Isn’t this why we study history?
To learn from the past?
For the past year, I’ve been on a journey to try and rewire my brain from
about 30 years of unhealthy thinking habits.
But because old ways of thinking still creep up from time to time, I find
myself needing to revisit the past – to go right to the source.
In a way, I’m trying to rewrite my history. Not to be in denial of it and wish it were
different, but to imagine taking all the knowledge I have now and giving it to
myself back then. Would if I knew then what I know now?
My therapist gave me an assignment to write my fifteen-year-old-self a letter
(Fifteen is about the age when I remember a lot of the pain that I sometimes
carry with me today.). In this letter, I
would compassionately tell her the real story; not the story that often gets
told – the “Nobody Likes Me” story.
Even as I write this, a version of that story is playing in the background and it goes something like this:
"Maybe, I don't feel ready or equipped to give her this advice just yet. After all, I still struggle to separate the
past from now. I feel my life is one big
conspiracy. Everyone, whether they
realize it or not, is pre-wired to go against me, to be rude to me, to ignore
me, to not like me. You may think that I’m
not that important, but that’s the problem – I can’t seem to accept that just
yet. I don’t ask to be the center of
attention, I just want to feel equally loved and cared about as everyone
else. I don’t want fame or popularity, but I do want
to be noticed. I want to matter in
everyone’s eyes. I want all of us to
feel included and worthy."
If you are struggling, like me, to
believe that history doesn’t have to repeat itself, that the different choices
we make today matter, then that's great, but don’t hold your breath as you
read this hoping for that one nugget of wisdom that will spark everything into
forward motion for you because I don't claim to have all the answers.
However…
I can share my experience with you.
I can tell you what’s not working and what seems like it could
work. I can verbally hold your hand as
we muddle through this shared human experience together. I can offer you hope. I have hope that I won’t always be a victim
of my past forever. I have hope that one
day all the love and blessings that have been bestowed upon me will be good
enough for me.
If I did have a magic key that could lock up the demons of my past
forever, that key would be persistence.
I know how to change and I think deep down you know how too. Doing the same things or thinking the same
way will give you the same results. All
the positive things I tell myself, all the reasoning and recognizing of my
triggers – all this crap works! It just
doesn’t work all the time. It works kind
of like this:
I have my ups and downs, but over time, I'm progressively doing better.
I like to read that letter I wrote whenever I feel like I’m that hurting, fifteen-year-old again. It’s like I’m reaching back in time to tell her that it’s all going to be okay.
What often happens when I read it, however, is that I imagine my future self telling my present self that it’s all
going to be okay. From
time to time, I still need the advice that I needed back then. “Healing me today, is healing me in the past.”
When along for the ride, be steadfast by trusting the process. By coaching your past self (like I did in my letter) and yourself
now, you can gradually fill your head with all the right things and those
thoughts will gradually mute the old thoughts that you don’t want anymore. It just takes time. Time and persistence.
