There have been many things of my past that I am not proud of. Things that I’ve done which now I wouldn’t even venture to do, were, non-the-less… done. So where do we take ownership of these things and put them on a shelf, and where do we realize that some of those aspects are still in our newer versions of ourselves?
I believe the key to understanding these former aspects and the growth that we’ve accomplished have, in fact, made us who we are today. It’s recognizing that where we were at that time, we were using the tools that we knew how to use for our best version of ourselves… at that time. Hopefully we’ve grown from that. Some do, and some don’t. It’s not for us to decide. All we can do as spiritual ‘be’ings is to recognize that they are no different where they are then where you are. So… recognition of the change from who we are is in fact validation that we are no longer our former selves, and at the same time there may be shadow aspects of ourselves that we still cling onto for some false sense of security.
I left my small town of Granby, Massachusetts, when I was 17. That was 39 years ago. I am not who I was then. So many different variations of who I am have changed over the many years. I would like to think that I am a completely different person. And here lies the dichotomy…
The other day I allowed a picture of my ex to throw me over the edge. I went into a deep over analysis of betrayal, remorse, depressed feelings of something left unresolved. After the episode passed, and after talking to several close friends, I felt like an idiot. I felt like all of this work that I had been doing on myself had been a complete waste. Well, after my Chernobyl incident, I went back to square one and started doing the work again. I started meditating again, and writing songs. I actually wrote a song called ‘One Love’. It is a song about loving ourselves and knowing that whatever we go through, the ups and downs, they are all part of our growth. I should know this, but when I’m having a nuclear meltdown all of that knowledge gets cast aside and the inner child who was abandoned feels abandoned, yet again.
I started doing this inner child work while riding my motorcycle across Texas. Texas is HUGE with nothing much to see except oil derricks, big open plains, and pickup trucks… LOTS of pickup trucks. It was probably the best place to do this inner child work. As the miles of nothingness ticked away the deeper I went peeling away the layers of myself to get to the root of all of this stuff that had been plaguing me since the age of 7.
What I’ve learned might help you as well to recognize some of these patterns that we all have, these programs that run in the background that create these limiting beliefs of ourselves. The first thing to recognize when you have a Chernobyl event like I just had, is this…
- You will lose your mind. You will have a temporary amnesia while it is happening because the programming comes front and center and takes over. It’s a defense mechanism where the child needs to feel security. Nothing else matters except that security.
- Don’t beat yourself up for the meltdown.
- Recognize the meltdown as not going backwards, but yet another part of the onion that needs to be peeled away.
- And last but not least… give yourself credit for recognizing it as not who you are, but that inner child wanting attention. It’s now time for you to be the adult and let that inner child know that it will be ok. That you’ve got this.
- Ok… one more. Thank your friends for being there during the meltdown because at some point you’re going to be the shoulder that they will need, so put your hazmat suit in the closet for future use.
So, what was the lesson for me and hopefully for you as well?
When we lose someone that we have loved we need to look at why we fell in love with these people in the first place. When a breakup happens we tend to only look at the ugly aspects of it instead of the good. We have to remind ourselves why we fell in love in the first place. Whatever the reason may have been at the time, that doesn’t matter. We did it. So what did you learn? Did you learn that you can never love again or that now you can love even more, knowing now what you’ve learned about yourself?
I would like to believe the latter.
