I am allowed to change

Good morning!

In early sobriety, or actually, the early part of my path while I was still drinking, something big was brewing in me. I was getting happy.

I had started to read and work May Cause Miracles, and started to dance in the mornings and post sticky notes all over my apartment that said things like “I am love!” and “I believe in miracles!” I was meditating and choosing my yoga mat over the bar scene, I was showing up at friends houses and passing on the beer (sometimes), I was starting to discover this thing that was ME and I was liking this thing that was ME.

And I felt ridiculously guilty about it. Like I had broken some pact with everyone. At my friend's house one day, sitting with a few others and watching Bravo, I discovered I couldn't stomach The Real Housewives of Orange County OR their comments about it—all of the sudden, it wasn't funny. Or interesting. (Update, I now secretly binge on THRH because we are allowed to change).

People would talk about their limitations and I would think about my new found freedoms. People would talk about the dark and I would think about the light. People would say Life sucks and I would think LIFE IS FUCKING AMAZING!

My new happiness seemed like just another separation from me and the normal people—I had built entire friendships commiserating on the unfairness of the hand I'd been dealt. In the moments when my happiness did seep out, it seemed like an a ront to the su ering around me—aren't we supposed to not be too great so that others feel better? Aren't we supposed to https://turningmypage.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/challenge-accepted/say I suck, too? so that others feel okay? Isn't talking about your great life just another kind of cruel, or another reason to be disliked?

So I would tone it down. Dim my spark. Try to keep on fitting in.

I was changing. But because I didn't know how to be what I was becoming, and was terrified of not being liked, I tried desperately to project that I was the same old me. I was certain that if my outsides started to match my insides, everyone would talk, snark, roll their eyes, judge me behind my back, or worse of all—walk away.

Early on, I read Awakening Joy by James Baraz, and one day in the midst of this struggle to keep myself down and dull, I came across this quote:

"Once the seed of your intention takes root and grows, it will bloom and provide refuge and support for everyone you meet, including those who may have initially questioned your attempts to be happy."

This was a turning point for me, and in that moment, it gave me the courage to be who I was, not what I thought other people wanted me to be. It gave me the sense that I might not be understood, or even supported, but that over time, what I was doing for myself and allowing myself to become would start to stand on its own two feet.

And so I began to wear my happiness. The first time I posted a motivational quote on social media, I agonized over it for the same reasons: What if people don't like this version of me? When I started to claim my place as a teacher, again, all I could think of was: But what will they say? Like, I literally believed someone might come up to me and say "I'm sorry Holly, but you can't do that." When I started to post more personal parts of my life on social media (like selfies and family pics), I again confronted that voice - what if people only like me as the quote girl? But each and every time, I've come back to the reminder: I'm allowed to change. I'm allowed to grow. I'm allowed to be who I am today, and not chained to who I was yesterday.

You are allowed to change.

You are allowed to not be that anymore. You are allowed to be whatever it is you want to be, at any moment you want to be it. There are no social pacts. There are no rules. There is nothing set in stone, ever. You get to be exactly who it is you want and need to be. No matter what.

All my love. Hol

"Nothing has to stay the same." —Johann Hari

MANTRA INSTRUCTIONS

1. Sit with the words and repeat them for 1 minute first thing in the morning, eyes closed. Visualize them. 2. Write them on a Post-it note and stick the Post-it somewhere you will see it during the day. 3. Set your phone alarm to remind you to repeat the words once or twice during the day. 4. Sit with the words and repeat them for 1 minute again at night.

I am allowed to change