Becoming | Phase Two: The Reference Point

Sometimes what feels like safety is simply something we have survived long enough to understand.

When I look back now, I can see why certain spaces made sense to me at the time, even when they were not actually good for me. Familiarity has a way of making things feel more manageable than they are. You know the environment, the expectations, and the version of yourself that knows how to function there.

There were so many times when I wanted to feel wanted, needed, appreciated, and valued, and I looked outside of myself for too much of that reassurance….validation even. I think that is a very human thing to do. We all want to know that we matter to the people we care about. But it is easy to stay places longer than you should when you are still waiting for that space to confirm something for you about you.

What I know about myself is that I have always been nurturing. I care deeply, and when I love or value someone, I tend to show up completely. There were times when I believed that if I gave enough, understood enough, stayed patient enough, or loved well enough, eventually what I needed would make its way back to me.

What I understand now is simple: my ability to care for someone does not determine what they are capable of or willing to give back to me. That realization changed the way I measured the connections I made entirely. Instead of focusing so much on what I was willing to pour into something, I started paying attention to what I was actually receiving from it.

Being Known Is Not the Same as Being Understood

There was another reason familiarity could be so powerful for me. I am a very social person. I’ve come to know a lot of people. I can talk to almost anybody, and if you meet me, you are going to meet a genuinely authentic version of me. But being social and allowing someone to know me at my core are two very different things. I do not let many people get that close.

There are parts of me I protect—my private thoughts, experiences, fears, stories, and the things I do not feel the need to share with everyone. So when I allow somebody into that space, it’s profoundly deep for me. There is comfort in being truly known, in having history, and in being with someone who already knows the details you do not have to explain. However, being known is not the same thing as being understood.

Someone can know almost everything about you and still only meet you through the limits of their own experiences, awareness, and capacity. They may know your history without fully understanding how it shaped you. They may know what matters to you and still respond from what they themselves know how to give.

Two people can be deeply connected and still experience that connection very differently. What one person considers enough may leave the other feeling unseen, unheard or unconsidered. History and intimacy are great to have but they alone can not create true closeness nor can they guarantee deeper understanding. Realizing that shifted my attention to what I needed to prioritize….. myself.

I started noticing the things I had been waiting to receive from other people that I needed to become more intentional about giving myself: encouragement, support, validation, appreciation, love, and trust.

The more I practiced giving those things to myself, the less I needed someone else to constantly prove my value to me. I became more comfortable trusting what I needed and more aware of when I was asking something external to fill an internal space in my place.

When the Past Becomes Information

That new awareness also showed me how much my past had shaped my expectations. There were times when something felt remotely familiar and I assumed I already knew how it would end. I could get ahead of where I actually was, planning for destruction because I thought anticipating disappointment would make it easier to deal with.

Sometimes that felt like wisdom.

Sometimes it was just fear wearing the clothes of experience.

I do not want to ignore what I have learned, but I also do not want to use the past as the only evidence for what is possible in my future. I can pay attention without assuming every new experience owes me an old ending.

That is where reflection has become useful for me. Not because I want to keep replaying what happened, but because I can look back and understand what I was doing, what I was seeking, and what I want to choose differently now.

I truly irritate myself sometimes when I feel myself looking back… maybe believing that it’s looking back too much or for too long. There are decisions I wish I would had made sooner and spaces I absolutely stayed in longer than I needed to. But the beautiful piece of that is, I’m never looking back longingly. I am looking back for information.

I can appreciate the person I was in those seasons without staying angry with her. She wanted to feel valued, connected, and understood. She made choices based on what felt familiar and what she understood about herself at the time. I have released her of my personal expectations that wanted her to be more or less of what she was. She was needed in that time to be just as she was.

Now I understand more, and I do not need to punish myself for old decisions to prove that I have grown from them. I can acknowledge the habit, appreciate the lesson, make the adjustment, and keep living.

The Freedom in Making Room

That is where I am now. I feel good. I am living, loving, forgiving, releasing, and making room. I think there is real freedom in being able to see where I was, see where I am, and look toward where I am going without needing to resent any part of the journey.

The past has shown me what I no longer want to do. It has shown me the experiences I do not want to repeat and the connections that cannot move forward with me. Not because I am angry, but because I have learned too many good things about myself to keep participating in anything that requires me to forget them.

I know myself better now. I know what I need. I know what I value. I know what I bring into the spaces I enter, and I have learned how important it is for me to give myself the encouragement, love, support, appreciation, and validation I once sought so feverishly for outside of myself.

That knowledge in and of itself has changed what I am available for in the present moment. Making room does not always require a dramatic ending or a complete picture of what comes next. Sometimes it is simply recognizing what has taken up enough space, drained enough of you, or exhausted capacity and deciding that it does not need to travel any further with you.

Something I realized for myself is that it can be hard to believe you deserve more when you have never had the more you deserved. As I began to consistently give myself what I needed, the easier it became to believe that I could experience those things around me too.

That is what excites me about where I am now. I am not only looking at what I have released, I am aware of what that release has made room for in my life.

There is room for new experiences, new connections, more joy, more peace, and things I may not even know to ask for yet. I do not need any of it to look exactly the way I once imagined it would. I just want to remain open enough to recognize what feels good when it arrives and grounded enough in myself not to settle simply because something else feels familiar.

I can see where I was.

I can appreciate where I am.

And I am excited about where I am going.

I am grateful that I now realize that the past does not have to come with me to continue being useful. It is the past for good reason. I know now that I can reach back for the lessons without reaching back for the life attached to them.

That is what reflection gives me now: perspective without attachment.

The past is not where I live.

It is simply my reference point.

And still, we become. 🫶🏽