Can I tell
you a story without scaring you away?
My therapist
has decided to pull out the big guns. A waltz down EMDR way… with a side of
Internal Family Systems. Mostly because in three years of therapy, all I’ve
really done is blame myself for my predicament.
Turns out,
much like the dust that forms stars, we brush against many people in this life
before becoming that compact ball of fiery goodness.
She warned me
that beginning this work might stir up things I packed away years ago and
quietly forgot about. So I spent my day dusting off old boxes. It wasn’t
entirely terrible.
There once
was a girl standing in her driveway shooting hoops when a turd brown Subaru
wagon came honking down the road and pulled into the neighbor’s driveway while
they were away. A moment later, it backed into hers instead.
Out stepped
her friend Jeremiah… and a strange handsome boy she had never met.
It was
instant.
I can still
describe the flannel he wore. The trucker hat. The Levi’s. The way his dirty
blonde hair fell just past his chin in natural waves. And that dang smile.
That girl and
that boy carried on a long-distance relationship for nearly four years. They
called each other for every win, every loss, every ordinary Tuesday. They were
babies, really.
There were
“significant others” in their real lives from time to time, but he still sent
flowers every Christmas and called every day.
Then one day,
he decided to take the leap and move to Colorado.
And she was
terrified.
Because
suddenly it was no longer a daydream. It could become real.
By then, she
had attached herself elsewhere, as they both occasionally did over the years,
and she was so afraid of hurting another human being that she ignored herself
entirely.
It didn’t
turn out the way you’d expect.
That story
became one of the boxes in the pile. One I may never have fully unpacked.
Still, it
shaped me. It kept me searching for fated meetings, depth, meaning… that
feeling of being fully seen.
And even now,
nearing fifty years old, a good chunk of my heart still remembers what it felt
like to talk to that boy… now man.
Sometimes I
wonder what island sands we’d have our toes buried in had we followed through
on all those daydreams. I wonder what my life might have looked like if I had
followed my heart instead of my head. If I had worried a little more about my
own happiness than everyone else’s.
That’s the
question my therapist and I keep circling back to:
Where on my
timeline did I decide it was more important to please everyone else before
myself?
Part of me
has been afraid to find out.
Because this
characteristic has shaped nearly every interaction I’ve had with the world…
publicly and privately. There have only been a handful of times in my life
where I stopped the performance and allowed my true feelings to fully exist in
the room.
And so we
began.
The timeline.
Every
important emotional event I can remember, positive or painful. Every story that
still echoes.
Then she had
me create a visual safe space… and a container for anything too overwhelming to
hold all at once.
Because I
have some training in brain development and trauma-informed care, I wasn’t
entirely convinced this process would work.
What I do
know is this: I have long rejected the idea of “blaming my childhood.” My
childhood, in so many ways, was beautiful. My parents made sure of that.
To me,
blaming my childhood felt too much like blaming them… the two people who have
shown up for me with unconditional love over and over again.
I couldn’t do
that.
But my
resistance softened after taking a certification course focused on childhood
brain development and trauma. We discussed how both large and seemingly small
experiences can shape neural pathways during critical developmental stages.
For example,
imagine a child who goes a week without enough food at twenty months old. The
child’s brain learns something: hunger, uncertainty, instability, fear. Maybe
the reality was simply that a loving single mother lost her job and was waiting
for assistance. Maybe love never left the room at all.
But the
nervous system still adapted for survival.
That
adaptation gets stored.
Pathways
reroute. Others close down.
As educators,
we’re encouraged to look at the whole child… not simply the behavior in front
of us. We meet them at the developmental age where the wound occurred and help
gently reopen pathways that help them out of survival.
And somewhere
on the drive home, through tears, I finally asked myself:
If I believe
this about children… why wouldn’t it also be true for me?
The truth is,
I entered this world soft and sensitive by nature. During those critical years
of development, I grew up with a loving mother carrying an overwhelmed nervous
system and a father struggling with alcoholism. There was love in our home, but
there was also fighting.
My brother
and I became less mischievous out in the open and more accommodating. We learned to be helpful.
Easy. Pleasing.
Not because
we were unloved.
But because
children adapt.
And while
both of my parents were deeply present in so many ways… and while I feel
profoundly grateful to have witnessed my father heal his relationship with
alcohol and my mother finally settle into a softer life… I was still a child
absorbing the emotional weather around me.
No blame.
Just
observation.
That
distinction alone has changed something inside me.
Because now I
can begin to understand that many of the stories I’ve carried, every heartbreak
and attachment and fear of disappointing others, have all been filtered through
those early neural pathways.
And the most
hopeful part of all of this?
Neural
pathways can change.
So here I am. Waist deep in old stories and new understanding. Learning how I came to view the world… and slowly, carefully, giving myself permission to view it differently.
Now is the Time
Hafiz
Now is the
time to know
That all that
you do is sacred.
Now, why not
consider
A lasting
truce with yourself and God.
Now is the
time to understand
That all your
ideas of right and wrong
Were just a
child's training wheels
To be laid
aside
When you
finally live
With veracity
And love.
Hafiz is a
divine envoy
Whom the
Beloved
Has written a
holy message upon.
My dear,
please tell me,
Why do you
still
Throw sticks
at your heart
And God?
What is it in
that sweet voice inside
That incites
you to fear?
Now is the time for the world to know
That every
thought and action is sacred.
This is the time
For you to
compute the impossibility
That there is
anything
But Grace.
Now is the season to know
That
everything you do Is sacred.
