My breakthrough: from chronic suffering to fulfillment
Feelings are real but they aren’t always true.
PAST ME:
I spent decades in and out of talk therapy. I only had one therapist - my first therapist- I made real progress with anddddddd then she left. After her I found myself stuck in the same loop with therapy.
Let me tell you about The Loop: I’d go in and talk about my problems, mostly childhood traumas, and my therapists would help me define what was happening: “you have people pleasing tendencies because as a child all you wanted was to gain the approval and attention of ….” and they’d give me information about myself and why I behaved the way I did. Or they’d tell me, “you’re a catastrophic thinker,” and send me home with homework about noticing my catastrophic thinking and reframing it.
It was all validating, for sure. And I always felt less bad about myself. Less responsible for my struggles.
“So it’s NOT my fault I have all these problems!?! Yay!!”
Unfortunately, THAT’S where my healing stopped.
A problem would be defined, I’d excuse it, I’d get results I didn’t want in life, I’d go back to my therapist, talk about my problems again, define them, connect them to my past, repeat.
In retrospect I think I only felt better because talking about everything for a full hour got it temporarily out of my system. But constantly deciding that my current problems were just MORE results of my past problems without any meaningful change was exhausting.
I also used the therapeutic definitions of myself as reasons I COULDN’T change.
And while it kept me “comfortable” because it was all so validating, it didn’t make my life better.
I never got different results. I got the same shitty ones in slightly different ways.
I didn’t want to be defined by my attachment styles (do I have to be? Are those set in stone?). Heck, I was even sick of having fun with moon signs and horoscopes. I cant be organized because I’m a PISCES?! What a crime the universe is committing.
I did not get the insane privilege of existing on this anomaly of a planet for a mere 90 years (if I’m lucky) to run around saying “I CANT BE FULLY HAPPY BECAUSE I HAVE TRAUMA AND I’M A PISCES!!!!!”
Absolutely ~ the fuck ~ not.
The next step was to exit the addictive loops of definitions and enter the world of conscious thinking.
I wanted to know how. to. be. happy.
I didn’t care anymore about about the WHY.
I wanted the HOW.
How do I move forward?
How do I get outcomes I want?
How do I restructure my belief systems?
How am I thinking now that’s sabotaging my ability to change?
HOW DO I STOP REPEATING SHITTY OUTCOMES?
How do I have an epic life?
ENTER: A FEW YEARS OF FOCUSED WORK WITH A MAN NAMED PETER SHAW WHO, INSTEAD OF TELLING ME WHY I’M FUCKED UP, SHOWED ME NEW WAYS OF REPRESENTING THE WORLD IN MY MIND AND HOW TO PRACTICE SURRENDER, ACCEPTANCE, BOUNDARIES, AND MOVING FORWARD.
The extremely short version of what I learned is this:
Change doesn’t have to take years and years and years, it can be a matter of seconds if I want it to be. Everything is a choice. My suffering was a choice.
PRESENT DAY:
my future needs me,
my past doesn’t.
I no longer care about anything that isn’t in front of me. Ex’s, adults who should’ve treated me better when I was little, friendships that went sideways, toxic environments I didn’t understand as a child, bad bosses — those things used to eat me up. Barriers to my happiness. I even made them my identity.
“I shut down when people get mad.”
“I don’t trust my current partner because of past partners.”
“I’m defensive because that’s what I learned.”
Those things (and more) used to build & become the reasons I couldn’t live better.
Sacred stories of suffering.
After tireless efforts to fix my shit, I had this realization and felt it deeply:
None of it matters.
Seriously, THAT’S ^ my key.
It used to matter, for sure.
All the toxic traits I picked up WEREN’T toxic at the time. They were necessary. My brain created ways to get me through hard situations & it didn’t realize I wouldn’t ALWAYS be in those situations so it forgot to update itself.
“Someone deceived my trust so I can’t trust again.”
I get the sentiment, Past Me, but I’ve grown.
When my brain starts to ~wander~ I have a little talk with myself, “I know you’re trying to protect me but it’s not needed here. I trust myself to choose the right people to be in my life and, if they aren’t, I know I’ll be fine.”
Just like that, I feel lighter (there’s actually a whole process to that but it’s too long to explain here).
Dissecting my past and letting it define my future has never served me. Holding grudges has never served me. Wishing people had behaved differently has never served me. Wanting to control anything externally hasn’t worked. Affirming traits about myself that limit me is exhausting.
No amount of trying to understand my past and everyone’s intentions who was in it is going to do shit for my future.
I control one thing and one thing only: how I respond moving forward and how I choose to live, no matter what’s behind me.
I choose: my future & being happy.
This has all led to me having the life I always desired but trulyyyy didn’t believe was possible.
I thought being this fulfilled meant someone was naive. Out of touch. Unwilling to know what’s going on in the world.
I’m so, SO glad for all my suffering and hardships. Without all of it I wouldn’t have the wisdom I now possess. I wouldn’t know to appreciate the magic and wander of our world. This infinite gratitude for how things are unfolding has done something surprising:
It’s given me….love? for all the people and events that hurt me. Like..I want to say thank you for showing me what I know now. Thank you for treating me that way. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for taking me so far outside of my comfort zones it forced me to grow. I love you for that, thank you And I hope you get there one day too.
Truly.
So — no more loops of defining myself and remaining contained by those definitions.
Thank fuck.
Now I live in a fluid way where I have my hard days and come back to my truth: what can I do, how can I respond right now that ensures I get to keep living my happy, sensory-filled life?
The answer never involves other people.
Just me.
The person I can control.
