On Friday, I had one of the most toughest honesty hour conversations sitting across from a special friend in a restaurant and talking about boundaries. Some boundaries we had set at the beginning of the relationship had been, not once but repeatedly, broken and we battled with it; both inwardly as independent minded people and together as friends.As I gobbled chunks of chicken pizza down my throat, I took note of the new boundaries we were setting here again. I remember typing them eagerly and staining my screen with cheese. Almost immediately, I asked him “what if we fail again this time?” He said “then we set stricter boundaries”. I felt something in my chest tighten at the weight of this new detail and the innocence it carried across. I know he meant well, I have no doubt it was coming from a place of love and concern but I also knew this relationship was breaking apart slowly.Most of my adulting journey has focused on growing my gift as a writer, finding a healthy balance between work and my life itself and, building a strong community with my people- which came with the transparency of my having to lay down my values and principles on the table and signing up to do life with whoever understands and respects that before anything else, I want a richness out of life and I’m unwilling to compromise my standards in the pursuit of the fulfillment as my most truest and authentic self.Over the years, this has been a heavy thing to carry. Because not only do people fail to recognize the parts of my story that I prioritize but I also start to lose track of the foundation I set and what I hoped to build for my future. I’ve failed many times. I’ve compromised more than I can count. And the consequences have been brutal and detrimental and somewhat I’ve managed to stay teachable with the lessons, patient with my wounds and faithful to the hustle of true living.I think without realizing it, we are more likely than not to find our selves in toxic patterns and cycles that come about through the right intention. We don’t always ever aim to trip and fall. There are days we start the race fully aware of the hurdles ahead and instead of tackling the obstacles, we only avoid it. We run around it, we jump over it, we pretend it isn’t there. Not all hurdles are meant to be jumped over, some are to be removed and thrown away. Some are to be dug out and ripped away from us completely.This is where I’ve gone wrong. I placed so much emphasis on the rules and the structure that it took the focus off myself and all the ways I too, can be my own stumbling block. I not only trusted the rules to keep me in check, I hoped that it could be somewhat a mirror of progress to me. That if I checked all the boxes, I was experiencing growth- mentally and psychologically. How wrong I was to think I could separate myself from the process and yet, expect the outcome to impact me directly.The trick of setting boundaries that keep you locked up in a chain of unhealthy cycles is that you never realize you’re stuck. Every time you fall, you drag your heavy heart to a restaurant, order a piece of pizza and make a new list. The idea of growth is radically altered without our knowing. We start to measure progress by the new list as we cross off the old ones. We never stop to ask the tough questions. That would be hard and uncomfortable and will take too much effort. What’s easier, however, is a new date and a clean slate. We place our worth on a piece of paper and to-do list. We pay very little attention to our hearts and what this does to it, very little attention to our minds and the loose ways we’ve chosen to nurture it.I truly want more out of this wild one life. And I’m sure the journey will be so much better if I’m ready to do the dirty work, do the digging and find all the areas I fall short. The list might be endless but it’ll be a start nonetheless. I’m tired of pointing fingers and blaming a system for my shortfalls. That’s never the way to grow. It is my steady hope that in my pursuit of wanting to grow the brave woman in me, I’m able to come to terms with people who may serve me well but get in the way of my vision (mostly never on purpose) and identify and let go of every unhealthy cycle that I place myself in which steals my peace and sense of direction and keeps me from thriving.Sometimes the hurdle is our inability to say this is why I keep falling in the same spot over and over again. Sometimes our hurdle is the fear of losing something or someone, of letting go and making room for good transformation. Sometimes the hurdle is in the thoughts we feed ourselves, to think we are incapable of stepping outside the chains of toxic patterns and attitudes. Most often the hurdle is a small or loud voice in our heads taking away every hope we have of ever picking ourselves up.May we always have the grace it takes to start over; knowing the fall is bound to happen but the miracle is in the rising- how we pick ourselves up, how we change directions and realign our focus, how we remain unrelenting in this beautiful and terrific journey of life.