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Is your past still controlling your life?

Take action and do something different.

Now go with me here. The past is what creates patterns, specifically when we are young.

The hardships of the world are witnessed as children and without the proper assessment and conversations surrounding those hardships, we begin to form our own truths. These truths begin to form our views of the Self and the world around us. Parents, teachers, friends, strangers, movies, books, everything leaves an imprint before we recognize that it does not need to.

Each relationship we have, romantic or platonic, is in fact a great teacher.

Are you able to be different than those around you? Do you feel safe to be your fullest self? Do you change your personality around certain people or family members? Why?

All of these things can guide us to the truth. Fear of rejection is one that hits home for so many. I am reminded in this moment of a blog I wrote about making assumptions and why we stopped asking questions—we have a fear of asking questions because it is then exposed that we don’t know something. What if that idea of not knowing was seen as curiosity and not stupidity? Are you triggered by someone who asks “too many” questions? Why? Is it because you won’t ask the questions you want to?

When we let ourselves make assumptions, our truth is based off of assumptions, and then those assumptions create what we believe to be a true story, when in reality, it is all a lie.

Part of changing how we reacted in the past is by asking more questions—ask someone to clarify what they meant by that. Ask someone if they are upset with you instead of creating a story of victimhood around it. Set a boundary with someone around how they speak to you. These are all edges that will show you where the resistance is when it comes to accepting yourself as you are.

What do I mean? I mean that if you abandon yourself on a daily basis out of fear of looking stupid, or embarrassing yourself with a laugh or sound, you are living with self-rejection, which is an extension of shame.

Shame is the sneaky emotion that hides behind so many things. It does not want to be noticed by the psyche because it demonstrates the self-loathing aspect of healing.

Full acceptance is the only way forward. Shame cannot live when it is acknowledged; that is just how it works. Acceptance is the antidote.

Can you accept your past for what it was and move on? Or do you cycle through a few stories trying to psychoanalyze them until you’re exhausted?

The mind is not how you heal.

The experience and moving it through you to release suppressed emotions as you simultaneously create new pathways is how you heal.

I spent years intellectually understanding sadness, depression, anxiety, addiction, rejection, and so on, but it was not until I let myself feel it that I was able to move through it.

Go forward with grace and witness the areas of your life that you are not letting yourself ask the questions, laugh out loud, express yourself through clothing, art, and so on.

You don’t need to be punished anymore.

Let go of your identity entangled in the pain and remember that life itself is joyous.

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