We have all experienced the fear of losing someone. Not by death, per se, though that is certainly something we may fear. But loss in the sense of them walking away or even being driven away by us.

Many of us have been in relationships where we feel like we aren’t enough. We feel “less than”. When we set our sight on someone we are interested in, we are automatically coming from a place of lack. We feel like we aren’t refined enough or that we couldn’t possibly fit in with their lifestyle or their group. So, we start behaving in ways that reflect who we think we need to be, in order to level the playing field and increase our chances of winning that person’s attention or affection.

When we do this, we are relinquishing some control because we are allowing what someone says or does to affect us. We have created an image of ourselves that we want this person to like, and now we must live up to it every day. And that can be exhausting! This is something we have to keep doing, or we risk them finding out the truth and leaving us.

Relationships should never be so one-sided that you lose yourself while struggling to keep someone in your life. You should never have to jump through hoops to save a relationship. You should never have to become someone you’re not to win someone or keep someone. That’s a false relationship.

Here’s the thing. If someone loves you, they are going to love or like you for who you are, and they are not going to want or expect you to be someone you’re not. They are going to see what you have to offer to them and the world, and they are going to value that. When you try to be someone you’re not, you are not only hurting yourself, but you are judging the other person, assuming they will judge you and won’t like the person you are. And you are cheating them out of ever knowing the real you and of the opportunity to really connect with you on a real level.

It is scary to be vulnerable in a relationship. Truly being yourself and putting it all out there carries great risk. What if the person doesn’t like you?

The truth is, the people who are right for you, will truly like you. They will see you as enough as you are. While it can be risky to be vulnerable, this risk also comes with incredible reward.

If you find that you are beginning to lose yourself while trying to keep someone in your life, you need to take a look at the beliefs you have about yourself.

First, try to understand why you don’t feel enough as you are. What makes this person so special and worth having if you have to become someone else to keep the relationship? Are they wanting you to be someone you are not, or are you changing yourself to fit what you think they want?

Second, once you understand why you are bending over backward and changing yourself to please someone else, you have to decide whether or not you are going to continue to do that. If you are, understand that in the long run, it will come at a great cost to you. Chasing external validation is not a good strategy for healthy self-esteem. I talked about my journey of losing myself in an earlier post.

If you choose to honor yourself and who you are, commit to being honest with that person and be prepared to let that relationship go, if it doesn’t work out. Find ways to support yourself emotionally and mentally. This may be through counseling, self-help books or podcasts. Or perhaps spending time with a mentor or friend each week who can listen to you and offer advice or encouragement.

Third, celebrate you. You are unique and wonderful just the way you are. As a matter of fact, the world needs you just as you are. Stop trying to be someone else to please others. You have a lot to offer. The right people in your life will understand you and value the person you are and will not expect you to change for them.

99% of what we worry about, or fear ever happens. Yet we can spend countless sleepless nights worrying about that 1% chance that it will. Ruminating on the fear or worry allows us to feel like we have some kind of control over the outcome. And many times, we don’t. Which is also why we feel the fear to begin with.

I told a story about my fear of snakes and public meltdown in an earlier post. It was a rather humbling experience and worth a read. And spoiler alert, it was all over a small garter snake. This will have significant meaning later in this post. Long story, short, I am convinced that as we become adults, some of our fears become much more irrational.  

Case in point, when I was a kid, we took a family vacation to Orlando to Disney. We stayed inside Disney and when we were there, they were building Animal Kingdom. All the land near the hotel was being cleared out. So, a lot of native wildlife was dispossessed of their natural habitat for Animal Kingdom. I love the irony.  

Anyways, one night my brother (who is nine years younger than me, so he was really little at the time) and I were walking outside of the hotel. Lo and behold, outside of someone’s door next to boots that had been left outside, was a giant rattlesnake. We both felt trepidation by his presence, but he was coiled up next to the boots just relaxing.

We both laughed at the nightmare of opening your door and finding a rattlesnake next to your boots. We are the type who find humor in everything. And we laughed about how much we would freak out. We also laughed about Woody from Toy Story saying, “There’s a snake in my boot!” But did we think to turn around and walk the long way to where we were heading? Nope. Not once.

My brother looked up to me and asked if we would be okay walking by the snake. I looked at the snake, coiled up and resting. He didn’t look like he was feeling threatened. So, I told him that we should be okay. I told him to get onto my other side so I would be the one closest to the snake. I told him if he strikes, not to stay with me, but run to get help. He promised he would, and we gingerly proceeded down our path.

We kept our distance and I watched him as we got closer to see if he was getting agitated. He stayed in his space without a care in the world.

We walked past him and came away from it unscathed. Looking back, we were lucky. It was a rattlesnake, after all. But the same girl who freaked out about a small garter snake had no issues as a kid walking by a freaking rattlesnake. Curious, isn’t it?

My point here, is that when we are born, we are fearless. We don’t carry all the fears that we have as adults because we haven’t gained experience to show us what could go wrong. As we get older, the more examples we see of situations with causes and effects, we unconsciously begin to assess fear. As adults we are also much more aware of our own mortality, so we become more cautious.

Fear is usually born out of two things: the unknown and being unprepared for what’s coming. The unknowns are always going to be there in life. But we can lessen our fear of unknowns by equipping ourselves and preparing for it the best we can.

When we are younger, we find humor in things much more easily. Even looking back now, we both find the image of the snake coiled up by the boots funny. It’s even funnier that we didn’t think to go in a different direction! What was wrong with us?! When we first saw the snake there, our laughter about the situation for the unsuspecting person behind the door, dispelled our fear. And we walked passed him anyway.

Have you ever felt like you no longer recognize the person you’ve become? Have you felt like it was impossible to get the “old you” back? No matter how lost you may feel or how long it has been, you can always come back and find yourself again.

How People Forget Who They Are

They Live Their Lives for Other People

Sometimes we get so bogged down in what other people expect or want our lives to look like that we forget what we want. Living our lives for other people can make us feel like we have no control over what happens.

They are Scared

We can also forget who we are because we are afraid to go after what we want. We choose an easier path that doesn’t lead to our desired destination because we don’t want to risk having things not work out.

They Don’t Love Themselves

When we don’t love ourselves, we don’t feel like we are worthy of achieving what we want in life. We accept things that don’t make us happy or fulfilled because we don’t think we can get anything else.

They Ignore Their Interests and Passions

Following our interests and passions gives us direction in life. When we ignore the activities that fuel us, we have a difficult time finding our purpose.

They Don’t Have a Good Support System

Not having a good support system in your life can lead to loneliness and cause you to feel insecure. It is important to have people in your life that can help you when you need help, give you an external perspective, and improve your mental health. Having no support system or a negative support system can lead you to feel lost. 

Losing yourself can come at a great price. And you can lose yourself for years. I sure did as a young adult. I wrote about my own journey of both losing and finding myself in an earlier post. The important thing to remember, is that it is never too late to find yourself again. Who you are at your core can always be rediscovered. Who you are may become dormant for a while, but it never truly fades away.   

How to Get Back to Who You Are

Finding yourself again can feel like a daunting task, but if you take small steps, you will be able to get back to who you truly are. The five steps listed below are a great starting point.

Make a List of Your Passions and Interests

Passions and interests can be a driving force in our lives. Spend 10-15 minutes making a list of your passions and interests. Identify which ones matter most to you. During this exercise, it is important to really connect with yourself and avoid thinking about the desires of other people. 

Do More of What You Love

Once you know your passions and interests, you should plan to spend more time engaging in those interests. Find ways you can incorporate them into every day.

Start Taking Small Risks

You need to take small risks to change your life. If you feel lost, try making some small changes. For example, you could try to choose a hobby to do every day when you get home from work, or you could start searching for jobs that fit your interests.

Practice Self-Love

To get back to yourself, you need to learn to love yourself as you are. There are many ways that you can practice self-love. You might use affirmations, positive self-talk, self-care, or seek out a friend or therapist to talk to. You can’t find yourself again without showing yourself some love.

Establish a Positive Support System

Everyone deserves to have people cheering them on. Identify at least two people in your life that you can turn to for support and help. They may be your parent, friend, coworker, therapist, partner, or peer. Reach out to them and talk about how you’ve been feeling.

Remember, there is always a way to get back to the person you want to be, you just need to be willing to take the first step. 

In 1998, Semisonic released a song called Closing Time. It was catchy and now reminds me of a time in my life where I was really beginning to come into my own. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” are song lyrics in the pre-chorus of this song and it offers the perspective that endings can be viewed as an opportunity. Endings are difficult, but they can open our eyes to the endless possibilities that exist in the world.

The Challenges of Endings

“Ending” is a fairly broad term. An “ending” could be the end of a relationship, the end of a job, the end of someone’s life, or the end of a good movie. Everyone deals with endings differently, but endings always come with certain challenges.

Sadness

Endings often bring feelings of sadness. When something ends, we lose something that we will likely never get back again. We don’t like to lose what we have even if it means something better is coming.

Fear of Change

People are afraid of change. Change brings uncertainty and anxiety about what the future might hold. We tend to like being in control of our circumstances, and change can make us feel like we lack that control.

Figuring Out What Comes Next

When one thing ends, we need to figure out what to do next. Figuring out our next steps can be a significant amount of additional work. This can cause additional stress and worry that makes endings even more difficult to handle.

Confusion

Confusion is another feeling associated with endings. When we lose something, we also lose a piece of ourselves. We might be confused about what we are supposed to do, who we are, or how to make sense of the world around us.

Viewing Endings as New Beginnings

While endings are difficult, we can find meaning in our losses by learning to view endings as beginnings. There are a few different ways we can go about seeking out possibilities when something ends.

Let Yourself Feel the Loss

The first step to dealing with any form of ending in your life is to allow yourself to feel the loss. You need to process the emotions you’re feeling in order to move forward. Holding your emotions in can prevent you from healing and cause you additional stress that you don’t need.

Identify What’s Missing

Endings often leave us feeling like something is missing from our lives. For example, if you graduated college, you may feel you are missing mental stimulation, or if you lost your job, you may feel you are missing a sense of purpose. Identifying the missing piece will help you find ways to fill that void.

Look for Ways to Fill the Void

Once you know what’s missing, seek out opportunities to fill in the gap. The world is vast and full of possibilities. If you lose your job, seek out other jobs. If you lose a good friend, seek out new friendships. If you get to the ending of one movie or show, find another movie or show.

Make a Plan

Finally, make a plan for how to pursue those new opportunities and possibilities. When we seek a new beginning, it is important to have a plan in place to allow ourselves to reach our goals. List out at least three steps you need to take to make that change happen in your life, and work hard to make it happen.

Endings are a big part of life. Endings propel us forward and help us make positive changes in our lives. When we are struggling with a loss, it can be helpful to remember that, “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

I Will Not Bow is probably my favorite Breaking Benjamin song. I became aware of the song years after it was released. But I discovered it at a time when I needed to hear it the most.

What I have always loved about song lyrics is that the same words, read, spoken, or sung, can mean so many different things to people. That is the beauty of interpretation and art. For me, this song is about staying true to your imperfect self in a world that wants you to bow to their standards or ideals. But how you hear it and what you get from it might be something totally different.

When I was younger, there was a lot of emphasis on fitting in. Conforming. Being like everyone else. From time to time, I even felt pressure from myself that fitting in was the right thing to do. But the truth was, I wanted to stand out. I didn’t want to be like anyone else. And I did not want to conform to anyone else’s idea of who I should be.

Many of us go through times in our life where we feel tempted to fit in. Don’t give into it. You were born to stand out. Stay true to yourself. The right people will find you and will love you for who you are, as you are. They will become part of your tribe and be just as weird as you. And trust me, you will be so much happier being loved for who you are, rather than someone you are not.

People are afraid of change. This fear of change prevents us from letting go of the old and bringing in the new. But sometimes in order to achieve and receive better things in your life, you have to be willing to move on from the way things are.

To dive deeper into the meaning of this quote, let’s take a look at the meaning of attachment, the things we attach ourselves to, and how to let go of our attachments to get what we deserve.

What is “Attachment”?

“Attachment” is an emotional dependence on something in your life. As humans, we tend to value the things we own or have more than the things that we do not. We form an emotional connection with the people, things, thoughts, and situations in our lives, and we have a difficult time breaking that connection.

Attachments can be positive or negative, but regardless, attachments can prevent us from getting what we want out of life.

What Do We Attach Ourselves to?

People

People are social creatures. We depend on other people to get our basic needs met and to act as our support system. We form attachments to our parents, friends, romantic partners, coworkers, academic peers, etc.

However, we all form an attachment to the wrong person at some point. For example, we develop a friendship that turns sour, or we have a girlfriend or boyfriend that treats us poorly. Despite these attachments being negative, we still hold onto them because of our emotional dependence.

Things

We also attach ourselves to objects and possessions. We attach emotion to these objects when we receive them from someone we care about or when we have or use the objects during important life events.

In our consumerist culture, we tend to hold onto items we no longer need for a very long period of time due to this emotional connection.

Thoughts

In addition, we can become attached to our thoughts or ways of thinking. We might have certain beliefs about ourselves or beliefs about the world that aren’t beneficial to us, but we hold onto them anyway and allow them to prevent us from being our best.

Situations

Lastly, we attach ourselves to situations in life including our job, our living situation, and our daily routine. These attachments can be difficult to break because they are such a significant part of our lives.

How Can We Let Go of our Attachments to Live a Better Life?

All these types of attachments can hold us back from greatness. Holding onto your current job may keep you from seeking better opportunities. Holding onto a negative relationship can keep you from finding someone who will treat you better. Holding onto all your grandma’s possessions may clutter your space and make your life more difficult.

It is important to find ways to let go of our negative attachments. Here are three ways you can start.

Become Your Own Best Friend

As explained above, an attachment is an emotional dependency. By becoming your own best friend, you become more independent from the people, things, or situations you’ve been relying on.

Imagine Life Without That Attachment

Sometimes we hold onto an attachment because we can’t imagine life without it. Take time out of your day to imagine what life would be like if you let go of your attachment. You will often find that you’ll see an improved version of your life.

Live Out Your Desires

Push your attachments to the side and start working towards what you want. Live as though you have nothing and no one holding you back.

Merriam-Webster defines happiness as the state of being content or satisfied. What this means is that you are the only one who can set the standard for what that means to you. Nobody can tell you when you are satisfied and when you are content.

Often times, we place our happiness in someone else’s hands. We inadvertently place expectations on friends and family and partners to make us happy. Maybe you expect your partner to notice and comment on your new haircut or how well you maintain the home or yard. It is nice to show appreciation to your loved ones. I try to be super intentional about showing my husband admiration and appreciation because I know he values it and I genuinely feel it. I often think he just knows I feel this way, but when I express it to him, I know it goes a long way.

This issue with this, though, is when your happiness or mood is too externally focused on what someone else does. For example, if you are dependent on someone else to make you feel good about yourself or make you feel happy about life, then you are too externally focused. We should not be reliant on someone else to determine our own emotional state.

The truth is, when we do this, we set ourselves up for disappointment. We place expectations on someone that they may not be capable of meeting, and when they fail, we take it personally and choose to be unhappy. And we all fall into this dynamic from time to time. I will catch myself doing this and tell myself that I am placing too much emphasis on my husband making me feel good. Then I will get curious because it isn’t like me to be this way. Usually, I will discover that there is something bigger driving my need for additional validation. Then I can get to work on fixing what is driving it inside of me.

Remember, how you feel is your responsibility. It isn’t someone else’s job to make sure you are happy and content. When you give that control to someone else, you may find that you are always unhappy. Any time they don’t notice you or acknowledge something you want them to comment on, you will find yourself unhappy. It is a lot of responsibility to place on someone, and a heavy, heavy burden, precious.

Instead, take control of your emotions and thoughts. Don’t let someone’s inability, or even unwillingness, to please you make you sad or discouraged. It’s not their job.

You were created with the ability to do, think, and feel. What are some things can you do to make yourself happy?

• Do something nice for yourself. Take inventory of the things you like to do and start doing them.
• Enroll in a class and learn something new that you are interested in.
• Take up a new hobby.
• Exercise or meditate. Exercise releases serotonin, which is the happy hormone.
• Keep a gratitude journal. Write down three things you feel grateful for every day.
• Practice positive thinking. Don’t dwell on the terrible things that have happened to you. Try to find something good that came out of any unpleasant experience. What lesson did you learn during or because of these challenging times?
• Do for others. Often, serving others brings us more happiness than we expected.
• Spend time with friends and family because just being with them makes you happy.

Happiness is a choice that we make ourselves. Our emotional state shouldn’t be determined by other people or what they choose to do. Remember, when we are unhappy with ourselves, we become vulnerable to becoming moody and mean to others. And when carry the burden of trying to make someone else happy all the time, we lose ourselves in the process and end up feeling alone.