Outgrowing my Childhood Wounds

What happens when we condition ourselves to our childhood traumas?

I thought I was confident in who I was.

But after divorce, my life shifted.

2 years later I realised I needed to rebuild myself.

In order to grow, I stepped out of my comfort zone.

In doing so, I come to learn how much I covered up old wounds.

I wasn't aware of this at first.

But it takes a journey sometimes to come around.

Noticing parts of myself I dimmed because I always kind of believed I just - wasn’t good enough.

Not confident enough to stand up for myself.

Not good enough to pursue my dreams.

Not good enough to have a voice.

Not good enough to express my art.

I undervalued myself. And I have only just fully woken up to this, this year.

I know this because of all the fear that came up when I started my blog.

When I publicly displayed a poem.

When I took part in a dance performance in front of a crowd.

Even uploading pictures of myself.

Fear of being judged. Judged for being - me.

No. This doesn't sit with me. As scary as it all is at times, I'm breaking the cycle.

In just 4 months, I have achieved things that I have said I’ve wanted to do for years.

I used to always tell myself that I wasn’t good enough.

I knew I wouldn’t pursue what I wanted to do at the time.

Being shut down in my younger years wasn’t so bold.

Sometimes it was through brief body language or eye glances.

What seemed like nothing to the people who said or responded to me, really weighed a lot on me in subtle ways that grew bigger over time.

But the truth is-

The person who turned those moments into a belief system…was me.

We don’t question the way we are raised. We absorb it.

And that is where it begins.

And over time it becomes a quiet foundation we live by.

Only through time and experience do we start to learn and understand.

The pattern for me showed in my constant hesitation and procrastination.

“I’m not good enough.”

“I’ll never see it through.”

It is easy to point it all back to our childhood.

But this year, something has shifted for me.

These days I catch myself having these thoughts.

Why do I feel this way?

Why did I respond like that?

Letting my childhood wounds determine my life path doesn’t align with me anymore.

So, I’m choosing differently.

Not because my past experiences didn’t happen. But because I’m not going to let it control what I do with my life.

I’m taking responsibility without blame. And that is something I want to teach my kids.

I am not perfect, but they have it within themselves to be who they want to be and not be determined by any negative influence through their upbringing that may not be visible to me.

Theres a difference between understanding your past and living trapped inside it.

Do I want to let it control my life or do I want to take ownership of my choices from here?

Now as a parent, I see how complex life really is and how imperfect we all are.

This perspective has softened something in me.

But it’s also strengthened something else.

Responsibility.

I want to be the generation that untangles the rope of our wounded past selves.

I am choosing my own beliefs on my own terms.

Not inherited.

Not assumed.

Not expected.

I’m learning to release what I carried. Not ignoring it, just letting go of how it negatively altered who I am.

I am now learning how to live life in my own way. One decision at a time.