Losing My Mind..

What lies within the minds of people who suffer from life altering experiences?  I sat and observed young children playing the other day and my heart was crying out with deep sorrow to myself.  Children have no fears and they are full of innocence.   They are curious about everything, the people around them and things they want to see, touch, taste and feel as they are developing into themselves.  I wanted to be back in that place in that moment.  I wanted to be inside my younger child’s mind, the state of innocence, having zero experience with the world.  Ugh to have no fears, no judgments, no hurt, no bad memories, no broken promises, no neglect, no abandonment and I probably wouldn’t find myself teary eyed as I do on a daily basis.  I would give anything to be a child again and not even know what the world what might do to me one day.

How do we let that shit go? Is it even possible to forget how that experience felt?  You really have to come to terms with this, let the feelings sink in within you, no matter how hard the pain is to face all over again and you need to tell it to fuck off.  Express how it no longer serves you internally or out loud, because it hasn’t served you any purpose but pain and anger then you MUST set it free.  How do you do this though?  There’s a lot of different techniques out there, but you really need to find what works best for you. I am better with writing things down and reading them back to myself allowing that hurt to come to me again in and put me in that moment.  I might read them over and over again and then burn them.  Listen, I am no masochist and it’s not things I would really want to be reliving, but you have to face this, let it sit with you and let it go. 

The best exercise I did was write down lists of events, experiences or situations and write about how they all made me feel at that time.  As I relived them, I became angry, upset and really pissed off.  I cried, I screamed, I felt my heart race, I felt my temperature rise in my body and then I realized it’s not happening to me right now.  I was making it happen to myself AKA this is also the situations I was putting myself back in, in my current life that was leaving me in turmoil, shame and regret.  What purpose was this serving me?  None.  What pain was I now inflicting on others and myself?  Too much.  Why am I still carrying this weight?  I didn’t even realize it.  How do I not get back there?  By recognizing and changing. 

This is not something that happens overnight either.  This is constant dedication to changing your behaviors, ultimately, this is a lifestyle change.  The first step is recognizing that something is wrong  (You must be okay with realizing your behavior isn’t normal), needs to change and that you want to change it.  It is not going to be easy.  I am living proof that this is all possible if you put in the work for it.  I am not ashamed to admit that I have been buried in books for months now, listening to podcasts daily, attending therapy weekly, journaling daily (regular venting and a gratitude journal), joining programs online to learn about trauma, living on YouTube, and etc.  I have been researching and searching for as much information that I have as possible and you’ll be surprised how much information is out there on dealing with trauma.  *Peek my resources page for many of the tools I’ve been using.*

Back to my first question, what goes on within the mind of people like myself and others alike?  You have no idea, half of the time we have no idea because just like everyone else our minds run all day long with millions of thoughts going in and out.  It just so happens the more traumatic ones tend to take over, which in turn takes over our behaviors.  Imagine being on guard all day long because you’re afraid that someone is going to hurt you?  That’s an incredibly stress induced mindset and physical response to be tense and on edge all day.  Some people are so afraid of the world, a hermit or recluse, they never leave the house!  You may be further along in your healing than you think in that case.

Anyway, if you are not at peace with your past, it’s going to reflect in your mind and in your behaviors.  Worse is when this is inflicted upon someone else.  You know you don’t mean it, but you can’t take back words or actions that you have acted out or spoken.  So, you have to learn to control this shit or you will be shit to the ones you love.  Trust me on this one.

Be Kind.  Be Authentic. Always Choose Love.