This stings… and yet I know it was what I need to do

Written on 20240801

I’m a person that has been making conscious choices in my life for a while now. Meaning I choose what I let in my life and what I don’t. I haven’t been shy to communicate clearly when removing things from my life. When things fall in my life, same again I choose to keep it in or remove it.

I’ve been seeing an incredible man over the last 2 months, emotionally intelligent, he listens to me, truly listens, he’s supportive, I do the same for him. We have common hobbies and passions. It’s been incredible.

Over the last few weeks, it’s come up that there’s one thing he’s consciously choosing to keep in his life because he’s previously said yes and today he doesn’t feel he can go back on his word. The reason being he’s afraid of being judged, rejected and hurting others.

Ironically he’s told me that if he were to make the choice he would not choose this thing.

I heard an example of this in the book “ Willpower doesn’t Work” by Benjamin Hardy

A mentor is out camping with a group of teens. Upon waking up he asked how did everyone sleep, one Teen replies

-“ not so well”.

-“Why?” the mentor asks.

–“I was cold, the campfire faded” the teen replies.

-“did you not use your sleeping bad?”

The teen doesn’t answer, and another speaks up

-”he didn’t use his sleeping bag”

The mentor enquires

-’why not?”

Sheepishly the teen replies:

-”I thought that if I didn’t use the sleeping bag, then I wouldn’t need to roll it back up again in the morning”

The teen choose to freeze throughout the night in order to avoid the little bit of work.

A lot of people behave like this. They’d rather avoid the little amount of work / hard conversations / speaking the truth - short hardship and stick with the pain and hurt they are currently enduring long term.

I choose not to have this non choice energy in my life as it’s misaligned with my core values. And as much as I appreciate and like this man, I told him that I was no longer interested in continuing this.

This hurts like hell today. And yet I know this is the right thing to do for me.

This emotionally intelligent man replied to me a beautiful and caring response saying he knows it’s the right things to do, he admires and respects me for choosing myself and prioritising myself. And he’s also aware that he’s not ready to take this step in his own life.

I like him even more for his reply and I still know this is the choice for me to take to move me towards my goals and what I want in my life.