Growth Within Part 1
Growth Within Part 1
8+ year Reflection:
You know I don’t recognize the person I was 8+ years ago. Ha! It’s crazy to think about it, because I don’t think I was going to be the person that I am now. You know I’m still kind, I’m still groovy, I still don’t take no shit, but these fall in different areas now. Like they have bigger depths as well as deeper meanings now, since my meanings 6+ years ago were so different plus those meanings then were slightly surface level.
I didn’t realize also how much awareness and understanding that my 18 -year -old self lacked. As much love as I have for my family, I didn’t see the dysfunction until I started my healing process. I didn’t realize how various behavioral patterns and tendencies stemmed to me generation- wise, like holy shit. I knew eventually that I needed to just be on my own for a bit and learn me. I also needed to find a safe, non-judgmental space, to be able to talk about all my experiences. I used to not be able to talk about my experiences either. At the time, it was because I didn’t feel like it, or I wasn’t safe enough to be emotionally expressive, or I couldn’t fathom what the fuck was going on, or I just didn’t want to talk about it because it was too painful.
Now in current times, it’s like I got to talk about it, I got to appropriately release those memories & those emotions. Those triggering thoughts that come to me, because I feel so deeply about them, I have to release those. They are eating at me, and my younger self didn’t fucking realize it, until I started doing self-healing work. My younger self didn’t, she was just dissociating, shutting down, and going down the rabbit role more and more slowly. Despite the inner chaos, my 18-year-old definitely did what she could do at that time in her life. She had a lot more going on from the involuntary involvement with the parents' divorce, still being a second mother to juggling the college life as she was able to finally get the hang of it after a year and just trying to slowly relearn more about herself.
In the beginnings of healing, I had no real sense of self, and the sense of self I had was the sense that wasn’t mine. My external influences made that sense of self up. Makes me wonder how the fuck did that sense of self come together, or maybe why it was made up to begin with, but the simpler answer to that would be generational trauma. But younger self did her best, she really did, & I’m proud of her! Like she really did some grown up shit moving to another state that’s not three hours away or even like six hours away. This was a state 12-14 hours away, with completely new cultures and ways of living. Ha! She was given that opportunity and she ran for it. She ran for it like she deep down knew that she was going to be knowing everything and everyone in town, like it was a small town. No! This was way bigger, takes an average of a total of 25-30 minutes to get to a destination, instead of 5-10 minutes, where we grew up. Now, I laugh of myself out of admiration because we really had a subconscious idea of how we’re doing this without consciously realizing it, me and I. Fucking golden.
But here we are at 26- years –old, thriving in ways we can, learning in ways we can, and becoming someone that is going to serve with purpose and be fulfilled while doing so. I am by no means perfect, I still get those trauma moments where something “triggering” comes up that I have to work through, process, and understand why it’s coming up and make it something to grow from. These happen more often than not. But as humans, we are naturally flawed, we all are learning, growing, trying to do better for ourselves and someone else, and I wholeheartedly believe that the Universe/God/HigherPower sees this and tells us “At least you’re trying.”
Take care of yourself,
Nessa <3
