Walking Away From Something Good.

No one tells you that sometimes growth means learning to walk away from something good.

From someone you can undeniably see as fundamentally a "truly good person." From someone who you would classify as "good on paper" in terms of your standards. From someone who it would "make sense" in so many ways. From someone who checks so many boxes.

No one tells you how scary it will feel to have to learn to trust yourself to know when something isn't right for you.

Especially when it looks like it would be and if you fell in love the idea you could easily be lost in it rather than staying grounded in your reality, in your body.

To hope that you are right in the long run. To walk away from someone who should be right but still doesn't feel quite right. To have to trust no one but yourself, your intuition. That you will find these things again...

From someone who says and does all the things you've wanted to see for so long from people. From someone who makes it easy to have a deep respect for. From someone who makes space for you, in all aspects of the word. From someone who feels "safe."

No one tells you that sometimes even when all of those things are there, it still may not feel right.

And that is where your growth will be challenged, that is where your discernment will be tested. That is where you'll have to figure out what the real truth of what you want not only looks like but feels like. And you will very quickly understand the difference, you'll see the heartbreaking truth of it.

A moment that will ask you if you will be able to recognize that there is still a missing piece.

A moment that will ask you to choose to settle or sacrifice the connection. To stay or to search with no guarantee. To be selfish or selfless.

A moment that will ask how much longer are you willing to try to make it work or wait when there's a deep part of you that knows it probably won’t, that you both deserve more than a long shot.

A moment that ask if you will let your ego win and hold onto a connection knowing that it isn't fair to either of you. That isn’t fully right. That isn't meant for you to hold together.

A moment that will ask you to do what feels right for you. To choose you. To lean into you.

A moment that makes you question all over again what "feeling right" for you means. What it is supposed to feel like. What it is supposed to look like. Because even with all the things in front of you that were right, the question still sat internally unable to land on the right feeling.

All the time you’ve taken to try to define what you want and what you need tested in real time to see how much you truly trust yourself and value the things you say you do, the things you think you value. To figure out the weight of those things.

A moment if you are going to let it linger or let it go. If you’ll let go of comfort because the uncomfortable is what is right.

A moment of clarity in remembering that comfort often leads to complacency. A moment of awareness in knowing how quickly clouded clarity can become when comforts are established.

A reminder that just because something feels comfortable doesn't mean it's compatible. To not fall victim to that, to not make a home in something that just feels "normal" and "easy."

A moment asking you if you will override your intuition just because of how it looks on paper. If you will gaslight your body just to try to make something work. If you will sacrifice your integrity just out of a place of fear.

If you will choose it because it’s everything you’ve thought you wanted. If you will do what is right, what is honest. If you will do what feels true to you, what resonates as an echo within the deepest parts of you. If you will follow your heart rather than your head. If your growth will actually translate into real time.

A moment asking you to recognize that you cannot make something be there if it isn't and the heartbreaking realization of having to let go of all that you've found in hopes of finding something again.

To hold space for the importance of feeling comfortable and emotionally safe and seen in a connection but also not stay in something just for the sake of that if all the pieces don't feel there.

To be able to hold space, respect, and accept who someone is but also understand when it doesn't resonate with you on the level you need it to. That it is okay and it will be okay. But you have to be brave enough to be willing to try again.

To know that someone does not have to be a bad person just because it isn't a good fit. That just because a puzzle piece could fit there doesn't mean it fits best there.

To have to actively choose compassion and kindness rather than your own comforts, to lead with leaning into the parts of you that don't just choose you in the hard moments. To not lean into all the ways you've known to cope and to protect your own feelings but navigate with protecting theirs in mind too while still being true to yourself and to them.

To lead with your present self and not your past.

To understand the emotional responsibility when the choice lies within you. To understand the kindness and power you have and not abusing that trust.

To not teaching their heart that the privilege you held was misplaced, that the access wasn't wrongfully granted.

To learn to hold space for the coexisting truth of liking who someone is but not liking them in the way that you need to. To learning the feel the painful truth of that and having to accept it. To be able to make peace with that.

To find peace in understanding that sometimes walking away from someone good is what is sometimes right. And the only person it needs to feel right for is you, you owe no one an explanation for that. And the people who trust you and truly want you to be happy will respect that.

To know that endings don't have to go up in flames and bridges don't have to be broken just because they aren't going to be cross anymore.

To know that all you can do is allow someone to be, to allow yourself to be, and to see if that aligns. To encourage someone to show up and be who they are and not try to change that to make something be there that isn't. To accept rather than change. To stay in the present rather than in the potential.

To accept that more often than not it does not work out but that doesn't mean that the connection was wasted.

To understand that rarely connections end up being what we want them to be but they always end up being what we needed them to be.

To be able to recognize that. To not force it. Whether we acknowledge that in the present or the future. We don't get to define what things become no matter how hard we may try.

To not stay in something for the wrong reasons just because it is "good enough" or because someone is a "good person." To see that is not fair to you or to them. To not just stay in something because it isn't "toxic" or "bad." To know you both deserve more.

To understand that sometimes, it just isn't enough and that isn't something you can change. To understand that the wrong person can give you the world and it will never feel right, no matter how much they continue to give. That there is so much truth in the saying "you can't love someone into loving you."

The acceptance in being able to step away from something that looks right but doesn't feel right in the timing that leaves someone feeling respected.

To not try to force it to be something it wasn't meant to. To not hurt each other by allowing it to continue to live in a space where it would not thrive. To preserve the dignity and treat the other person's feelings with respect even when it's hard. To move with kindness. To lead with consideration.

To communicate with respect in a way that can hope to preserve both dignity and integrity.

To covey respect equally for other people's feelings in the good and the bad, the easy and the difficult moments that inevitably unfold when building a new connection.

To be able to stay grounded enough to not fall in love with the potential of what something could be when something doesn't quite click, to not dismiss that feeling.

To have enough self respect to be able to be willing to walk away from something good, something you've look for in so many people not because of high standards but because of lack of full resonance.

To understand that something good isn't always something right and the two can coexist.

To not only ask ourselves when dating to value not only what looks good but also feels good, feels right. Because both matter.

To give a connection time but not try to make a happily ever after out of a fantasy that will never feel right in our reality.

To be able to remember that you deserve to feel fulfilled in all the ways you know that you need. And so do they and it is cruel to not let either of you find that, to prolong that. Pain is inevitable but it can be minimized.

To remind yourself that even at times when it might feel hopeless that what you want does exist if you believe that it does, if you're willing to not settle for anything less. But that you can't find that if you're still tightly holding onto something else out of fear of never holding something ever again.

To find discernment in the things we feel because something resonates versus when it reassures, when it reaffirms. To understand those are very different places that lie within us. To be able to see the difference in when something feels like attraction and when something feels good because it is attention.

To ask ourselves the hard questions instead of simply leaning into what we feel but to understand the places they come from and seeing if the alignment still is there.

To be able to be realistic and to remove yourself if you are not able to give what we all deserve to have. To be transparent and honest, but still kind. To yourself, to them.

To have enough awareness to let them go if they deserve more than we are able to give.

All we can ask of ourselves and others is to be attuned to what we feel and be honest with those whom our feelings affect in the time that we find clarity.

To communicate from a place of responsibility but not obligation in the feelings of those who have trusted us as a safe space.

To not delay conveying when clarity is found out, to not protect your ego out of a place of fear in hurting someone but understanding it is not your job to manage reactions.

To trust someone to regulate their own emotions and not try to protect or manage them for them.

To know the only thing that ever in your control and responsibility is to be honest and to treat someone's feelings how you'd hope yours is treated.

To understand that you can be clear without being cold or critical. To understand that the impact and intent can still align and that if feelings were genuine on both sides that will be always be appreciated.

To be able to end something cleanly without needing to be cruel.

To not betray the vulnerability and trust, to teach others that kindness isn't conditional on only positive outcomes. To understand that hard truths, direct communication do not have to be conveyed in a way that will make someone regret the connection you had or regress in their openness in future connections.

To allow walking away from something good to be a positive because it comes from a place of self trust and security.

To be able to be proud of yourself to be strong enough to find the clarity and let something go rather than let something linger in hopes of potential that a past version of yourself wouldn't have let go of so easily.

To understand that the world isn’t a fair place but that you don’t need to be someone who carries that in the storyline you get to choose the ending to.

To have grown to a version of yourself who is able to navigate and discern the things you feel and save you both the time and attachment.

To show that it very much can be a sign of deep respect to walk away and it has nothing to do with how good of a person someone is.

To not just be someone who has awareness but lives with it even when it interferes with comfort, to not just speak the language and hold the knowledge. To create real change and translate that into respecting others feelings as our own. To find the words to lean into maturity.

No one tells you that when that moment comes it won't be as simple as you think. It won't always just be a simple yes, an easy yes.

No one tells you that growing will require you to be a much stronger person when it comes to discerning the nuances between the things you know and the things you feel.

To close a chapter in a way that honors the connection in clarity rather than chaos and confusion.

No one tells you how hard it will be, how much it will hurt to sometimes let the good go. To know you have to let it go.