Burn Your Bridges
"Don’t burn your bridges."
You’ve probably heard this phrase many times throughout your life. It’s always been uttered by people who are reminding you that there will be times in the future when you’ll need to rely on people from your past.
I’m here to encourage you to blow up and burn some bridges in your life.
There are bridges that allow you to return to people in your life, that you never need to return to again. They are toxic people who brought pain and chaos into your life. People who met an unmet need in your life at one time or another, likely a need that existed in you as the result of some distant emotional wound and trauma.
The people I’m referring to are people whom you used to medicate that old wound, while allowing them to create new ones. And even though you recognize the damage they caused, and you know they haven’t changed, you still maintain that bridge to once again medicate yourself, with them, in the event of a future inflammation of that old wound.
Burn those bridges.
There are also bridges that you maintain with people who haven’t necessarily hurt you in an overt way, but those people draw you back, or keep you in, a smaller version of yourself and your life. They may even do it with good intentions, such as a desire to not see you fail or get hurt.
They are the ones who encourage you to play it safe, not take chances or dare to dream too big. You’re ready to illuminate your life in new ways, but to them it’s safer for you to stay in the dark. You need to elevate to a new level, but they feel you should be held down, for your own good, to avoid a fall. It’s time for you to expand, but they’ll encourage restraint and retreat.
Burn those bridges.
And finally, there are bridges that allow you to retreat at will and return to the “safety” of the known when the unknown begins to feel scary.
Perhaps you left an oppressive work environment to create your own business, or venture into a brand new career. New ventures, and new professional roles and environments can seem scary at times, and by maintaining those bridges to the old, oppressive work environment, you know you can return if it gets too scary, even though you realize that if you do retreat, another part of you will die inside.
Burn those bridges.
As long as you maintain bridges that allow you to return to toxic people, and allow them to return to you, or return to well-meaning people who keep you playing small, and old, seemingly safer environments, you will never illuminate, elevate, expand, and discover the power to become the best, brightest, happiest and most fulfilled version of who you were meant to be.