sn’t it crazy
how one
experience,
early on, can change the trajectory of your life?! More specifically, isn’t it fascinating how we are subconsciously and consciously affected by the word’s others say to us?
I know from personal experience how powerful words can be. They can create a deep seeded belief about yourself. I can still remember where I was and how old I was when a young boy told me I had more hair on my upper lip than he did. Or the time my friend’s older brother told me I had big ears. Or the messages I received from certain family members about looking different. How do these comments change our life? Personally, they made me feel ashamed of who I was because of the way I looked. In fact, they formed a belief inside of me, a belief that there was something wrong with me and I needed to fix it.
A belief mixed with a traumatic experience makes for a dangerous combination. The traumatic experience reinforces the belief and soon it becomes your truth. For me that was losing my virginity to a bet during a high school party. In my mind, that traumatic experience confirmed that there was something wrong with me. I believed if I were prettier, I wouldn’t have been treated that way.
In an effort to “fix” myself, I set off on a course of perfection. I made every effort to bullet proof myself and protect myself from experiencing the pain I felt earlier. The first thing I did was schedule a nose job. Why not? I hated myself because of the way I looked so it seems like a logical choice. I didn’t realize until later in life that you could decide to have plastic surgery from a place of empowerment versus a place of self-loathing. In my case, the plastic surgery didn’t make the self-hatred leave because I still had to address what was going on inside of me.
I was frustrated that my short cut proved to be unhelpful. I was in exactly the same place I started. So, what’s the lesson?? Is it maybe it’s better to sit in the pain and figure it out before you act? Or maybe you can’t change anything until you first accept who you are??? It took me years to figure that out. My epiphany came through meditation. This was the first time I knew that I was not my body. I was the spirit encased by a body, kind of like a fun costume to wear while on earth. Once I realize that, I felt so much freedom. It didn’t matter what I chose, because I could never change what I was on the inside and that was important for me to understand.
I