ITS OK TO WALK AWAY
As we continue this journey of things we need to unlearn we need to remind ourselves that it’s ok to be wrong, it’s just not ok to stay there. We must learn to do things differently. We must learn that sometimes it’s ok to WALK AWAY.
I grew up in a very supportive household. Both my mother and father were in the home. They both had full time jobs and they still made time for me and my sister to be involved in extracurricular activities. They always made us believe we could do anything we put our minds to. The only rule we had when pursing something new was If we started something, we would finish it. There was no such thing as quitting or walking away.
That didn’t mean that they were making us participate in things we hated. It meant they were teaching us the responsibility of our choices. So if we started softball and halfway through the season we became mad and didn’t want to play anymore, we had to finish what we started. When the season was over we could walk away but we would not leave anything unfinished. There would be no quitters in our home, but we could make a decision to do something different after the season was finished.
This built a great character trait in us. Everything I put my hands to I gave it everything I had. It helped me with my parenting skills. It helped with my work ethic. I thought it was helping with my relationships but as I got older I realized that without balance, this trait had become very destructive to me.
Many times I found myself holding onto relationships simply because I wanted to win. I didn’t want to be seen as a quitter. Other times I convinced myself that because I knew certain things about a person before I decided to commit myself to them, then I was committed to the process. Just because I was feeling uncomfortable didn’t mean I could quit. I treated everyone in my life like a lifetime partner when the majority of those people were never even supposed to have been in my life.
When does enough become enough? How do we unlearn destructive behaviors? How do we teach ourselves to walk away even when it will cause us to feel like a failure but it saves our lives? How do we work past the humiliation and judgement when everyone around us tells us just keep praying and it will change? What if it’s never going to change because it was never part of our destiny to be in that place? It can be a very long and hard lesson to learn but I want to encourage and remind you that ITS OK TO WALK AWAY!
What do you need to walk away from today? Let’s talk about it.