Why did you stay?

He then went on and asked, “If it was as bad as you say it was, why did you stay?”

I laughed.This was one of those Oprah Winfrey “Aha” moments; the words kept reasoning in my mind as we drifted away from the subject, like a truth I’ve avoided for so long.

It disturbed me throughout our conversation, I felt challenged and at the same time scared. A lot of people tend to ask questions like ‘why did you leave that partner, job, school, country?’ And the answer to that question can be as plain as ‘It wasn’t good enough for me’. It’s easy to explain why you left but it’s tough to explain why you stayed when it was right to leave.
Sarah Jakes Roberts once said, “ Isn’t it crazy how sometimes our past keeps us from walking into the future because we recognize that we may have to answer to some questions when we get there that we’ve learned to bury and hide”

I agree.

Some of us can be a little more adventurous than the rest; its not good or bad and it can be both at the same time. Some experiences are fantastic and others are not that great to be honest. In fact, sometimes it happens that we are ashamed of some decisions we made in the past because we knew better yet still chose to ride with it a little longer than we should have. When we are finally over with it, we move on and cover it all with dark shades.

We bury the past to embrace the present praying and hoping we never go back to our old self. We fail to recognize that our life is continuous and no event is independent of others whether past or future. In that moment, we realize there are some residues we still walk with just because we never took time to fully dust ourselves off . Just like sloppy trees, those residues grow even sloppier until they collapse. They appear in different forms such as words, gestures, thoughts, actions, and decisions.
I would like to invite you today to go back to that place deep inside of you that you have avoided to look at for so long whether it is a friendship, a relationship, a job, a home, a moment, a place, a country that no longer appears to be part of your life but has had an impact on the person you are today.Take a deep breath and tell your whole truth to yourself.

For instance, if you had friends in the past that didn’t have your best interest at heart yet you chose to hang out with them a couple of years before leaving them, it is important you understand the “why” perhaps you stayed in the first place because you felt lonely and needed whoever was available. Knowing this will not only help you focus on what actually needs to be taken care of (self-love) but it will also help you decide whether your ‘future’ friendship is out of loneliness or pure emotions

Here are the three main reasons you should ask yourself “Why”:

-Awareness of the main area to improve

-Better decision making skills

-Redirection on the path towards destiny
After hours on the phone, I finally replied, “I didn’t believe I deserved better.”