“Heal your shit so you can hear what is being said without the filter of your childhood wounds”

– @RyanRoseevans

“The wound is not my fault. But the healing is my responsibility” 

     – Marianne Williamson

I stumbled across these quotes, and they really resonated with me. I’ve been in a weird place recently where I felt burnt out, but I could not pinpoint why; nothing that I tried to do for myself made me feel any better. I felt exhausted for absolutely no reason… I let myself go through the motions of the day and I started analyzing my thoughts/feelings. I took a step back and let myself breathe. Although I feel a lot better within myself and I feel present within my life, bad days – bad weeks are still going to happen. 

Healing and growth are not something that happens overnight – Hell a few years into it and I still learn new things about myself all the time. When you’re actively stepping outside of yourself, outside of your comfort zone, and you allow yourself to fully live – you’re going to be constantly changing and growing. I look back and I don’t recognize myself… I think because I no longer hold onto the thoughts and feelings that the past versions of me had. The struggle is no longer the past in itself, but rather the lingering effects that I still carry with me in everyday life. 

Reuniting my body with conscious thinking made me feel like I was in a literal “simulation”. I mean that in a sense of – I was on autopilot for so long that I wasn’t consciously making decisions and seeing the different reactions caused by the different choices I made for myself… It feels absolutely insane when you go from autopilot to manual, let me tell you. Now I look in the mirror and I actually recognize myself. 

No, I did not inflict all of my wounds, but it most definitely is my responsibility to heal the wounds that linger within me. How am I to live a fulfilling and peaceful life if my wounds constantly remind me of what should have been let go? Healing the wounds inflicted onto me by the hand, mouth, and mind of others within my past life is crucial to my own current peace and happiness. Being able to let go of other people’s beliefs, actions, words – it can be the most empowering thing that you can do for yourself. 

Healing the parts of me that were subjected to trauma, doubt, hatred; I had to love and give to myself more than I had in my entire life. I cannot stress how much I am bothered by parents that project their own insecurities, negative limiting beliefs, and sadness onto their own children – sometimes I feel like there are kids that never stood a chance because of their upbringing by their parents. It’s the moment you realize how much power and control you have within your own life that it finally clicks: It is possible to let go and start over. 

I do not want to be defined by the scars that I carry with me. I do not want to define myself by the words and opinions of other people. How can I put so much pressure on myself to define the person that I am when I learn new things about myself all of the time? Hobbies, tastes, loves, dreams – it all changes.

I still find myself coming to a point of being “burnt out”, even though maybe nothing in my current life/situation is negative or feeling overwhelming. I realize now that it’s because every day I would work on myself, and reassure myself, “Fake it until you make it” type of thing. I cannot undo twelve-plus years of mental health issues, toxic relationship side effects, and draining life situations overnight, in a month, or even a few years into helping myself to heal. There was damage done that I know could ultimately take a lot of time to undo.

I find my power and control within my own life to be so empowering. Being able to focus my mind, thoughts, intentions, and to be present every single day is such a beautiful thing. I work on myself because I, at one point, was the byproduct of a toxic living situation and untreated mental health issues. I had little to no control over my own environment and way of being. I lived for other people and had no regard for my own wellbeing or reality. I could not disconnect the past from the present and the blurred reality made me lose my sense of self. 

“Heal your shit so you can hear what is being said without the filter of your childhood wounds” 

Heal your shit so that the limiting beliefs established by people within your life no longer make you assume, doubt, question, or lose the positive things about yourself; So you can finally accept a compliment and believe it to be true; So you can trust yourself to make decisions with your own best interest in mind; So you can come as you are without worrying about rejection or disapproval from others. You are the main character in your own story and what you believe to be true about yourself and your life is what will find itself to be true.

You have to decide if you’re willing to walk through life with the weight of other people’s opinions, beliefs, and expectations on your shoulders – or if you’re ready to unload the things that are not yours to carry so that you may find peace, happiness, and understanding within yourself. You are not how others defined or believed you to be. The only person that knows you… is you – and even then, there is always room to learn and space to grow within yourself. Give yourself the grace to forgive and wipe your own slate clean. 

You have the power to create yourself, you are not one version of yourself forever. Start somewhere and never look back – it’ll all fall into place.