The past is dead (and haunting)

I’m a story teller. I always have been. I can turn the simplest event into a coherent narrative filled with a beginning, climax and end. It’s just always made more sense for me to view life this way - as one big story.

Your life is a story too. It tells the tale of how you, beautiful soul, came to fruition. It also helps predict your future. Most of us don’t really dig deep though. En général, most of us don’t answer the question “so, tell me more about you” with a 20-minute monologue about our dysfunctional family systems. You’re more likely to note what high school you went to and why you think COVID-19 was orchestrated in a lab for world destruction.

But evaluating your past is important. Especially when you do it with feeling, unconditional forgiveness and self-compassion. It can open doors to a whole new life path and allow you to feel connected to your innermost self: to Soul.

And I’ll keep stressing it - dealing with past trauma is essential for your journey to Wholeness (you’re finding yourself again, remember?) I don’t care how repetitive my blog posts get or how many times I have to say the words ‘inner child’ and ‘shadow self’. You HAVE to do the work.

The consequence of not evaluating your past is consistent Trauma Blocking. Trauma blocking occurs when we detach ourselves from our distressing experiences and resort to denial and other forms of dissociative behaviors to avoid dealing with negative emotions. The issue with this is that we will continue to recreate our past into our present until it is resolved.

This is the epidemic of disconnectedness that we are facing as a collective. We do not deal with our issues. So we live on autopilot, constantly feel unfulfilled, live in disharmony with one another, hurt each other through harmful defense mechanisms and spend thousands on therapy just to feel something again.

When I first started seeing my current therapist, he noted that my personality was egosyntonic with past childhood experiences. So together we employed a form of psychodynamic therapy that would allow me to explore my past in a coherent way. Except I was doing something that every therapist fears - I spoke with ZERO affect when describing a past traumatic event.

So Dr. J would try to prompt an emotional response. “That must have made you feel horrible. Can you remember how you felt in that moment?” He would ask me, with an encouraging look on his face.
”Uhh…I felt nothing really.” I would genuinely respond.
“Huh. And how do you feel when you speak about it now?” He’d beckon.
I’d sit for a moment and reflect upon that moment. Then I’d reply “nothing” - and I meant it.

I was disassociating. I didn’t do this on purpose though - it was my ego’s way of protecting me. Most people think your ego is the enemy, but really your ego is just a storage place for all of the defense mechanisms you’ve inhabited since childhood to protect you from harmful outside forces, experiences or negative emotions. For me specifically, I learnt to shut off my emotions in situations of high stress. As a child, my family went through a lot of emotional turmoil. So I learnt to avoid dealing with negative emotions by simply not feeling them. And in order to not feel them, I needed to be constantly preoccupied and stimulated…even if that meant doing things that harmed me.

You may be wondering then: if shutting off our emotions helps us feel better in the moment, why not just let it be?

I’ll tell you why. Because trauma blocking paves the way for self destructive behaviors. Self-destruction arises as a result of subconscious emotional pain or unresolved trauma. It is also a result of implicit beliefs of unworthiness and incompetence, developed by perpetuating cycles of abuse or difficult experiences.

So, are you self destructive? Consider this: think of the last time you engaged in a behavior that made you feel guilty, shameful or had dire consequences after it. It could be anything that brought upon feelings of distress (e.g., binging on drugs and alcohol, over-eating, promiscuous sex, aggressive behavior, compulsive spending). Now think about the event that preceded it. I guarantee you didn’t journey on a three-day drug bender because you thought it’d be a worthwhile memory.

As a result of my trauma, my wounded inner child wanted so badly to continue holding on to the core beliefs that I was worthless, shameful and unlovable so it sought out experiences in adulthood to affirm that. I purposely did things I knew were bad for me but made me feel good in the moment because I wanted to subconsciously keep myself in this state of feeling guilty and ashamed of myself (because it would prove my inner child right). I continuously avoided my issues through various forms of escapism, sabotaged relationships because I didn’t feel worthy of love, and engaged in maladaptive coping strategies (even so far as chasing after someone who treated me horribly).

The upside is self-destructive behaviors cannot coincide with self-awareness. And self-awareness is easy to attain if you put in the work. The simplest way to do this is to keep a self-reflection journal. It’s obviously not easy or viable to stop and think every time before you do something - no one has the time or patience for that. But setting time aside everyday to reflect on your daily experiences (e.g., Did you over-eat today? Have sex with someone you didn’t want to? Get aggressive with a loved one? And what are the reasons you engaged in these behaviors?) can strengthen your conscious understanding of your subconscious.

Additionally, practicing inner child work is your best friend. Inner child work connects us to the wounded element of ourselves: the child within. Did the events from your childhood have any impact on your behaviors today? Do you hold any self-limiting beliefs about yourself? If so, where did they come from? I noticed a lot of the times that any form of rejection (i.e., romantically, getting rejected from a job, not seeing progress at the gym) would trigger a core self-limiting belief about being unlovable. So I did things to validate the extreme opposite of that - chase after external validation, people-please, become hyper-sexual… the list goes on. The moment I realized these behaviors were a cry for attention from my inner child, was the moment I was able to turn my energy inwards in a more nurturing, divine feminine manner.

When we reconnect with these fragmented parts of ourselves, we can begin to discover the root of many of our fears, phobias, insecurities and sabotaging life patterns. This is where true healing happens.

Moral of the story is (since we’re telling stories here): things get better if you put in the work. You actually can become the highest version of yourself. You actually can stop sabotaging your opportunities for authentic connection. You actually can find yourself again.

The past is dead, but your future doesn't have to be.

Sending love & light,

Ayla