Becoming who you are

If we feel we're broken and wrong, we'll try to fix ourself which is a long, exhausting and futile road. What if who we think we are is not actually who we are? Instead, our identity has been formed by a collection of different strategies and adaptations to an environment and people who weren't safe. If we feel safe, we don't have to strategise and become who we are not, we have the luxury of blossoming into who we really are.

But we can also claim this right to blossom, whatever age we are and whatever has happened to us. By becoming who we really are, we automatically shed who we are not. This process isn't easy and it certainly isn't painless but to tell the truth about anything, especially who we really are, is liberating, even if it's difficult.

I really like what Alaine Duncan says in her book, The Tao of Trauma:
1. People are not broken when they have a diagnosis of PTSD, they are simply awaiting reregulation
2. Trauma is dysregulated and disorganised qi (life energy)
3. The qi can’t be tainted
4. The overlay of dysregulation caused by traumatic stress is simply an overlay

I love how she describes trauma as an overlay. I see it as an overlay on our true self which remains untainted. Underneath it all, if we get quiet, we can sense and feel this self. It can pop up when we least expect it, but most need it.

Being who we are is living from the inside out, rather than the outside in. When our environment and the people in it are unsafe and chaotic, we don't have the luxury of living from our insides, it's too painful and overwhelming. We also don't have the luxury of resting in others and our environment, instead we have to become hypervigilant and second guess people just to survive. It might feel like your real self has withered away because it was never nourished or cherished, but it just didn't get the right conditions to grow and that is something you can do something about.