The Subtle Truth About Self-Transformation — And What It Means for the Choices You Make
You aren’t who you used to be, and you aren’t (yet) who you will become.
When you choose to purposefully put an end to a version of yourself that you no longer want to nurture, you also choose to redirect your energy towards nurturing a version that is unknown to you.
When you choose to experience the death of an older self, you simultaneously choose to experience the beginning of life for a newer you.
When you think you should be mourning the loss of who you used to be, is also when you need to celebrate the gain of who you seek to become.
Here’s the thing though;
Your old version doesn’t just die once;
It dies every time it comes back to you, and every such time that you choose to put it to rest;
Because those are the exact moments when you choose the newer version to run;
And that’s how the death of an older version is not a one-time event — but a process that allows for the new to be chosen, over and over, and over again.
Every reason to mourn is also a reason to celebrate, and every reason to celebrate is also a reason to acknowledge your need to mourn.
Transforming into a version of yourself that is not known to you, is a process that requires you to repeat certain actions in a way that is also not known to you.
It is not (only) about deciding to choose an action over another at a given moment — “another” being a default course of action you would have previously chosen;
It is truly about deciding to choose that action over another — every single time you are presented with such a choice;
Because the world doesn’t change, the triggers don’t change, the causes will always remain causes;
It is YOU who chose to change your RESPONSE to the same world, the same triggers, the same causes.
Here’s the truth about self-transformation that we need to acknowledge:
Your older versions exist just as much as your newer versions — It is your choices that make one stronger than the other.
It is convenient to think that becoming a new version of ourselves means never having to face our older versions;
But we often forget that becoming a new version of ourselves is really about looking directly into our older versions — and choosing differently;
It never was, never is, and never will be about getting rid of the old — but only about replacing with new.
In the words of Henry David Thoreau:
“A single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
It doesn’t help to expect not being faced with similar stimuli ever again — but it does help to commit to choosing different responses over and over again — and that’s how one continues to transform over and over again.
Every time I find myself in the process of transforming (thought patterns, beliefs, habits, responses, assumptions, etc.), I think that the only time I would have to act on this change, is right now — and that’s it — never again do I have to go through that choice again;
Until each time such a choice presents itself to me — again — waiting to be acted on;
Perhaps that’s how we humans are wired to believe — in absolutes — the fact that transforming ourselves is a series of events that move on a continuum, as opposed to being a one-off event — doesn’t come easy to our awareness — yet that’s the only truth that exists.
‘Who you are’ is the continuously altering results of choices that you make for ‘who you will become’ over the choices that you made as ‘who you used to be’.
Self-transformation is as much a death of an older version of yourself, as it is a beginning of life for your newer version;
You’ll find yourself mourning the loss of who you were;
And when that happens — remind yourself that you need to celebrate the gain of who are becoming, as well.
When you open up to repeating your choices in ways that take you further than who you used to be, you’ll truly be able to transform into who you seek to become, in ways that never really end.
