Simple Truths – Cut them off
There are people that you need to cut off from your life. This is a simple truth but one that is a hard pill for many to swallow. These people sap and drain your life with little concern for your well being while constantly using you to meet their emotional or physical needs. Cut them off.
Strangely a priest should be propagating forgiveness and love and yet the words from my blog come as an irony in a season filled with love. The truth is that this message IS a message of love; for you! Sometimes love is tough and love demands radical action on our part.
Forgiveness does not mean that we set ourselves up to be stabbed again. Forgiveness means we let go of hurts and pain that enslave us to another in order for us to move ahead and grow. I choose to forgive you but I don’t choose to run into your arms again, only to be hurt by you. You need to grow up, I long have.
So cut them off in order that you may live. Dead branches on a tree of life can never bear flower or fruit and has no ornamental use either. They only end up making a beautiful tree look eerie. Dead branches need to be cut off so that the rest of the tree may flourish and live.
Some years ago, my friend Leon brought this to my attention. I have a habit of collecting dead branches, he said. That’s because I feel sorry for people; people who do little for themselves and like dead branches weigh me down. He saw these people in my life, clinging on to me because their emotional needs were met yet they rarely bothered to reciprocate when my heart was breaking. They take and they sap you always and yet charmingly making you feel guilty that you are not giving enough in the relationship when in reality it is they who give nothing.
How do you know you have dead branches in your life? How do you know you need to cut people off? The answer is YOU SIMPLY KNOW IT BUT WON’T ADMIT IT. Close your eyes and their faces fall before you. They are the ones who discourage you, demand your time, use your shoulders to cry on, always have an excuse for why they can’t be there for you,make you feel guilty that you don’t care for them but are always around when a good thing comes to you and never there when your heart is breaking. You call them on the phone, they never do. You text them they take their time to respond while you check your phone a million times for them to respond. You’re always jumping to make them happy they respond like a cucumber; till of course they need you!
Be warned, the minute you let them go they will say hurtful things to you. They will tell you this is all your fault, it’s you who have a problem and deviously curl their tongue like that of a forked snake to tell you that “you have changed”. Don’t fall for the guilt trip that they wish to set you up to. You have not changed, you have grown wise.
They will feel the loss of your presence, yet they won’t admit that you have raised them up all these years. So they try once more to get you down. They will send you ‘AN’ emotionally worthless message (you are worth many MANY more) but ironically you have been so starved for their love that even crumbs now seem like cake. Reject the crumbs, your better than that.
Don’t fall for the trap, walk away, block them on Facebook and Whatsap and make new friends who love you for who you are. You deserve this Christmas gift.
Fr Warner D’Souza