on telling the truth.

Quite often, a version of myself appears that I don't particularly like. This person is not my friend. Generally, based on how she's reacting or behaving, I want nothing to do with her. It's like I leave my body for a minute, observing with judgment from some hidden place where I don't have to connect to whatever part of me is acting out. Later, when I'm alone, I replay all the worst things that have been said to or about me just to really make sure the self-deprecation sinks in.

Disliking yourself can be a full time job.

These days, I'm tired of working the shame shift. I have no energy left to to show up to this kind of work anymore, and so I've given up.

The thoughts come. I let them. I acknowledge them with a nod. I don't act so surprised by my humanity. I hope for better days.

And this is where, I believe, my healing begins.

I am learning to tell the truth.

Here's what I know: there's a wounded part of me that reacts when triggered. Sometimes, depending on the season, that can be quite a lot. In the moment, I regress. This can look differently, depending on the day. Sometimes I have an anxiety attack. Sometimes I become really depressed. I lash out in anger, desperately cling on out of insecurity. Compulsively try and fix. Explain myself away. Push and push and push to be perfect.

I fail every time.

So I beat myself up. No one else needs to do this for me any more. Turns out I am quite skilled. But curiously enough, this does nothing for me. I wake up the next day with a dose of self-loathing and a morbid determination to do better, and the cycle starts again.

I am learning that we tend to define ourselves poorly in a misunderstanding of our pain. We often believe things about who we are that were told to us in a time when our suffering spoke the loudest, where our truest self was not able to show up at all. We often believe things that were told to us by someone else who was acting out of a wounded part, and somehow we believed them.

It helps to look at the reliability and validity of your source.

When someone is hurting, they have the potential to hurt us. In that space, our emotions let us know that something isn't quite right. Where the trouble begins, is when we start to personalize someone else's pain. We make it about our core self. Somehow, we must have caused that mood or reaction. Somehow, it's completely our fault.

Somehow, we must be as bad as we think.

And so, as life goes on, we react too. We shut down or overcompensate or become defensive. We spiral and over think and become chaotic inside. We respond to the fear that is deep within us, the fear that tells us we are unlovable and dirty and too much and not enough and that we can't ever fix it. 

That we are broken beyond repair.

But with if that part was just that....a part? What if we didn't have to define ourselves by our difficult moments? What if we could give ourselves compassion when this happens, if we could hold our hearts just a little more tenderly? What do you think would happen?

Not surprisingly, this idea is more uncomfortable than not. We worry that if we love ourselves in the middle of our mess, it is the same as giving permission for that bad girl to run wild and really tear the place down. We worry that if we love ourselves, we are somehow lying to ourselves about our identity.

We believe we must be perfect to be loved.

This is where telling the truth is so important.

There is a part of you, a part not yet healed, that responds imperfectly to what happens around you. It's not about that one moment. It's about every moment that led you to this place. We do not live in a vacuum, and neither do our emotions. We pull up things from the past, sometimes even unconsciously, and we make it about the present. Listen to me:

The absolute worst thing you can do when this happens is to shame your emotions. We cannot help what we feel and how we feel it. Blame only serves to intensify the feelings, and results in those  behavioral responses that we aren't the biggest fan of.

Who we are does not have to be defined by what we experience or act on when we are hurting. 

Telling the truth about ourselves means accepting that there are times we won't get it quite right. That we make space for the parts of us that are still healing, that we give those parts permission to speak because they want us to know they are hurting and are tired of being ignored.

Here's the thing: when we treat our emotions with kindness and respect, they respond. We find out what is really going on underneath the tide of reactivity, and we can tend to the wound without fear because we know that it is just a part. 

We can be honest with ourselves and take responsibility for our emotions, even our behaviors, because we aren't confusing them with who we are. We can believe we are capable and brave and strong and good even if our responses don't always reflect this truth.

We can believe we are still worthy even if we are acting like we are not.

We aren't prisoners to our parts anymore.

We don't have to sit in the dungeon of despair.

We can be free.

Take a breath.

Let go into the curiosity of all that we've kept ourselves from, because we were so preoccupied with fixing instead of healing, hating instead of holding.

I want to love every part of myself better.

To show up for myself, as vulnerable as it feels.

To have a positive relationship with myself.

Because the truth is, sometimes we have to go into the dark in order to bring things to the light.

We can't see them clearly otherwise.

It will take courage.

It will be hard.

But the old way isn't working anymore.

If you're like me, you have nothing to lose.

Let the sun shine on the the most secret, shame filled parts of who you are.

For in its warmth the whole world has a chance to become new again.

So do you.

Love will lead the way.