This is what I remember about my father growing up…
There was no love
There was no affection
I was a afraid
I didn’t know how to process this. How does a small child process not feeling love? This created a pain that I did everything I could to hide. It changed me. Here are a few of the unhealthy behaviors that I didn’t see:
I wasn’t able to express myself
I hid all my emotions
I needed everyone to like me
I never wanted to be home
I didn’t have healthy relationships with men
I had no voice
I needed constant reassurance
I formed unhealthy attachments
I couldn’t handle any form of rejection
I thought everything was my fault…I was invisible….
Unearthing this has been a process. Accepting this part of myself is a process. Learning to be compassionate with myself is a process. Opening my heart, truly opening it, is a process. Learning to be vulnerable is a process.
Where did I go? We build walls around ourselves to keep out the pain. I was living behind the walls. There’s a price we pay for this. We stop living. Instead we just exist.
My journey is about taking down the walls. Opening up. Letting the light in again.
I was focused on healing. Being positive. Reducing the noise inside my head.
Sometimes a word, a phrase, or a passage from a self-help book I was reading led me. Sometimes it was time spent alone. Sometimes it was walking. Sometimes it was in my sleep. Sometimes it was something I could wear as a reminder.
I had to learn to sit with it. The “it” being the feelings. When all this started I couldn’t identify how I was feeling, I had to learn.
I also had to become very aware of my thoughts, and how those thoughts were affecting me.
Everyones’ journey is different. Everyone’s trauma is different.
Healing trauma opens the heart. It let’s the light in. Life is for living, not just existing, and love is the way.
I asked my oldest friend what my purpose is? This was her answer: You’re my hero, “A hero is one who heals their own wounds and then shows others how to do the same.” Yung Pueblo