Dear Heart:

I finally figured it out.

You’ve been unbecoming, in order to become.

I just didn’t see it, until now. Until now, I thought you were letting me take the lead. You had been in charge of our team for so long, and that worked well for us in many ways. But when things fell apart – when our life fell apart, right in front of us – you stopped trusting yourself. You realized how much you had strayed from your understanding of and belief in yourself.

I know you tried to tell me how tired you were, and how lost you felt. I realize now, I didn’t want to hear it. I assumed so much about you, and I got excited when you gave me a chance to take over the lead of our team for a while. I thought you were trying to teach me. I didn’t realize you were being destroyed.

I have been leading us with logic, reasoning, and fact for the last two years. We’ve done well with those things, and I believe in many ways those are the tools that we’ve needed for that time. But, I also wrongly assumed we had permanently changed roles and I would be our forever leader. I didn’t realize what you already knew.

You see, I realize now that your destruction, your absolute broken-ness inside the context of what was our life, was a total necessity. You knew it, but didn’t tell me, because you already understood I needed to figure it out for myself. You needed me to figure it out for myself, because you knew the second I did, our team would be back together in the best and strongest capacity – with you in the lead.

Here’s what I’ve figured out, about your process of unbecoming. Your process of destruction.

I always trusted you. I listened to the things you told me, I followed your lead, and I made choices based on the logic you guided me towards. What I didn’t understand was how distorted your vision had become. How clouded your world was. You had spent well over ten years attempting to reject messages of blame, unreasonable expectation, unrealistic body image, and distorted roles and responsibilities. For a long time, you were a warrior. You were able to successfully fight off those messages, because your instincts told you those messages weren’t based on anything reasonable or realistic. You led us in authenticity.

But then you got tired of fighting the messages. I realize now, the messages were a constant barrage of you battling with feeling unworthy. I realize now, you started to believe them. And when you believed them, so did I. Everything you showed me was distorted. There was no logic to any of it – but I thought there was.

You felt like an object. You felt like it was your job to carry the responsibility for ten people. You told people they were right, when you were told you were fat. You repeated to yourself, more times than anyone really knows, that you deserved to be treated this way. You agreed with those who told you about how much of a failure you would be, and because you were a failure, you should never take a risk. You gave up on hopes and dreams, and aligned yourself with the belief that it was your duty to make a way for the dreams of others to occur, while you practically drove yourself into the ground with work and responsibility that should have been shared.

And then everything changed.

You put me in the lead. You told me you needed to stop working so hard, and you said you didn’t know how to lead us anymore. So I took over. Fact, logic, reasoning – these are my strong suits, Heart. You knew that, and you knew my strengths were exactly what you needed to lean on, in order to get through what I didn’t see happening.

In over ten years of battling unfair, false messages, your beliefs and expectations of and for yourself had become completely distorted. You felt worthless, to the point of not wanting to exist anymore. When our life fell apart around us, you realized that was the opportunity you needed – to lean on me, my strengths, and the strengths of the people who loved us the most, in order to get through it.

You used the opportunity of time, of me leading us, for you to completely unbecome. In unbecoming, you let go of literally everything. You let go of what you realized to be false beliefs. You changed your expectations of yourself, by shifting around your priorities. You started to take care of yourself again, by allowing yourself to experience small doses of genuine love. It was safe. You started to remember all the things you had dreamt about doing, of leading us towards, and you started to rebuild hopefulness. You gave me permission to lead us into dating, and you slowly opened back up to your sexuality. You gave yourself permission to engage with your sexuality, and it became something you felt proud of again, instead of ashamed of. You looked at our body, and while there still are parts that we are working on improving, you started to love our body again. You saw its strength, its agility, and all the things that it has been through as a sign of beauty, instead of ugliness.

Heart, you had to unbecome, in order to become.

You became the highest version of yourself. I truly cannot remember a time where I have seen this amount of strength inside you. You trust yourself and your instincts again. Your boundaries are strong, your priorities are aligned, and you are hopeful and loving. You haven’t taken care of yourself this well in, well, I’m not sure how long – but it’s been a really long time. People are again giving you the feedback that you motivate them. The way you move through the world, is stirring people into action to also unbecome, in order to become.

Heart, you are inspiring.

I am so grateful to have been able to realize these things about you, of the necessity of your unbecoming. I just wish I had realized it quicker, because this is brilliant.

I love you,

Brain

Do you feel like you’re unbecoming sometimes? Book a session with Kelly Lynch. She can help your heart and brain align so you can become all that you’re meant to be.