Confessions of a witch girl: forgive thy self

Self forgiveness has been, and continues to be, one of my most difficult lessons. I am not sure if it is my Virgo rising perfectionism that makes this so difficult, or the remnants of unhealed childhood patterning… but the ability to forgive myself does not come easily to me.

I find myself in a self-depricating pattern of destruction, rebuilding, and then destruction again that I long to remove myself from.

I spend weeks/months building myself up, committing to healthy processes, routines, and goals, only to find myself in a moment of weakness repeating painful patterns of self destruction once more. What is this? What toxic trait is this? How common is it? From what I can tell through both my life experience, friends’ life experiences, and family behaviours- it appears to be perhaps the most common of all the patterns expressed by human beings.

But why?

One could argue this is simply habitual, and more healthy habits need to be placed in stead of the depricating ones.

One could suggest that this stems from a deep rooted trauma that only cognitive behavioral therapy, meditative states, and meeting rooms can help heal.

I am not sure the answer but I am sure of this. I’m tired of it.

I’m tired of the patterns that haunt my life, and the darkness that follows. I’m not sure if I am more exhausted by the patterns themselves, or my response to them. One way or another, however, it is time for them to change.

Just as the ‘last 5lbs’ are the hardest too lose, so too are the deepest hidden patternings within ourselves that prevent us from truly making that last push to fully shift in to the next stage of our lives. This pattern of rebuild and destroy, is my last 5lbs.

I had the thought this morning that the way I am approaching removing this from myself is not working. I clearly do not know what I need to do to remove this pattern from myself, because if I did then I would have by now. I continue this circular storm of the same behaviors, so now it is time to try something new.

So my next step is to fully embody a new behavior cycle as well as enviornment. It is time to stop pretending that I am stronger than my triggers. I am not. If one cannot be stronger than their enviornment, one must remove themselves from that environment until they can be. If they never can be, then they must ask themselves ‘what is more important? This enviornment or my goals/dreams that being in this enviornment will cost me.’ How do you know that it will cost you? Because it always HAS.

We make up stories that ‘this time will be different’ and then we go back down the rabbit hole, only to wake up shocked and horrified that it was not in fact different at all. It was exactly the same. When something presents itself that we know will take us out of our power- we must regain our power by choosing not to go down that familiar pathway, towards our familiar patterns.

We cannot be perfect. Perfection is not the goal. To strive for perfection is equally as self deprecating as our toxic cycles. So what do we do?

We need to conciously uncover what it is we are gaining from these experiences. What do our toxic cycles give us in return? Human beings do not partake in behaviors that do not have a reward. There is a reward behind every decision made. Sometimes the reward is removing yourself from your responsibilities. Sometimes that reward is just to be numb.

But then let me ask you this? Are you living a life you need to be numb to live? I ask myself this question every time I find myself in the upswing of my downswing. When I am finally starting to crawl my way out of the hole I spent the weekend digging… why did I partake in something I knew would make me feel awful? What do I need to escape that badly? We need to stop numbing in the moment to escape something and we need to explore it, heal it, and move on.

Not every behavior that someone else may deem ‘toxic’ or ‘avoidant’ may actually be toxic and avoidant for YOU. It is your relationship with it that creates that toxicity. If you find yourself partaking in a behaviour over and over again, only receiving the same exact result, a result you HATE, then this is a toxic cycle. You are numbing, whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not.

So it’s time for the deep dive. What are you will to sacrifice for your own toxicity? What goals are you willing to accept you will never reach if you continue on in this pattern that has you gripped in its claws? Sometimes the only way we can truly make a change is to take full responsibility for our behaviors and acknowledge that how we have been doing something never worked, and is still not working. Time to change. When we remove our patterns from our lives we are left with an emptiness of sorts, a space to explore ourselves. A place to uncover what we are numbing, destroying, or hiding from?

Life is not fully balanced at all times. Things are black and white somtimes. You can have anything you want, but you must be willing to pay the price to get it.