Giving thanks for burning bridges...

A very good blog post about relationships and self preservation... by John Pavolitz

"Many times a day I think about them—the people I used to feel close to, the ones I once felt at home with, those whose presence I used to find comfort in. They are family members, lifelong friends, co-workers, neighbors, former church friends. My mind shows me their faces and lists off their names, and I begin to grieve the loss anew as I remember what once was but no longer is.

I think about the massive and quickly widening space between myself and these people; the great distance created by silence or hurtful words or simply by me knowing what I now know about them. I rewind through the social media skirmishes, the cold family gatherings, and the incendiary verbal bombshells we’ve exchanged this year, and I survey the bloody fallout.

And I’m keenly aware that I am likely burning bridges between us in these days.

Simply by my steady volume, by my refusal to nurture falsehoods, by my insistence on calling out hypocrisy, by my intolerance to hatred—I am probably forever altering the connection between us.
I’m going to have to risk this.
I’m going to have to be okay with the burning.It isn’t that I find any satisfaction in the separation or the slightest joy in the severing of ties—not even the cheap high of a middle finger flip, mic drop as I walk away. It’s simply self-preservation.

I am speaking unapologetic truth about the things that matter the most to me.
I am enduring the collateral damage of full authenticity.
I am clinging tightly to my integrity and my sanity—even if I have to let go of these treasured relationships to do it.
I’m holding onto my soul at any cost, because in the end it is worth more to me than even they are." -John Pavolitz

To read John's blog post in full CLICK HERE