Healing

I started past relationships with the belief that my partner would leave at some point. I knew it wouldn’t be me because I’m usually in for the long-haul, except that one relationship where she locked me and my friend up in her room and removed the key. 

For some reason, I believed people will always leave. That they would find something to fault me on, that they would find something to blame me for and base that as their reason for leaving. In fact, I said it to most people I’ve dated: “I know you will leave one day. It won’t be me. It will be you”. And guess what? That’s exactly what ended up happening - they found something about me that made them leave. 

You see, our words and beliefs are powerful. It is in our minds that we create the reality we eventually have. The stories we tell ourselves about what the future will be like is what informs the future we eventually have. 

For all those years, I approached relationships from the perspective of fear - that people don’t stay with me. I entered relationships believing that I’m not good enough and that these people I was with would soon realize how imperfect and unworthy I am and they would just go. I didn’t believe that I was worthy of love and belonging. I projected that fear to the relationship and my worst fears came to be. 

Childhood for me was...I had lots of toys, we lived in nice houses, my parents drove us in very nice cars, we wore beautiful clothes. It was good from that angle. But it was lacking in emotional support. Neither of my parents taught us how to be vulnerable or how to hold space for uncomfortable conversations. They were emotionally absent. 

My mother hit us frequently when we did something that was out of out of line. What followed were verbal rebukes directed at our person, instead of the behavior. “Are you mad?”, “you’re a liar”, “you’re a naughty girl” - all of which told me essentially that I was not good enough. There was no apology for any of the things said or for any of the beatings. They became part of our reality and we just accepted that it was all our fault and that if we just behaved better, none of that would be metered to us. With no apology or explanation. This registered the belief that I was just not good enough. 

So, I grew up believing that I had to be a certain way for people to accept me or like me. And I had to try my best to hide those parts of me that were not good enough so that I can receive love and acceptance. 

When I left the marriage, it was confirmation that I was badly behaved - again. My mother slapped me once because I told her I wasn’t going back. She resorted to her old tactics of inflicting fear to force me into submission and returning to my ex-husband. Not once did she ask me how I was coping with the pressure or how I was really feeling inside. Even after hitting me, she never apologized. In fact, we never talked about that until recently. No emotional support during such a difficult time. 

After I came out of the closet, it was another confirmation that I just wasn’t good enough. This time, not only was there no emotional support, but there were threats of “disownment”, prayers to “cure” me, to “fix” me, to make me “good enough”. I wasn’t deserving of love and belonging at that time. Everything was hostile. I shamed the family name. I had to develop ways to survive by covering up but I never addressed the emotional wounds that were inflicted. 

This is why self-care is so important. In my reflection, I have seen how childhood trauma is showing up in my life, for more than 20 years. The truth is that when we focus on our fears, we find things to confirm those fears in the behavior of others. We are less focused on all the pleasant things we enjoy about life. When we’re focused on making sure that our fears don’t come true, we’re not in the moment because we’re worrying about a future that hasn’t happened yet. 

When people say “we create our reality”, this is what they mean. We invest time and energy into the wrong things - worrying, perfecting, reading meaning into things, trying to control the future, etc. - instead of investing our energy into the right things - gratitude, courage, staying open, curiosity, awareness of self, consciousness, showing up, etc. We will eventually have the reality we spend our time and energy thinking about. 

I believed that if I thought about all the things that could go wrong and came up with ways to prevent them from happening, I could beat vulnerability. The future wouldn’t look so uncertain, I’d risk nothing, and I’d be facing zero emotional exposure. That was my grand strategy. A failing strategy. 

I spent my time and energy trying to beat vulnerability. This prevented me from being grateful for what I had, from showing up as myself with my many flaws, from staying in the moment, from staying curious, and most of all, it prevented me from being deeply seen and loved in the way that I have always wanted to be. People cannot love you when they can’t “see” you. 

I’ve always believed that I’m courageous. But I’ve come to see that trying to beat vulnerability and preparing for a future I have no control over is the most cowardly way of existing in the world. Truth is I haven’t been as courageous as I've thought. I’ve only tried to prove to myself and to others that I am good enough and worthy of love and belonging. 

The other truth is that I have always been worthy of love and belonging. 

I only have to believe it. 

Now.