It’s been a while again.

My energy has been somewhere else.

It’s funny how when you decide what you want to change about yourself, that even if you let your attention be pulled away from the quest, the strength of that desire continues to pull you towards opportunities to make change anyway. It becomes an unconscious stripping away, but it’s gentle, and natural. There is no forcing — what I’ve heard for years seems to be true. Just sharp, clear desire, and then everything else rearranges.

Now let me explain:

I’ve learned a lot this year about false loyalty. Loyalty that isn’t built on value in relationship, but by one-sided fear. Loyalty that clings and grasps, guilts and shames. I suppose some people call this love, but words out of the dictionary, that’s not right.

Codependency, anxious attachment, avoidance, over-giving and clinging from fear of abandonment, fawning, people pleasing, the works. It’s all come up.

I think this year has been the year of the Wolf. Wolves have their pack, can depend on it, but hold boundaries and roles strong. It’s how they survive. They are stronger together. The modern human society is individual. It is weak.

I’ve shed a lot, but it hasn’t necessarily meant a physical dropping of friends and relationships, although some have fallen away in the process. My relationships were unbalanced, and to put it simply, out of whack. They were slowly pulling me into a deep, dark shaft, my potential and joy dangling above it, but I still dug my short nails into the dirt in protest.

The problem wasn’t the relationships themselves — we all make concessions to be in contact with people who don’t match us exactly (family anyone?) — the problem was how I was engaging in the relationships. I was taking on roles that weren’t mine to take: the saver, the caretaker, the pacifier and peace-keeper and the mediator.

If we were wolves, I would have been eaten, ostracized or discarded as unfit to procreate. I held no boundaries and was strung out from trying to be everything.

I had attracted, allowed, manifested…tolerated…behavior that weakened me. Guilt-tripping, gaslighting, just plain neglect and under appreciation. I was comfortable for others: comfortably always there.

I had created a situation where I had little value, save only in times convenient for others needs.

In all this, I was boundary-less, opinion-less, desire-less, personality-less — a lump of clay in unskilled, sloppy hands.

And so, I had created the relationship dynamics I had, by long ago learning that I had no innate value myself.

After months of growing, learning, and changing this year it hit: why would someone else value me if I didn’t value myself?

I stopped reaching out out of insecurity. I left space for my relationship-mates to come to me. I stopped trying to save people out of fear and co-dependent duty. I stopped accepting crumbs. I stopped always being there.

And then beauty finally started to come into my life. No one left, our relationships have just changed, and I finally pulled in an equal.

When I removed the undertone of apology from the description of my actions or day, I stopped being met with scolding or anger over my choices.

When I started feeling like I had a right to say no, my no was received with acceptance and respect, instead of anger, fear or complete denial.

When I stopped chasing people and caretaking the relationship, I got energy back, and people started reaching out to me.

When I started figuring out what I wanted, the unsolicited opinions stopped, and I actually got what I decided I wanted.

All of this has been sweet, difficult yes, but sweet. It has become even more obvious how the things you hold inside of you to be true are felt by other people, and how it trains them to behave with you.

My relationship with my Dad has been the most obvious example.

At times, it was codependent. Others, it was filled with anger and fear. And much of the time, the undertone was one of control.

This week he called me, just to tell me that he appreciated our recent time together visiting Yellowstone National Park. He asked how my recent changes in job-situation and life-situation were going. He fully listened, his perspective felt factual and logical instead of emotionally-driven and he didn’t project his fears onto me, but admitted them and claimed them.

It is a joy to see changes in yourself radiating into your relationships and changing them for the better. That’s how I feel anyway.

I haven’t lost anything. No one had to be cut out. I just had to change.