Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Introduction
I think there comes a time in everyone’s life where we begin to like who we are becoming.
When we are able to look into the mirror and smile at what we see.
When we are able to dive into the depths of our own hearts and embrace all that we truly are (both good and bad) with such ease and warmth.
To the extent that the thought of potentially changing in a way so different to your present self sounds scary.
A few days ago I had this one fear. I’m scared that the person I will become in the future is someone that I will dislike.
Honestly, I don’t know if there is anyone who needs to hear this but until recently this was a question that was constantly plaguing my mind.
What can I say? I’m an over thinker.
Sometimes it’s easy to feel alone with our thoughts but then you realise that there are billions of people out there who probably feel the same.
But I hope that this post is able to help someone out because this one question really stressed me out.
( I like adding recent photos I’ve taken to my posts so excuse the randomness)
Why do feelings like these arise?
Its important for us to try our hardest to understand why we feel certain feelings.
When it comes to fear I try to get to the root cause of the problem because then the problem becomes easier to extract. (Gardening taught me this).
I think (for me anyway) that this fear came from seeing the people around me change so drastically into people who I was struggling to like.
I thought that these changes weren’t anyone’s fault but a consequence of the stuff that life had thrown at them.
And so it felt like people had little control over who they became in the future. Or, in other words, who they were forced to become.
When life throws things at you it’s impractical to think that the person you will be after will be the same as before.
Sometimes the things life throws at you hurl you further and further away from who you are. Life does force people to change.
But I think what’s scary is that even if we think we are taking the right path it could actually be the wrong one.
And what’s even scarier is not realising that the path you have taken is the wrong one.
So, how in control are we when the people we become in the future can be deeply altered by the challenges we face in life?
Especially, when the challenges in life are somewhat out of our control.
And sometimes we are more hurt by the person who we become after a certain situation than the actual situation itself.
People changing is just part of the natural cycle of life.
But, I do feel like some people grow and others wither.
So long story short, it came from seeing the people around me change so drastically.
It’s them not even realising how much they’ve changed which made change seem really scary.
I was able to calm this fear of mine though and so I hope my advice is useful to anyone in a similar sort of situation.
Being more conscious of changes
I think the one thing that helps resist changes to yourself is having a strong sense of self and understanding who you are.
This mainly comes as a result of being self-aware and knowing your values.
I feel like your less likely to be changed by your surroundings when you have a deep understanding of who you are.
I think you also become more aware when your pulling away from yourself because you can identify what normal is for you.
What your normal behaviour is and your normal actions and thought patterns. And this awareness allows you to pull yourself back together.
Another thing (which honestly I’m still working on) is building trust with yourself.
When you trust yourself completely, you will have faith in all future versions of yourself.
You will also trust your present self to lead you into the right direction.
Personally the last one is the most important.
I feel like this fear does come from a lack of trust within that fears you’ll take the wrong path.
But building trust with yourself is so incredibly important.
I’m still working on this but there is a really good video on YouTube that helped me (click here to watch).
Before I conclude…
Before I conclude this post I want to make you aware of something that I feel needs clarification.
This is the difference between being scared that you won’t like the person you’ll become in the future and being scared that others won’t like the person you’ll become in the future.
I say this because you are the only one who can define who you are as a person, nobody else has the power to do this.
Sometimes changes that we go through are what’s best for us but it also means that people around us may not like the people we become.
A good example of this is a people-pleaser who now knows how to stand up for themselves.
They will certainly lose people who used them for this particular trait.
And whilst the person has theoretically changed for the best, the person who no longer gets what they want from that person will have curated a negative image of them in their minds.
And that’s okay, everyone is seeing things from different perspectives.
So change is a good thing and sometimes a necessary thing.
And we should keep an open-mind towards any personal changes that we go through.
I feel like as long as you build self-awareness and trust with yourself you truly have nothing to fear.
And the fact that this is something that scares you shows that you care about who you become and the impact you have on other people’s lives.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post. I’d love to hear any of your opinions (in the comments).
For my other blog posts click here 🙂