Wednesday, June 01, 2022

"I Am Not What Happened To Me, I Am What I Choose To Become"

My dear friend, Kelly, sent me a text about three weeks ago with a YouTube video link that she thought I would enjoy. And she was right, I did. Kelly and I share a very intuitive friendship in that we always seem to text each other at the exact moment we think of each other. It's uncanny. We have a "sixth sense" in knowing when to make contact. When we first met while working together starting in 2015, we instantly knew that we had a connection and that our friendship would continue even after we moved on to other jobs. We don't see each other all the time, but when we do, there is no space between the last time we met for coffee or lunch. Our friendship remains close regardless of going several months without seeing each other. Our friendship is deep yet, relaxed. 

What touched me most about the video was a quote by Carl Jung, which I copied and pasted on a photograph I took last month. And the reason it touched me so much was that the quote was something I discovered to be true throughout my own life, particularly when it comes to things that happened to me in my childhood and teenage years that affected me while traveling into my adulthood. As a child, negative experiences can have a more substantial impact on your life as you get older. They cling to you like pieces of lint. Yet, I somehow sensed that those experiences happened to me for a reason. So in one way, I do believe I am what happened to me because those experiences can't be deleted. They happened. However, what I can do is grow from those experiences by using them to choose what I want to become now.

It's one thing to openly talk about negative experiences because that's part of the healing process. Voicing them allows you to air them out. However, it's another thing to constantly keep talking about those experiences repeatedly because then I believe you give away your power to them. You start using those experiences to validate why you can't move forward. They become a crutch. You become a victim. And that's where you stay. A victim of your past.

Yes, it's essential to talk openly about negative experiences as long as you don't remain there. The key is to move on and change how you identify yourself through your own eyes. 

Even at my age, 66, I am still finding pieces of lint from my past that I am making peace with. In fact, over the past six months, I've been accepting and letting go of things that used to weigh me down. And in doing so, I feel lighter. And in doing so, I also feel tremendous gratitude for those experiences because I see them in a completely different light. 

I see the why.

In all honesty, I wouldn't change a single thing about my life's journey. Nor do I have any regrets.

I believe that my life is happening as it should, including negative experiences. 

But I can decide. 

Do I stay there? Or do I use them to choose what I want to become?

It's ultimately my choice. 

Have a beautiful rest of your week, everyone!

💗