Everything I’ve ever let go of, has claw marks on it.

It’s okay to outgrow things. 

It’s okay to outgrow relationships; it’s okay to outgrow jobs; it’s okay to outgrow an identity.

It doesn’t mean those relationships; those jobs; or that identity didn’t serve you well in the past. 

It doesn’t mean we’re rejecting those relationships, jobs, or identities with negative feelings or extreme prejudice. 

It means what it means: we grow. We change. Our needs change. Our abilities change. 

As we work our recovery, we tend to outgrow a lot of things— and many survivors tend to have complicated feelings about that. 

It’s okay to have complicated feelings about outgrowing things as we recover. Many of us aren’t used to positive growth in any sense— nor are we used to releasing old attachments with gratitude and certainty. 

Many of us have had the exact opposite experience: every relationship that we end, has ended involuntarily or with acrimony. 

To quote a common recovery poster: “everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.” 

Something we learn in recovery is that it doesn’t have to be that way. 

We can let ourselves outgrow things. We don’t have to judge it. We don’t have to resist it. 

We can have whatever feelings we have about outgrowing things— sadness, or excitement, or a combination thereof. 

When we outgrow something, when it’s time to move on, parts of us might freak out a little. 

There might be a part of us that truly believes that if we outgrow this thing, we’ll never have another thing like it. 

Right now I’m grappling with giving up something that I know I’ve probably outgrown, but which has been a source of security for me at a time when I really needed it. 

And, I’m having all the feelings that go along with all of it: guilt, insecurity— but also excitement. 

This is what happens when we work our recovery: we get the chance to feel certain things, without judgment, without pressure to feel the “right” thing, without shame for feeling the “wrong” things. 

I’ll spoil the suspense: you’re going to outgrow a lot of things. It doesn’t matter how old you are, or where you are in life. Human beings that continue to live and breathe, outgrow things. 

And that’s okay. 

It’s not disloyal to outgrow a thing. 

Human beings were kind of designed to outgrow things. That’s the only reason why new things are created— from new songs, to new professional roles, to new psychotherapy practices, to new relationships, to new people. 

The feelings of anxiety and guilt you have about outgrowing things— hold them gently. They’re not there to make your life difficult. They’re there because you have precious few role models when it comes to realizing attachments with compassion and gratitude. 

When we’re growing up in traumagenic environments, compassion and gratitude aren’t things we see a lot of to emulate. 

If you’ve outgrown something, you’ve outgrown it. 

No need to leave claw marks on it. 

Not anymore.