Aug 14, 2026 · 5 min · 4 segments
Growing often means becoming someone new, but not by rejecting who you used to be. Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is acknowledge that the habits we're letting go of once protected us, even…
Dora KamauHost
So there are moments in life where growth feels less like gaining and more like letting go.
At the very beginning, they talk about the risks of practicing mindfulness, and one of them really stayed with me.
They said, as you become more aware, it can change how you relate to yourself, to others, and the world around you.
And sometimes that can feel isolating because as you start to see things more clearly, you also start to see yourself more clearly.
The way that you've reacted, the things you've said, the choices you've made, and not all of it feels easy to look at.
And I think this is something we don't always expect, that growth can come with a kind of grief.
I remember coming out of that program and noticing things in myself I hadn't really seen before.
How stress would make me reactive, how I would say things I didn't fully mean, and how I would act from a place of urgency or fear or lack.
There was a part of me that wanted to judge it, to say, why did I do that? I should have known better.
But the more I stayed with it, the less I wanted to judge it, and the more I wanted to understand it.
Because those parts of me, the reactive parts, the impulsive parts, the parts that were operating from survival, they were learned.
They were shaped by what I had experienced, and they were trying in their own way to keep me safe.
Instead of pushing those parts away, I could meet them with something else, with a little more kindness and care and understanding.
It's about recognizing why we were that way in the first place and allowing those parts of ourselves to be seen before we let them go.
So there are moments in life where growth feels less like gaining and more like letting go.
At the very beginning, they talk about the risks of practicing mindfulness, and one of them really stayed with me.
They said, as you become more aware, it can change how you relate to yourself, to others, and the world around you.
And sometimes that can feel isolating because as you start to see things more clearly, you also start to see yourself more clearly.
The way that you've reacted, the things you've said, the choices you've made, and not all of it feels easy to look at.
And I think this is something we don't always expect, that growth can come with a kind of grief.
I remember coming out of that program and noticing things in myself I hadn't really seen before.
How stress would make me reactive, how I would say things I didn't fully mean, and how I would act from a place of urgency or fear or lack.
There was a part of me that wanted to judge it, to say, why did I do that? I should have known better.
But the more I stayed with it, the less I wanted to judge it, and the more I wanted to understand it.
Because those parts of me, the reactive parts, the impulsive parts, the parts that were operating from survival, they were learned.
They were shaped by what I had experienced, and they were trying in their own way to keep me safe.
Instead of pushing those parts away, I could meet them with something else, with a little more kindness and care and understanding.
It's about recognizing why we were that way in the first place and allowing those parts of ourselves to be seen before we let them go.
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