How I turned life lessons and wounds into wisdom and difficulties into opportunities?
For a very long time, I looked back on my past with shame, guilt, resentment, and remorse. Believing that many things that happened to me in the past should not have happened. Thinking that life had treated me inappropriately and that I was nothing but a victim of my past and a victim of life.
I did my best to hide my pains and sorrows. Even pretending that I had no wounds to heal and acting as if the terrible things that had happened to me in the past had never affected me. I honestly thought that if I ignored the sadness that was in me. The darkness would eventually disappear, and the light would shine through me again, but it didn’t.
I grew up with an abusive alcoholic father. I didn’t know what it was like to be loved by your parents or to be safe in their arms. From a very young age, I learned to pretend to be happy, that all is well in my world, and that I am fine.
I never spoke to anyone about what was going on in our house. And I guess I didn’t want people to ask me many weird questions and look at me in pity, even though they did so anyway.
It was hard for me to deal with everything that was going on. I had no energy left to talk about all those horrible experiences.
I didn’t want to go through the trauma again. Furthermore, I wanted to forget everything, and I wished it wouldn’t happen again. But it happened again. I was just a little kid, and it was my way of coping with what was going on in our house and helping myself to survive.
During it all, dealing with my father’s madness and brutality, and staying sane in an environment full of madness.
How do I turn my wounds into wisdom?
This kind of attitude and approach to life helped me a lot when I was a little girl. But after my father died – and because I was no longer in danger. It was better for me to let my guard down, get out of protection mode and move into safety and recovery mode by talking about what happened. And let the healing process begin, but I didn’t.
I did not know how to do this. As a result, I continued to act as if I were still a prisoner of the past. I continued to feel ashamed of my past. That my father, had denied me love, good nutrition, and happy childhood, and that my life was “different” and had physically abused me.
I continued to build my life with the broken pieces of my past; This caused a lot of “unnecessary” pain to me and those around me, and that made my life hell.
Things got worse as the years went by, and in the fall of 2009, my whole life fell apart. I fell apart piece by piece, and I honestly thought I could never hold it together again. What seemed was the worst year of my life; turned out to be the best year of my life so far.
How have I turned my wounds into wisdom and my difficulties into opportunities?
That fall, because of all that was going on, and because I felt I could take it no longer; I committed to working on loving acceptance and loving all my imperfections and shortcomings, spending the rest of my life turning my wounds into wisdom, and allowing my past to make me better not worse. I make the rest of my life the best of it.
Author Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Once a decision is made, the whole universe comes together to make it happen.” In this way, I began working to let go of my past, my fears, my excuses, and the need to complain criticize, and blame, and I began letting go of all my toxic thoughts and self-talk. The self-defeating, my resistance to change, the need to live my life according to other people’s expectations and so many other toxic things, behaviors, and people were impeding my life, and it was all happening so fast.
That fall I felt as if something inside of me had awakened as if a force greater and more powerful than myself had taken over my life, keeping me safe and protected at all times, and the more I let go of toxic thoughts, people, and behaviors, the better and happier my life seemed.
For a long time I looked back on my past with shame, guilt, resentment, and humiliation, but my entire life transformed the moment I accepted and accept everything that happened to me and stop hiding my feelings. That moment in which I forgave and was free from the past and forget everything that happened; What once seemed dark, frightening, and painful has now become something full of light, hope, love, and compassion; It was a blessing in disguise.
It opened so many doors and opportunities for me; This gave me the opportunity to speak and share my story at many events and occasions.
The expressions in this article are those of an Anonymous blogger.
