LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Josh Connolly!

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Dear Ones,

How many of you take pride in how much you can endure without breaking?

How many of you take pride in being the one person who can “handle” someone in your life who is incredibly difficult?

How many of you are the ones who can always shoulder more responsibility, who never complain, who don’t have any needs of your own, whom everyone else can count on?

How many of you, when you are suffering, have the instinct to go far away from everyone else and be alone, so you can take care of yourself and not bother anyone with your problems? Because who would help you or understand, anyhow?

Many of you, I am guessing, might have been raised in families or systems where emotional help was not available, where abuse or neglect might have been normalized, and where you might have felt that you were on your own in the world. You might also have been taught to take immense amounts of responsibility for others, who would not or could not take responsibility for themselves.

Do you carry the world on your shoulders?

Do you believe that if you stepped away, or let go, everything would collapse?

Do you feel like everything has already collapsed, and you are desperately scrambling to put it all back together again — because you, only you, are the glue that keeps the world from detonating into utter chaos?

If any of this describes any of you — come on in. Come in.

Find yourself a seat, get a warm blanket, come and be with us.

We want you to be well.

We want you to be soft.

We want you to be safe.

Our special guest this week is Josh Connolly, who is quite familiar with the patterns above, and who spends his life teaching people that it is okay — that sometimes it is even necessary — to stop trying so hard to make everything work. That sometimes you can’t make everything work. That sometimes you just have to walk away and save your own life.

Come inside and rest, as you ponder all this.

We love you here. And none of us here need you to save us. We just want to welcome you with warmth and affection.

Let’s keep going.

Love,

Your Lizzy

Dear Love, what would you have me know about those I have left behind?

Oh tender, bruised, brave little heart.

Here is another question you did not want to ask, about a subject you are afraid to face. Here come the same old voices in your head telling you that you are bad and wrong.

Bad and wrong to set boundaries. Bad and wrong to end relationships in which you are being harmed. Bad and wrong to walk away from toxic systems and dysfunctional cultures. Bad and wrong to say, “I would actually like to survive, please,” or “I would like to not be used and abused and taken for granted, please,” or “I would prefer to go where it is warm, where people are kind and sane, and where I am safe.”

Honey, where in the world would you have ever learned that it was okay to say the words “no more”?

Where in the world was it ever modeled to you that — when people are cruel, inconsiderate, and hurtful — you may leave?

Where in the world did you ever see women choosing their own well-being over the greater good?

Where in the world would you have learned that sacrificing yourself again and again in order to make others comfortable is maybe not selfless and noble, but actually a slow kind of self-murder?

Where would you have learned that a self — your self — is worth saving?

Sweetheart, you have learned it here — and you will continue to learn it here.

You will learn it here in this daily practice, where Love speaks to you, where we speak to you, with limitless tenderness. Where we teach you not to jump onto burning infernos with other people and call that loyalty. Where dignity and emotional autonomy become more sacred than sacrifice and collective security — especially if the collective is unwell and even deeply dangerous.

Sweetheart, you have never left anyone or anything behind lightly. You have never left behind anyone or anything that, as they say in your rooms of recovery, didn’t have claw marks in it, from you trying with all your might to hold onto it and make it work. You have never left anyone or anything behind until the damage you were enduring was so great that you thought you might, in fact, not survive it. And you have never left anyone or anything behind without suffering enormous guilt over saving your own life.

That is the part we wish to heal. The guilt. The guilty, shamed part. The part who always says, “You could have done more, you should have tried harder, you didn’t try A, B, C, or D . . .”

Sweetheart, sweetheart, what we actually wish is that you would learn to try a bit LESS hard. We actually wish you would leave sooner, when relationships, systems, cultures and yes, even nations, become poisonous.

“But where is the love in this?” you ask. “Aren’t I supposed to help everyone? Aren’t I supposed to stay and stick and help everyone?”

My little overly responsible, tired, tender heart — we wish you to understand that you aren’t doing anybody any favors when you tolerate abuse or enable delusions, dysfunction, dependencies, or insanity.

Remember that astonishingly radical thing you once overheard a friend with excellent boundaries say to another friend, a very chaotic friend, who came asking for another loan:

“No,” she said. “I won’t give you any money — because it won’t help you and it won’t help me.”

Can you remember these words, whenever you are tempted to remain enmeshed in any relationship or system that feels like disorder, cruelty or chaos? Can you say, “No, I won’t pour any more of my spirit into this — because it won’t help you and it won’t help me”?

We know you want to be a loving person — more than anything in the world, you want to be a loving person — but maybe, as someone who understands the universal narrative arc of storytelling, can you possibly imagine falling in love with this idea:

Every soul on this planet came here to have its own hero’s journey, its own Earth School adventure. You know better than anyone that without challenges and obstacles, there is no good story — because there is no opportunity for growth and transformation. Therefore, everyone must face their own challenges and obstacles in order to have their soul’s journey.

But what you keep doing for people (and calling it “love”) is removing their obstacles from them — for them — such that they never have the chance to experience the consequences of their behavior and to see the mayhem of their own decision-making.

You have a long history of absorbing other people’s blows, so they don’t have to.

How can you call that loving? How can they ever grow or change if you keep smoothing it over for them, erasing their mistakes with your overly generous heart, bailing them out, covering for them, absorbing their misbehavior, pretending that it doesn’t hurt you, and teaching them that that abuse, neglect, dysfunction, active addiction, selfishness, learned helplessness, and cruelty are perfectly fine?

What if — at the level of the cosmos, at the level of collective consciousness, at the level of collective transformation, at the level of unconditional love — the very best gift you could ever give to someone (or to a whole system) is to leave? Thus giving them, perhaps, the chance to feel their own consequences at last, and to maybe even change? Thus, perhaps, entrusting them the dignity of having their own journey?

Are you really helping people as much as you think you’ve always been helping (is what we have always wanted to know)? Or do you just keep standing in the way of transformation?

GET OUT OF THE WAY.

Think on that, sweetie.

As for all those you have left behind, can you begin to understand that leaving them was not only good for you, but good for them?

Can you absorb that? Can you believe that? Can you trust us?

And as for the future — when we tell you to leave, we really mean it.

Don’t hesitate, don’t linger, don’t try ninety more solutions.

When we tell you to go, GO.

Because when we tell you to save yourself, we are actually giving them a chance to save themselves, as well.

And that — you can count on it, my radical rule breaker — is the meaning of true love.

Let’s keep going.

We are so proud of you. Keep listening. We love you.

Prompt

Did you maybe recognize yourself in my letter? Are you someone who struggles with boundaries, who smooths the way for others, absorbs their blows, makes it pleasant — even though you secretly know you aren’t helping either one of you? If you have been pondering how to stop that behavior and those relationships — and how to get out of the way of other people’s transformations — you can join me this week in asking: Dear Love, what would you have me know about leaving others behind?

And if this doesn’t feel applicable, remember that our standard formula usually gets the job done (think of it as the Coke Classic of our self-love practice): Dear Love, what would you have me know today?