You repeat what you don’t heal.
We all suffer trauma of one kind or another as a child. Sometimes it’s physical, which is easier to see and treat, but usually it’s emotional, which is invisible to the untrained eye, and more often than not completely unrecognized by the person who suffered it.
I can’t tell you the number of times I have explained to someone in a coaching session how the trauma that they suffered years ago still controls their actions. At first they usually don’t believe me, but soon enough they’ll utter some phrase of exclamation as they realize that I’m right.
I don’t say that to build myself up, I tell you that because the chances are that we could have the very same conversation.
Because we all struggle to understand how the negative things we experienced earlier in our lives affect us today. In the last 12 hours alone I’ve had two coaching sessions where I’ve had to point out how people are enacting their trauma in a way that is hurting themselves or others. In both cases the person was initially resistant to the concept, but slowly began to see the reality of the pain they were living.
None of us is immune, especially not me.
In the spirit of being honest, I will share that there are things about my life as child that I absolutely hated. I have tried so hard to avoid inflicting those things on my children, and to a significant degree I have been successful, but one thing found its way through.
And now I have to live with the regret of knowing that my children have not been able to avoid everything that hurt me, and that in one way it hurt them.
Because one of my children has grown up feeling like we were financially inferior to those around us.
That may not sound like much, but for me, growing up where and how I did, it was an incredible source of pain and shame. I don’t believe it has been so painful for my son, because there are other things that have at least been good for him that have made the pain of his feelings less, but I still live with the regret of knowing that happened.
And regret is a poison that has very few antidotes.
Which is why I am so passionate an advocate for self awareness, and healing. In my 30+ year journey to understand myself, I have had to reach not just an understanding of, but as far as is possible, a peace with the traumas that have left their scars across my soul.
I have tried not to repeat them, but instead learn from them and help others in their own journey. I am grateful for those who have trusted me with their realities and their heartaches.
And so I implore you to begin trying to understand who you are, and why you do what you do. Because I’m confident that somewhere in your life is a belief, or a pattern, or a behavior, that is not serving you, and is only there because of something that scarred your soul way back when.
If you are unaware of it, you will struggle forever against it, but if you become aware of it, understand it, and grow beyond it, you can discover how to change beyond your wildest dreams.
May nothing hold you back, and may you reach the pinnacle of all of your potential.
Thank you for being a part of this journey with me. I really appreciate you.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings