Six Signs You Need A Life Transformation

Choosing a life of authenticity

A life of peace and tranquility escapes too many people because they never learned how to live life on their terms. Living with outdated scripts that require conformity often yield discontent.

When people live by a traditional set of rules, they expect life to be kind to them. Put family first, get an education, work hard, and be grateful. That sounds like a recipe for happiness, but many people miss that boat. They end up living a life of disappointment, fear, or perpetual discontent.

Misdirection and Misconception

Maybe you thought life would be different. Instead, you ended up feeling insignificant. You have markers of unhappiness, which include the inability to speak up, a lack of boundaries in relationships, or strict boundaries protected by anger and hostility.

You know life can be better but don’t know how to shift. So, you live to protect yourself. You may become a workaholic or perfectionist, a relationship tyrant, or a perpetual victim. You may need a life transformation, especially if your life is marked by one of the following circumstances.

Old secrets keep nagging at you

You are keeping a secret to protect others. You fear that living openly about your past will make other people unhappy. You’ve been taught to sacrifice your happiness for the greater good. But carrying the secret becomes increasingly difficult over time. You internalize the pain instead of healing it.

You know you are protecting someone who doesn’t deserve protection. They may have never lived up to their reputation or may be dangerous. But, you have never been permitted to use the power of your words to serve yourself. So, you live in silence.

Money or prestige is not making you happy

You can buy anything you want. Too bad, peace doesn’t come in a bottle, not that you haven’t tried the bottle. You can’t even tell people you are unhappy because people envy you. You have all acquired all of the materialism associated with happiness.

You give to others generously, but you still have more money than joy. You buy experiences and services that put you at the center of attention so that you can create a context for happiness. But, no experience lasts forever. When the experience fades, so does happiness.

You don’t know or like yourself

Maybe you haven’t been as successful as you want. That’s just one reason you do not like yourself much at all. You don’t know yourself well enough to love yourself. You have spent your entire life trying to color inside the lines so that others will like you instead.

You probably consider yourself an empath. You earned that status by caring more for others than you do for yourself. That’s not an altruistic trait. It’s fear. You fear that you are not enough, not loveable.

Absorbing other’s feelings is less threatening to you than showing yourself empathy. You believe deep inside that people would not like you if they knew your pain. So, you have lived the life of a people pleaser.

You can’t seem to live without conflict

Your brain has been on high alert all of your life. Ironically, you still feel vulnerable and get hurt a lot. Your love relationships are high-conflict. You feel like everyone takes advantage of you, so you defend yourself.

You live with hidden shame. Consequently, you have difficulty receiving feedback or engaging in discussions where someone disagrees with you. You spend a lot of time justifying your feelings. You don’t know how to make people understand you.

Relationships never work out the way they predict

You try to love people without loving yourself. You are kind and agreeable. You expect people to reciprocate when you give them open access to your life. Instead, they walk away.

Healthy people run away from someone with no boundaries. You keep promising yourself the next relationship is going to be different. But it isn’t. Either you pick the wrong person and have to run away. Or, you choose the right person and chase them away.

You have unsatisfying sex

Unsatisfying physical intimacy is one of the biggest secrets you keep. You have convinced yourself you don’t need or want pleasure. However, you allow your body to be used by someone else for their pleasure. You have never asked your partner to see you as a human being who deserves pleasure.

Your feelings are easily hurt, and you seek constant affirmation. Sex is your ultimate sacrifice for affirmation. Denying yourself such a fundamental human right keeps you invisible. You cannot access your power because you give it away at the most basic level.

Heavy Weight

The emotional baggage you carry has been with you for a long time, likely since childhood. You pride yourself on how far you have gotten in life considering your past. Yet, you have to admit that something is missing.

Meeting the criteria for normal living and societal success is a poor indicator of happiness. You can learn how to accept yourself and develop into healthy adulthood at any age. You can get unstuck.

First, you have to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. No matter how you have crafted your life to be safe, look important, or feel accepted, you require a life transformation. You have to admit it to yourself, not as a flaw to fix, but as an invitation to accept.

Meeting the criteria for normal living and societal success is a poor indicator of happiness.

The qualities that have served you well up to this point may have to take a back seat while you take risks with new behaviors. You will have to develop new ways of seeing and being in the world.

Transformation is not a task. It is a lifestyle where you commit to transparency and authenticity. You practice peace and tranquility by reducing attempts to prove yourself. You serve others from a place of fulfillment, not to fulfill yourself.

References

Sääksjärvi, M., Hellén, K., & Desmet, P. (2017). The “You and I” of happiness: Investigating the Long‐Term impact of self‐ and Other‐Focused Happiness‐Enhancing activities. Psychology & Marketing, 34(6), 623–630. doi:10.1002/mar.21010

Whillans, A. V., Dunn, E. W., Smeets, P., Bekkers, R., & Norton, M. I. (2017). Buying time promotes happiness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(32), 8523–8527. doi:10.1073/pnas.1706541114

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