RECLAMING YOUR TRUE SELF By Angela Dunning
MOVING BEYOND YOUR PAST "Sooner or later, she had to give up the hope for a better past." ~Irvin D. Yalom
I
turned 50 last year, and it was nothing less than a massive and rather painful wake-up call. As I quietly reflected on my life to date, I was filled with sadness and anxiety about all the life I had not yet lived and all the years wasted due to my tendency to always look back instead of forwards. At the same time, I had also finally come to the realization that what I had been experiencing for so many years were symptoms of complex trauma as a result of my early childhood deprivations. These two huge realizations coalesced in me and gave me a renewed sense of determination to finally pursue the life I am meant to be living. In his book on trauma, 'The Body Keeps the Score,' Bessel van der Kolk reminds us, "Being traumatized is not just an issue of being stuck in the past; it is just as much a problem of not being fully alive in the present ."This hit the nail on the head for me and consolidated my turning point.
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Being stuck in the past is very common for people as most of us have suffered something traumatic at one time in our life, particularly in childhood which continues to leave long-lasting damage in peoples' lives. Furthermore, faith in ourselves to feel any different or better, or to even dare to want a better life, often feels very out of reach for people with a history of trauma. As if they don't deserve to even desire a happier life. This belief is deeply entrenched and causes a myriad of problems in its wake. Yet, it IS possible to move forwards and desist from staying stuck in the past and on an endless loop of ruminating and analyzing what happened to us long ago. Please take it from one who has very easily fallen into this trap and spent years of my life stuck in the pain, sorrow, and anger of my past: That it is possible to stop this cycling, and it is possible to start to move forwards.