Do you ever feel like you’re due for an updated version of yourself? Maybe you’re feeling stagnant, like a pool of muddy, foul-smelling water that could do with a good flush out to feel refreshed and revitalised. Sometimes it’s like you’re going through the motions, but you’re absent from your experience. Your heart isn’t in it. Time for an update.
Can you remember when your last version update was? I can list a few significant moments in my life where I was forever changed. Where I was updated to another version of myself.
- Leaving my first long-term relationship, twice, recognising I was worthy of more love and respect.
- Moving away from the town where I’d grown up and lived all of my life, taking a chance on love and starting a new life with a clean slate.
- Becoming a mother, and suddenly being wholly responsible for another being’s life.
- Watching my mum slowly pass away from cancer, and feeling powerless to help her.
- Taking ownership of my body image and stepping into feeling sexy in my own skin.
Sometimes it’s a conscious decision. Something in your life has got to give. Perhaps you have a moment of clarity or awareness that you cannot continue the way that you have been.
I recall having one of these moments in high school. I was a ratbag. I kept breaking the rules. I was angry at authority, I’m not sure why, but I was. So, I argued with my teachers. I fought with other students. I was destructive. I got suspended, continually. One day, that little voice in my head (the voice of love – we’ll get to that another day), asked the question…
“What is the point of still coming to school, if you keep carrying on like this? You might as well leave! If you’re going to stay at school, enough is enough, you need to sit down, shut up and do your work!”
And that’s what I did. A few years later. I went on to be School Captain. I’d worked hard. I tried my hardest to sit down, shut up and do my work, and I’d had fun. I was an updated version of myself. No longer…
The ratbag girl who hated authority.
This version was someone who showed more respect for others. Especially for Elders. I wouldn’t go back to the girl I was before. This version was much kinder.
Sometimes you need someone outside of yourself to prompt an update. There was a version of me that was…
The tiny shell of myself girl.
This version of me believed I was not worthy of love and respect and allowed myself and others to treat me so. I went through an update in ending one of my first long-term relationships. It wasn’t the healthiest relationship. It lasted 3 and a half years, and in that time I felt small and useless, unworthy and insecure. I isolated myself from friends and family. I turned into a tiny shell of myself. I needed to reboot, but I couldn’t do it on my own. Soon after starting therapy to ‘fix all that was wrong with me’, I took a break from the relationship. I went back again, and began to see and believe new things about myself and could no longer tolerate the way I was being treated. I recognised that this wasn’t love. This was control. Two very different things. My best friend asked me, while on a rare and very memorable holiday together,
“Do you love him?”
And I had the space to realise “No”. I no longer did. This version of me was bigger and more whole. I deserved better than this. Even if I had wanted to stay, I couldn’t un-know what I now knew. I couldn’t unlearn what I’d learnt about myself and the relationship. I left for good, and I would never revert back to that version of me.
There are other moments in life when you’re forced into an updated version of yourself. Pivotal events that change you so significantly that you could never be the same again. You didn’t want this update. Life was going wonderfully without it. It was not something you chose. There’s a grieving process that happens with this. Sometimes I wish I could go back and install that previous version of me…
The starry-eyed girl who trusted the world.
This version of me believed that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. But all of that changed when Mum got diagnosed with cancer. Then, again, when it came back for a second time. Whose plan was it that my Mum should leave the Earth sooner than her time? She was a good person. A kind and generous person. She helped others and made the world a better place. So why should she die early? When other people who are not good – people who hurt, steal from, and violate others – are allowed to stay? How does that make sense? And with these unanswered questions came the rage. So much rage! And mistrust in the Universe. Or God’s plan. Whatever you want to call it. It made no sense to me. It took many version updates since then to work through that rage and not continue projecting it onto my family.
I didn’t have a choice about that last update, but I have learnt over time that I do have a choice in how I respond. Sometimes life throws you these ‘opportunities’ to update. You can ignore them and choose to stay with your current version when these moments come up, responding in exactly the same way as you always have. In other words, you can keep repeating the same patterns. Or you can learn and grow and evolve into a truer, wiser, and more beautiful version of yourself…
I feel like I’m in the process of loading a new version…
The woman who trusts herself.
There’s a transition coming and I’m not quite sure what to expect. I’m changing. I’m less tolerant of the shit I used to put up with. I’m more mindful of my time, and more recognizant of my inherent worth. I’m not going to waste my life doing anything that doesn’t come from a place of love, curiosity or adventure. I’m less likely to do things out of a false sense of obligation. Or because of bullshit unwritten rules of ‘that’s just what we do’, or ‘that’s how it’s always been done’. Fuck that shit! If my heart isn’t in it, I’m not interested. I can trust my gut, and follow my heart. I feel like I’ve grown up.
I’ve kind of fallen into my last few work/volunteering opportunities this way. I didn’t really expect to do anything in particular. I just followed my interest. I saw some social media posts, thought a particular organisation looked like a nice environment for the staff and people there and told them so. I was working for them the following week. The same for volunteering. I just asked the question, whether they were looking for volunteers, and they were, so I made it happen. At the moment, I’m still enjoying both of those places. It feels like it’s where I need to be for now. I’m following my curiosity, and my heart. I recognise that I am fortunate to have the resources and support around me to have this luxury of looking for work/volunteering out of love and curiosity and not necessity.
I know life can be tough, and sometimes we want to go back to simpler times, to previous versions of ourselves. The allure is strong some days, believe me! But know that it’s all going to work out in the end. Accept the update. The new version of you will thank you for it later.
Have you been through a version update lately. Share your story.
Take care and much love,
MumOf3WR