About the inevitability of change in self development
There is something strange that happens when we go through a real transformation. And this transformation wasn’t superficial—it was total: changing habits, work, home, where I usually shop, basically everything. But the most significant change was the one that happened within, in the deepest layers, where beliefs, fears, and the way we see ourselves and the world live.
The strange thing is that when we change, the world around us notices—but still treats us as who we used to be, and isn’t always ready for our new version.
I went through a period of many challenges—internal and external. Things that brought me down in ways I thought were no longer possible, since it had already happened many times before, and I had become stronger, and I thought I was empowered.
But I fell. And it took time to recover. But when I got up—because we always get up, one way or another—I realized I wasn’t the same person. I don’t react the same way, I don’t have the same behavioral or thought patterns.
And this time, in a dramatic way, with fanfare and everything. I simply feel… different. But at the same time, as always happens in our development, I feel more like myself, paradoxically, than I have ever been.
I hit the ground. And from there, the view over everything in our life is different—and that perspective allows us to see everything with new eyes. Yes, it hurts a bit, like any fall. But when I got up, I wasn’t the same anymore. Not because I had broken—but because I had found myself.
And then the second part began—the one no one warns you about, the one we forget exists, but gradually feel, like hitting a wall: having to renegotiate who you are with all the people who already knew you, who may not be ready for your new version.
THE FROZEN IMAGE
When we meet someone, we store an image of them. A mental photograph, taken at a specific moment—or many photos over time that form a picture. And that picture exists inside us, often without updates, as if the person were suspended in time from the first encounters or the strongest memory.
The problem is that people are not suspended. They change. They grow. Or regress. Or simply become other versions of themselves—as they are meant to.
When we meet someone again after years, or even when we stay with someone over the years, there is a subtle but powerful moment where something is decided: do I see the person who is here now, or the photograph I hold?
Most people, without realizing it, choose the photograph. It’s easier. It’s familiar. And that can be unfair to the other—and a lot can be lost in the relationship.
And the part that touches deeply is that maintaining the image of the other is also, in a way, maintaining our own frozen image. It is safer for the identity of the observer to keep seeing the same picture.
Because we see ourselves through others.
Because if I have changed… what does that say about the years we spent together? About the choices she made beside me, using my old version as a reference? If I am no longer that person, what does that change in the story she tells about herself? Or about me? Everything becomes momentarily confusing.
Sometimes, keeping our image frozen isn’t about us. It’s about their need to keep their own narrative stable.
GROWING BEYOND — IN BOTH DIRECTIONS
There is something even more delicate here—something else I learned, and discovered by looking honestly at myself: I also do this to others.
I also keep frozen images of people. I also, when I meet someone who hurt me in the past, or someone I knew in a very different phase, treat them as they were—not as they are. And by doing that, unintentionally, I don’t allow them to be the new version they may already be.
I pull them back. Into the old role. Into the old dynamic. And that isn’t fair—neither to them nor to me, because I remain stuck in a relationship that no longer exists with a person who no longer exists.
We do this in daily life. We do it in positive and healthy relationships that become toxic—we want to stay with the person based on the positive image we have from the beginning (very common). And the opposite also happens: someone who was immature, juvenile, treated us poorly—a bully—and we meet that person 30 years later. What do we feel? We don’t see the person in front of us—we see the bully.
This is what I call mutual imprisonment. Two beings who have changed, but who continue dancing an old choreography—because it is the only one they know together. And the more time passes, the more that dance feels strange, forced, empty.
When you treat someone as they were, you don’t allow them to be who they are now. And when you allow yourself to be treated as you were, you do the same to yourself.
In English, there is an expression that doesn’t have a perfect translation in Portuguese: outgrowing someone. Growing beyond someone. Not in the sense of being better—but in the sense that growth has taken a direction the relationship cannot follow.
It happens. It is painful. And it is completely natural.
What is rarely talked about is that this works in both directions.
Sometimes we are the ones who outgrow others—and we feel the loneliness of no longer finding resonance in conversations that once nourished us.
Sometimes others outgrow us—and the pain there is different, more silent, more confusing. A feeling of being left behind without quite understanding why.
And sometimes—and this was one of the discoveries that touched me the most—we are the ones preventing others from growing, by continuing to see them through the eyes of the past. By silently demanding that they remain who they were so that we can remain who we were.
WHAT CHANGES IN RELATIONSHIPS WHEN WE CHANGE
When we go through a real transformation, the relationships around us enter a kind of silent test. Not intentional, not dramatic—but real.
Some people stay. Not because they don’t see that we’ve changed—but because they are flexible enough to want to meet the new version. To renegotiate the relationship. To say, even without words: “okay, you’re different—and I want to keep discovering who you are.”
These relationships deepen. They become richer, because they survived change.
Other people don’t stay. Not because they are bad people—but because the relationship they had was with the old version. And that version no longer exists to sustain what existed between us. The relationship didn’t end due to lack of love. It ended due to lack of common ground.
And there must be willingness from both sides for it to bloom again—like a plant that is born, grows, dies, but leaves seeds, which are immense new possibilities for new plants to grow. It requires patience, time, and allowing those seeds to germinate and grow. And a new relationship can form—with the same people, who are no longer the same. That is how the strongest relationships develop.
And there are also relationships that remain suspended—in a strange limbo where neither person quite knows what to do with what has changed. These are often the hardest to navigate.
Surely, on several occasions, with different people, you’ve had thoughts like: “they suddenly changed,” or “they were never what I thought” (for better or worse). Let me answer honestly: people develop into who they truly are, and often they themselves don’t even know what that is.
And that is somewhat my case. I didn’t fully know the person who would emerge from the fall—but I knew a lot would change, because the person I was before caused the fall. She is responsible for the choices she made that brought her down. And I take responsibility for those choices. Blame does not exist—it’s not anyone’s fault—it’s just life. But the responsibility to learn, to gain wisdom, and to change—that is mine.
I have a silent way of dealing with my internal challenges. I am very extroverted, but when it comes to healing, I withdraw. There were challenges I didn’t share—difficult nights, moments of collapse that were also moments of reconstruction. What you see now is the result of that—not a betrayal of the past, but a continuation of it.
A NOTE TO THOSE WHO HAVE KNOWN ME FOR A LONG TIME—AND EVEN FOR A SHORT TIME
What I ask of you—what I ask of everyone in my life—is: try to see me as I am now. You don’t need to erase the memory of who I was. But allow that memory to coexist with the person who is here.
And I will do the same for you. I will look at you with new eyes. I will try not to trap you in the photograph I hold—because I deserve to be seen, and so do you.
Individuation is not a rejection, nor should it be an offense to the other. It is a prerequisite for any real relationship. We can only truly meet when each of us is present as a whole person—not as the role the other assigned us.
The role I had in your life may have been very important to you—a mirror, a friend, an inspiration, an anchor, a paperweight, whatever it was—and I value it, and I am grateful for it. But there are more possibilities ready to germinate, grow, and bloom.
There is one thing I will no longer be—and this is not entirely new, because I have been building this over the past two and a half years.
I will no longer be anyone’s emotional regulator.
I will no longer sustain dynamics where I give immeasurably—because giving comes naturally to me—and the other interprets that as my obligation. As if my abundance were a debt that belongs to them.
I will no longer be a crutch. An anchor. A support where someone places the weight they should learn to carry.
What has changed is not my generosity. What has changed is what I accept in return.
Now, when someone needs help, I don’t place myself underneath their arm. I stand beside them—and point inward. Because someone’s well-being cannot depend on me. That is not love. That is a prison for both.
My role is no longer to hold. It is to challenge. I am no longer the safe harbor where one remains still. I am the wind that pushes you to the sea—but I give you a boat and two oars, which are the knowledge I share. But you must hold onto yourself and row.
THIS IS NOT REJECTION. IT IS AN INVITATION
That said—and I say it with genuine love—no one is born knowing how to regulate themselves, neither me nor anyone else. No one learns emotional, energetic, spiritual, or even physical autonomy without first depending on someone. I also depended. I also used people as crutches without realizing it. I made mistakes, and mistakes were made—and that is what brings wisdom, if we choose to use it that way.
So I don’t speak from judgment. I speak from recognition. I recognize what I did, what I allowed to be done. I created the dynamics. I genuinely liked them. I felt good, happy, fulfilled. It’s just that the cycle ended—with a fall that brought me more knowledge.
And I genuinely believe that everyone has what they need to develop. Yes, we learn from others, we gain knowledge from others—but it is through experience that we gain wisdom.
So what I offer now is not less. It is more—and it is different. It is space, a mirror, an honest challenge.
And I believe in myself more now than I did a few months ago—and that is a good thing, don’t you think?
It’s not about comparing ourselves and saying we want to be like the other—but about seeing the other being more themselves, and saying: I want to be more myself too.
And that is what I want for you. Simple as that.
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