The Past is Important but it Does Not Define You

Greetings Magnificent Souls💗

This is where we have open and honest discussions about ourselves.

✨This is a place where we break down, breakaway, and breakthrough codependency allowing ourselves to attract health, build wealth and live a peaceful life.✨

We are tired of being sick and tired. 
We are tired, but we are not giving up. We KNOW that there is something magnificent inside of us.

Because we are fighting daily, hourly, and by the minute: fighting ourselves, our kids, our spouses, we have to do things differently.

We have to break the cycle. ❣️

We don’t have a million chances. We have to be happy, NOW. We have to find a way.

So how do we do that? How is that possible?
If you look around at what society is telling you, they’d tell you that what we’re doing is impossible.

Yet, it’s happening. Every. Single. Day.

💗It’s happening through the practice and love that we call Awakening the Magnificent Soul.💗

We are Magnificent Souls, and these are our stories of healing!

☀️I wanted to touch on a critical theory and thought that I had about my development into my true, magnificent self and that is my past and how it has shaped and defined me and, also, learning how to live a healthy and wealthy life with that painful past.

My thoughts and my reasoning for talking about this topic were based off some inner dialogue that I have been having with myself.

I am learning some very disturbing things about my past because now, I am open to them.

When for the entirety of my life, I have boxed them up and thrown them away, not even being able to access memories of my childhood.

I have been shaped my environment and I know I am not alone.

My thoughts….were shaped…

My feelings….were shaped…

My emotions….

My actions….

My intentions…

My goals….

Almost every aspect of who I am was shaped by my interactions with others. 
And the formative years in my childhood and family of origin was where I learned most things about safety, emotions, boundaries, thoughts.
Now, I’m not saying that I am not uniquely me. Please don’t take this as a rant or as a platform for blaming.
But, it has been studied extensively that our early environment, the one we were born into, shapes a great deal of our lives.

In fact, one of the big triggers for me as I was breaking down my codependency was the realization that the relationship with my partner was almost completely mirroring my mother and father’s relationship.

😳Freaky, Scary, Powerful.

I have read studies where it says that by age 7 or 8, we have picked up on relationship dynamics and that becomes our norm.

The dynamics between our parents.
The conversations, the fights, the secrecy, the troubling and even the jubilant times.

The stories told us, become our stories. These could be actual fairy tales, these could be weight related, which I am acutely familiar with.

Stories, that aren’t necessarily verbalized like emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual abuse. A child victim of these painful circumstances begins to form a story of herself and, oftentimes, the story’s theme is “I am worthless, not good enough, ugly, etc.”

As time passes, we grow up believing those stories. 
We attract people into our lives that believe those stories, too. We attract people into our lives that exacerbate these stories and whose sole worth and being RELY on the continuation of these stories.

To repeat, that is THE STORY of us being unworthy.
Our inner voice is lost, hurt, and unsure.

Many times, we know that something is wrong, but feel so completely overwhelmed by the hole that we keep digging, we feel hopeless.

I have been there and I have felt all of these things.

So, I just want to say, you are not alone. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

I sincerely think that my parents did the best they could with what they knew and what they thought would build a better life for my siblings and I.

I learned hard work and sacrifice. I learned how to be nice and kind and how to be a good person.

I did not quite learn about relationships: what healthy relationships looked like, what healthy communication looked and felt like, and what a healthy relationship with myself looked like.

All of this led to toxic relationships with people, food, and myself that looked like bingeing and suicidal thoughts.

The first step was in realizing that these dysfunctional actions were only a reaction to a truly deep dysfunctional relationship with myself that I did those things because I hated myself.

Shame and fear were so pervasive in my day to day thoughts, it seemed as if I was spiraling out of control.

Then, the question was why did I feel this way?

When someone feels pain or abuse as a child (whether it be moderate or severe), the part of the brain called the amygdala kicks in takes over.

In my life, I guess I can say that I felt a lot of transference of pain from the dysfunctional relationship of my parents. My life was cloaked in secrecy in which communication was not encouraged and was not a top priority.

Strong emotions (except happiness and laughter) were discouraged. The development of my personal identity was stunted. In my case, my identity was akin to achievement: getting straight A’s in school, playing well in sports, getting into the right college, getting on the homecoming court, but until recently, I wasn’t able to address who I was at my core.

There were other more specific incidents of emotional, sexual, and spiritual trauma that I’ve begun to take inventory of.

But throughout my childhood, all of these little jabs at my psyche really started to put my amygdala into high gear.

⚡️The amygdala is the first filter of the brain that is your prehistoric brain, or some call it your lizard brain. This is the part where fight or flight comes in. This is the part that wants you to run from a bear if you see it while hiking in the woods.

Bringing it back to my childhood, the amygdala was the primary communicator in my brain because I was feeling consistent pain and fear due to my environment.

So, biochemically, I was being conditioned to experience different things in my life as threats.
And, over time, this tended to distort my reality, distance myself from emotions, and form an identity that really wasn’t me.

You know, something interesting that I came across recently and am encouraged by this movement is something called ACE which is Adverse Childhood Experiences.

What’s encouraging to me about this recognition is that practitioners and experts are now realizing that these experiences are what need to be treated in addition to or in conjunction with other ailments like addiction and suicide. Many times those ailments are a way to mask and numb the mental struggles caused by ACEs.

𐄂Here is an interesting fact: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) affect 34.8 million children across socio-economic lines, putting them at higher risk for health, behavioral and learning problems.

And codependency is right in the thick of this. I have come to recognize my codependency by diving deep into my past.

Not an easy, fun, or smooth ride, but in my case of healing, a definite necessity in my healing and my awakening.

So, when they say to “put the past behind” you, I would argue that it’s not that simple, and if you’re like me and you experienced childhood trauma, I would say that doing that is fundamentally counterintuitive.

It’s just not that easy, it isn’t.

And, if you can’t do it, you are NOT a bad person, you are not a failure. Trust me.

If you’re having a hard time thinking about this and not sure what you want to do or how to proceed next. If I’ve struck a chord with you, but you kind of feel like you’re at an impasse.

First, take a deep breath. And, I’d like to help you talk about it.

We can begin that conversation at Epiphany vault.com OR, start by writing. Just write. ✍️

100 words will do wonders when you do it consistently over time.

Write a letter to your Mom and your Dad. I will be reading mine on the podcast soon, when I’m ready.

But, the first step is in recognizing that it’s not your fault.

Like me, you do have a choice in how you form YOU.

Your past DOES NOT define you.

YOU are flesh and blood and YOU are here and now.

Much love to you, Magnificent Souls. 💗

Livin’ & Lovin’💗
Lilli