Permission to Grow: On Letting Go of the Old You and Embracing the New by Stacey Philpot

As a followup to this winter’s powerful “Permission to Grieve” guest post series, a few brave souls from the For the Love launch team have agreed to help me out with this spring’s “Permission to Grow” series. My trail-blazing, writer friend Stacey Philpot, is starting off our series with a piece on accepting change.

Permission to grow

On letting go of the old you and embracing the new

Personally, one of the hardest parts of my illness has been the loss of the “old me.”

The girl who could run three miles a day, read into the late hours of the night and still have plenty of energy to pour into the people she loved the next day. Oh, how I grieved her. I missed everything from the texture of her hair to her ability to fully embrace and enjoy life.

Where’d that cool girl go?

Looking back, I now realize that part of my quest for a diagnosis was fueled by the belief that if someone could locate the source of the problem then they could correct it. And then they could give me that other girl back. The girl I liked better, the one everyone else liked better. You know, the one who was infinitely more worthy of love than this girl I’d become?

If you had asked me before sickness crept in if believed love had to be earned by good behavior and deeds, I would have told you:

Absolutely not, love is a gift, freely given, which cannot be earned.

They say adversity introduces you to yourself.

It shows you what you believe. And it turns out, deep down; I believed the sick version of me wasn’t very lovable. Because you see, she couldn’t do the things she believed were earning her keep all along. She couldn’t stay in shape, or come to the rescue of those in need. Heck, she could barely stay awake half of the time. Instead of helping others, she now needed help. It was uncomfortable, and apparently, in my mind–unattractive, maybe even unlovable.

Letting go

One of the greatest things I have done for myself in this journey of battling for health is to let her go- the girl I used to be. Just let her go, and embrace this woman I have become in spite of all of her limitations. This woman I have become is rooted in grace. She’s let go of all of that needless striving. And she’s realized who God made her to be hasn’t changed one bit and what he called her to do hasn’t changed at all.

And this woman is going to do those things, regardless of how many diagnoses are pinned to her.

This woman who thought she had been stripped of everything has come to see she’s really only been stripped of all those false identities. This woman knows if you can love her at 40 pounds overweight that’s amazing, and if you can’t – Go with God. And this woman is determined not to be defined by illness or any other circumstance but instead by whom God created her to be.

Hope for the future

If today you find yourself grieving that person you used to be and the things they could do, that’s okay. There is a season of grieving. Cry those tears. Feel those losses.

But when the time comes, let them go.

Find freedom in embracing the person you are today, the one who knows what it is to overcome adversity and meet others in that same place. Celebrate the wisdom and maturity, compassion and insight gained by what you’ve gone through. Maybe you’ve lost some physical function. But I guarantee you have gained some life changing emotional function to offer to others as they walk this very same road.

If you asked me today if I wanted that girl back —- the one I used to be, my answer would be, No. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have her shape. (And she did have cute hair) But I’d rather have this woman I’ve become’s insight and determination. They’re worth more to me.

I have chosen to let the “old me” go, and embrace the “new me.”

What about you? Will you let go of the old you and embrace the new?

Stacey Philpot

Stacey Philpot is an author, goofball and avid reader. She endeavors to encourage other warriors like her along in their journey of battling for health and discovering wholeness.

Stacey is mom to Hayden and Avery, stepmom to Julie, and wife to Ryan. (He is a smarty pants who works at NASA and logs their whole life on spreadsheets and pie charts, true story!) She has a strange affinity for eating whole meals in bed (don’t tell anyone). And she is convinced smelling old books will make her smarter.