Who Are You Afraid of Losing?

Have you ever noticed how, when we talk about becoming a new version of ourselves, we act like the old version was simply a problem to solve?

But she wasn’t. She was your person for a long time.

She got you through things. She learned how to survive and how to belong. She learned how to protect herself, how to soothe herself, and how to make life feel manageable. Those things are important.

Those things served a purpose.

Some of her patterns may no longer serve you, but they usually existed for a reason.

For me, the pivotal point came when I got sick of my own shit.

Sounds dramatic. But it’s really not. It’s just the truth. It was 2018.

I liked to drink. I liked to eat whatever I wanted. I liked doing what felt good in the moment without thinking too hard about what it was doing to me long term.

That version of me wasn’t terrible. She was actually pretty fun. She was damn sarcastic. She was a smart ass. She cared deeply about the things that mattered to her.

But I knew I couldn’t keep living that way forever.

At some point, wanting to change became stronger than wanting to stay comfortable.

I quit drinking. I cleaned shit up. I lost around 45 pounds, but I lost more than weight along the way.

I lost routines, habits, coping mechanisms, excuses, and a version of myself I had known for a very long time.

And even though I wanted the change, leaving her behind was still uncomfortable.

Because she was familiar. Familiar is known.  And there is real fear in letting go of what you know, even when you know it isn’t where you want to stay.

That push and pull is real.

I knew her rules. I knew how she responded. I knew how she had fun, how she avoided discomfort, and how she kept life moving without asking too many hard questions.

Even when she kept me stuck, she felt safe because I knew her.

That is the part people skip when they talk about change.

I see this all the time with my clients.

They want to change. They want to feel better, become stronger, improve their health, and stop repeating the same patterns.

But they are also afraid of what they might lose along the way.

Who will they be if food is no longer how they comfort themselves?

How will they socialize if drinking isn’t always part of it?

What happens when they start saying no, setting boundaries, or making choices the people around them don’t understand?

They want the new life, but parts of the old life still feel like home.

That doesn’t mean they don’t want it badly enough.

It means change is more complicated than simply deciding to do better.

Sometimes changing feels like betrayal.

You want the new life, but you also have to grieve the life you knew. You lose habits, identities, relationships, excuses, and ways of coping.

Even positive change creates loss.

Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that the old me had taken me as far as she could.

The new me was still me. I was still sarcastic. Still a smart ass. Still passionate. Still someone who cared deeply and felt things intensely.

I hadn’t lost my personality at all.

I had stopped letting the parts of me that wanted immediate comfort make every decision.

My health improved. My energy improved. My confidence improved.

My life got bigger, not smaller.

I didn’t have to hate the old me in order to become someone new.

I could appreciate her. I could understand her. I could even miss parts of her.

But I didn’t need to go back and become her again.

Maybe reconciliation looks like saying, I understand why you became this way. I appreciate what you carried.

And I don’t need you to run my life anymore.

She got me here.

She just wasn’t the person who could take me where I wanted to go next.