Menu

Home
Articles
Letters
Read/Write
South Africa
Games
Privacy
Contact

Finding yourself comes at a cost

People freak out when you start renovating the old you. Finding yourself comes at a cost, however it is always better to be a better you.

HARD WORK

It is very hard work to find yourself while renovating the old version of you. It took me roughly 5 years before my efforts turned into results visible to friends and family. I were determined to find myself through layers of dust and I worked very hard to succeed.

FINDING YOURSELF COMES AT A COST

You loose something to gain something and therefore you have to be willing to let go of things in your life that became an excuse, a burden for not living an authentic life. It might be that you have to let go of some fixed believes or expectations from family or friends. I did indeed loose at least two long term friends when I started my transition to an authentic Amanda.

YOU HAVE CHANGED

When people start noticing the change in you, some may feel threatened, bewildered and gossip will start. Stories will do the rounds about the different new you and it might threaten your new improved you. Some people feed of the misery of others (mostly unknowingly) and they fear that when you change, their whole existence will change too and most people fear change.

MISTAKES

When I started with the process of renovating myself and the way I used to handle things, I worked through Dr. Phil’s Self matters and Life strategies and one of the things he emphasizes a lot is that you need to tell the important people in your life that you are going to make some changes in your life otherwise it will come back to haunt you and cause unnecessary gossip, misunderstanding and hurt to everyone including yourself.

I did not tell anyone and just went ahead and after 3 years the change in me was visible to my loved ones and I found myself isolated. Why? I feared that someone might criticize and even try to stop me.

You do not have to go into detail when you reveal to your people about the process of changing things just that things will change in how you conducted yourself and the new path you intend to take. It could be about leaving your steady job to go to an island living form the land as an example. Not everyone will approve of the big change and that is fine, you will loose people and gain others.

MY STORY

I became a single Mom at age 28 and while bringing up my 2 girls, I depended very much on family and also friends to give me advice and I talked about the difficulties of raising kids on my own. I became dependent on their approval which also lead to criticism and unsolicited advice. I also made the mistake of discussing one child with the other which was horribly wrong.

THE PROCESS

I was constantly seeking everyone’s approval on everything I said, done and decisions I had to make. I realized that my dependency on the above, made me disloyal and untrustworthy of myself so I decided to change things and take control of my life. When I completed working through the Dr. Phil’s books, I took the measures needed to succeed. I stopped cold turkey in discussing my kids with others and each other.

GOING BACK

When people started to see the change in me, their reactions were from despair to vindictiveness to gossip and much of it has to do with the fact that I didn’t sit them down before the process of change were implemented. When the gossip turned into me being isolated, I decided to write a few letters to explain what I have been up to the past 3 years.

MY LIFE NOW

I am in a so much better place in my life now. The only regret I have is that I didn’t tell my loved one’s about my renovating plans for my life.

I now blossom