In an earlier post, I spoke about the importance of rebuilding.
Developing yourself as a human being is always important and understanding that being able to build who you are, is vital when working towards someone you want to be.
But before you ever rebuild, you must cut and burn down any part of you that you think is toxic to your life and your character. You cannot grow fresh new fruit with the rotten pieces still attached to the tree. They must be cut away, to make space for the new.

Those rotten fruits are not who you are, rather they are what slows and limit’s your capabilities. Bad habits like waking up in the afternoon and sleeping to absurd hours doing shit all. Spending time inside taking in the same air that you breathe out. Having an unhealthy diet, or even keeping and hoarding the same negative and destructive people that somehow manage to weasel their way into your life.

This limits ourselves and coupled with a lack of vision, awareness and open-mindedness we develop a fear which shifts our focus and muddles our mind, ultimately tarnishing our end product.

Anything that gets in the way of your work, anything that feeds on your persona and does not offer anything positive, will eventually cause you to fail.

So naturally, the best thing to do to anything negative is to let it go, burn it or throw it away.

Shed anything that keeps you from who you could be…not your flaws or the little blemishes that you may not be able to control, but more so the long-dead metaphorical tree branches that don’t bear your fruit.

Before I started writing, I was scared of what people would say and how it would affect me. I didn’t know whether what I was saying was of any substance and I felt like my credentials were just life experiences that barely made me a functioning adult.
I think that fear is the reason why it took me so long to put pen to paper, and even longer to get back into it.

I began to understand that I had to burn that fear, and I did that through writing and posting again and again. Even at times when I thought it wasn’t my best work or when I wasn’t overly proud of it, I still chose to face it head on and continue, something which I am glad I did. If not for myself but for the people who told me I could make a difference.

Being noticeably uptight and resistant to new experiences, I was encouraged to let go of anything that was bogging me down, this included all the fear that I was holding in my head. Having gone through recent turmoil and hating myself for not being better, I began to understand that to move forward I needed to let go of all the resentment, the heartache and even some of the good memories that I had hoarded. Pretty much anything that was preventing me from any creative or personal growth.

Which worked …but not straight away.

Although it allowed me to have a process of letting go, the change I felt was not instantaneous. It took some time for me to actually move on, but burning those horrid feelings made way for me to build something new.
When we rebuild, we need a solid foundation to work from, an idea that I have written about previously. This solid foundation had to be free from any shackles that wore me out… much like a tree.

You see, when you plant a seed into the soil, it has to be deep enough so when it grows, the roots won’t wrestle above the ground. Unstable roots means a weak tree and a weak tree gets easily picked apart during any kind of pressure it faces.
In order for the roots to be strong, they need to grow deep, they need to be nurtured through water and proper sunlight and have enough room to grow.
Just like a tree, I had to be able to open myself up to new experiences and ways of life to become a better person.

All this took assertion. I had to be prepared to confront anything and anyone that once instilled fear and doubt in my mind. At times that meant being calculating and careful but to be honest, strongly standing up to any negativity was probably how it ended up being such a worthwhile endeavour.

Letting go of toxicity and dissecting something that could potentially cause you harm, may be the only way’s you can move on from anything. Whether that be people, places or things, all that matters is whether or not you are capable of taking a step away and in a better direction than where those things were taking you.

Letting go doesn’t always mean saying goodbye, but it does mean we have enough strength and self-respect to know what we are worth, something that we all tend to forget at times. Showing courage and strength in our choices is what is most important and in order to move forward, one must be prepared to say no to any person, place or thing that could destroy you.

The life we lead ultimately comes down to the choices we make and the path we choose to walk. Don’t wait for the wrong decision to bite you in the arse, rather ensure that you can look after your roots and grow the fruit you choose to bear.