As promised in this blog entry, I promised to explain my viewpoint on owning our stuff or it will own us.
Let’s start with the fact that “stuff” isn’t the original term I used when owning up to my own “stuff.” In fact, I almost wrote a book on it….
Chapter One – Sh!t happens. Everyone experiences some sort of trauma in childhood that leaves a lasting mark well into adulthood. These difficult experiences influence how we feel about ourselves and, thus, influence how we treat others. In other words, our unchecked childhood sh!t holds the potential of influencing our entire lives. The sh!t we hold onto comes in the shape of not feeling good or smart enough… Feeling unloveable or rejected… Feeling humiliated or shameful… Just to name a few….
Chapter Two – We either own our Sh!t or it owns us. Even if we think we’ve successfully denied, avoided or blamed our sh!t on another – Even if we believe our sh!t magically disappeared behind the beautiful façade we’ve built – There is always a stench. Sh!t has a sneaky way of seeping through the cracks and wreaking havoc in our lives. Havoc in that we either consciously or subconsciously prove our sh!t by repeating negative patterns proving that we’re not good enough or lovable. Our sh!t is pure ego in that it likes to be right at all costs – Including the cost of our very happiness.
Chapter Three – Release that Sh!t. Do we really want the residue of a trauma that happened when we were 6 years old hold us hostage for the rest of our life? The brave are willing to dig deep and take a look at the common denominator behind our most painful experiences – WE are the common thread. And once we know what our sh!t is, we have a golden opportunity to process it so we can release the painful beliefs and patterns that have kept us stuck for so long. The first step is owning it. ALL OF IT. Every unsavory aspect of ourselves that we would rather deny, blame, or avoid – OWN IT. Start an open dialogue with it… Walk hand-in-hand with it… Sing show tunes together with it… Get so comfortable owning that sh!t that it begins to lose the stronghold of shame. It takes courage and grit to own our sh!t so we can release it once and for all.
I call it “having tea with my demons” and I’ll write more about that in another post.
Chapter Four – Not my Sh!t (See also Twisted Sister’s “We’re not gonna take [sh]it”). The positive aspect of owning up to our own sh!t is that now we don’t have to take on anyone else’s shi!t. We know what’s ours because we have an open dialogue with our not-good-enough childhood wounds. We know when we’re feeling triggered and how our patterns want to play out through sabotaging ourselves. Only now we know how to soothe our childhood fears with our adult perspective. Knowing what’s ours frees us from taking on the sh!t such as abandonment issues that someone else may be bringing to the relationship. We can just say – “No thank you – I’m working through enough of my own sh!t.”
Chapter Five – To each their own Sh!t. In summation – It is never ok to unload sh!t onto someone else by blaming them for what happened in our life or make another responsible for the insecurities we carry by believing our sh!t. No one can fix our sh!t for us – It’s an inside job. Gratefully, the opposite holds true in that it’s never ok for someone else to blame us for their sh!t nor are we responsible for fixing anyone else. In other words – We are all responsible for our own sh!t. It may sound a little tough love-ish, but once you understand that you can’t make anyone do anything, you’ll understand just how good it feels to break free from this kind of codependency.
Needless to say, my mother didn’t approve of this “sh!t book” despite having VERY valid points.
Owning our stuff is the greatest opportunity for personal growth and reclaiming our personal power.
I share this with you because oftentimes it’s not even the traumatic event from childhood itself that does the most harm. It’s the residual energy we carry – The negative patterns that are set on auto-repeat and self-sabotaging subconscious behaviors that cause us the most damage.
For example – If we believe we’re not good enough (my personal fav), we may subconsciously create experiences where we can fail and prove to ourselves that we’re not good enough. Similarly, if we don’t believe we deserved to be loved, we may go through a series of bad relationships to prove just that.
Trauma is subjective – There is no way of defining what could be considered a trauma, for everyone experiences things differently. What might be inconsequential by my own terms could be the scariest challenge another person has ever faced. Similarly, what I experienced in my own childhood may not even register on someone else’s trauma radar.
I experienced childhood trauma and it shaped how I felt about myself for a long time. It kept me stuck playing small in a world of self-degrading beliefs when I was meant to play big. Gratefully (and equally painfully), I was given the time and space I needed to process, release, and become who I’m meant to be.
This experience you are having is rooted in trauma – Both yours and your mothers for they are one and the same right now. I hope to have the opportunity to help you process and release the negative residue you’re carrying so you won’t need to carry it into adulthood. Share with you some of the tools I’ve used to help define what’s yours and what’s not so you can politely decline to carry more than what’s yours. And Dad continues to support you through means of therapy so you will learn how to build and enforce healthy boundaries to protect your compassionate heart.
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