Five Ways to Stop Staying Too Long
Why would anyone stay in a relationship longer than they have to?
Why would anyone continue to work at a job with no movement?
Why haven’t you moved on?
These are the questions that can keep us up at night and make us lose focus throughout the day. Recurrent questions of “why” and “what if” plays over and over again in your head. You talk about your situation to whomever is willing to listen to the point of exhaustion, yet you are still there. I get it!
You invested time, energy and you process levels upon levels of emotions. You have convinced yourself that there is a reward at the end for the time you’ve given a situation. You have expectations from time spent. Your ability to stay longer than necessary is built on negative thinking patterns, past traumas and maladaptive coping skills that you’ve probably had all your life and you try your best not to speak on them.
Guilt and regret run together. This is coming from you knowing your situation is not healthy. The idea of detaching from the people, place and things that trigger the feelings from past hurts is familiar. But this is where you will feel like you are harming yourself; it’s that internal fight we call cognitive dissonance. You know that your situation does not align with your values, ideals and beliefs yet you continue to participate in the cycles of stress.
Clients that come through our doors often have underlying low self-worth. It can feel like a double-edged sword when you know leaving is the answer but the idea of leaving and starting over feels overwhelming. As a result, you stack your reasons to stay in “it” because change just might be catastrophic. We fear the judgment of others and sometimes want to prove we have the ability to withstand. Do you really want to prove you can live in toxicity? How does that build your self-worth?
The shame and fear mounts and will trick you into thinking you have to be more understanding, have more sex, reduce your standards or “start over”. The truth that wakes you up at night is your nervous system saying we are overloaded from trying to work against knowing we deserve better. Thoughts such as “I’m over it”, “I have nothing left” and “I’m depleted”. The most common reason we hear people stay too long is because they are simply afraid. We know all too well how fear can interrupt our thoughts of having the things we want even if the current situation is toxic. Fear of the unknown is valid! However, is it the first time you’ve had fears and did what needed to be done anyway?
What are you proving by staying? What you need is on the other side of the distorted version of “safety” you are sitting in. You have convinced yourself that you are safe; that it’s not that bad. If you aren’t sleeping well, you’re emotionally eating, you have repeated visions of living a “better” life and the symptoms of depression and anxiety are piling up – then it is THAT bad and you ARE NOT comfortable. Here’s five places you can start. You can do this!
Acknowledge you are not actually stuck. You feel stuck. You are afraid of disrupting the normal toxic routine.
You are worthy! Aren’t you worth fighting that fear? If you are visualizing the better life, that means you have a new destination and assignment to create that for yourself. Mediocrity is no longer acceptable. You demonstrate your worth by choosing you.
People will always talk. They will talk about what they know, and they will make up stuff to fill in the gaps. Do it anyway! What you share is up to you but know that as soon as you take the opinions of others into consideration you are no longer living for yourself.
You aren’t being selfish. You have to utilize the resources. You have the time, the opportunity, the motivation and the resources to do what’s necessary.
Adjust your expectations. You are changing which means your expectations have changed as well. You want better!
I’ve stayed too long in more situations than I bear to mention. I was not groomed to ask for the best of everything, so I allowed myself to be complacent in some of the most toxic environments. Looking back on it, I thought it was a part of life. I wanted to “settle into it” and not be a complainer, I wanted to “look happy” like everyone else but I was eating my feelings, sleeping more to escape my reality and lying about my life to seek some validation from others. Once I learned that I was worth it and that I could create it I pushed back on my fears. I was off to change my life! Did I get everything right – nope – but I was able to say with conviction that I was worth the risk!