeless, but in reality it is the only way we can truly begin an inner work that will completely transform us into the people we wish to become.
When we are certain that the habits or relationships we are maintaining are not good for us, or are even causing us harm on a physical, mental or emotional level, we must take a huge act of humility and defeat ourselves. That means, recognizing that what we are doing is hurting us, draining us, making us sick and that trying to change it through willpower is possible.
Imagine you have a car that is broken down and you need to get to the top of the mountain, and you cling to push it from the bottom to the top in the hope that at some point it will start to go. This is the compulsive tendency we have to believe that, through sheer willpower, we will eventually change habits and/or relationships that hurt us.
Defeat is exactly the opposite, to defeat ourselves is to recognize that the car does not work and that I will surely never get to the top of that mountain with it.
To defeat ourselves in front of a habit or a relationship is to recognize that we are in a situation that has become almost impossible and that, instead of spending the few mental or emotional resources we have left, we let go, defeat ourselves and focus on letting go. It is about recognizing that what we stubbornly want to change will not change until there is a radical change within ourselves.
That's how this journey began for me, when I wanted to stop putting bandages on the wounds that caused me to engage in self-destructive behaviors or codependent relationships. Instead of wanting to correct the behaviors or the relationship, I let go and focused on healing the wounds that had led me to make those decisions.
The solution is not in wanting to improve the relationship, the solution is in wanting to work on ourselves and see what wounds from the past make you get into those relationships.
We all have a past that determines us, however, to defeat ourselves is to decide to stop responding automatically to that past and take responsibility for building the person we want to be.
Do not seek to modify the habits or relationships that are making you sick, focus on recognizing with great humility what are the emotional patterns that have made you make these decisions, these choices, these self-destructive behaviors.
To want to change them without looking at the root is to want to push the broken car to the top. To defeat ourselves is to recognize that what underlies our behaviors are wounds that have their origin in something deeper. That is why this is always the first step, to recognize, let go and start looking inward.
It is a brave path and yet it is the only real alternative to become the person you want to be. Healing is the first step to build better relationships and better habits.
I can guarantee you that, despite the initial panic to start looking inward, it is the smartest and best thing you can do for yourself and for the people around you. You, in you, only you, become everything you would like to see in the world.
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