What am I running from?
Sunday Letter #27
I’ll let you in on a little secret. Which, isn’t really a secret anymore. It’s one that I’ve kept (or tried to keep) from others, and from me, all my life.
I’ve been running from myself.
In this post I wrote about how, for pretty much my whole life up until a few years ago, I was extremely co-dependent and looked to others for validation and approval of who I was, what I did (or wanted to do), and how I felt. I didn’t have a strong sense of self at all, I didn’t trust myself, and I always tried to do and be what/who others wanted or told me to do and be.
I just wanted everyone to be happy with me. I wanted people to be pleased with me. And I wanted to feel worthy. I wanted to be enough.
Growing up with that mentality though, having the feeling of being unworthy coursing through my veins and crippling me both mentally and emotionally, made me abandon myself over and over again, beginning when I was a child and going into my late 20s. I’m 31 now, and at times I still have to fight the urge to do that.
It’s hard. It’s really hard. But, there’s also an ease to releasing the need to abandon yourself. You just have to identify why you’re doing it in the first place. For me, it came/comes down to wanting to be loved, and not wanting to be abandoned by others. So I taught myself to tone down parts of who I was, or completely hide those parts, or even condemn them — rather than get curious about them, meet and be with them, love them, and give them the care and deep presence that they always deserved.
I remember a time during my freshmen year of college where I very clearly abandoned myself: my friend/roommate and I were in our dorm room, and I was listening to music on my laptop, when her friends suddenly came over to visit her. I was intimidated by them; they seemed like the “cool kids,” they were all friends with each other from high school, and I wasn’t yet friends with anyone else at that university. So, what did I do? I played only songs that I thought her friends would think were “cool” and skipped over ones that I really liked but was afraid would make them think I was weird or “not cool.” I wanted them to like me.
Abandoning myself — running away from myself — was something I’d done for pretty much all my life. To the point where I sometimes forgot what I actually wanted, or who I really was, and turning myself into someone that other people — whether they were my family, friends, or peers — wanted me to be became almost second nature.
Almost.
Because there was always that voice inside me, that feeling, deep down, that knew I wasn’t being honest with myself and with others. And it really, really hurt me — that knowing. It ate away at me. But I didn’t know how to turn that I-want-everyone-to-be-pleased-with-me/I-want-to-be-enough-for-everyone part of me “off.” And even if I had known how to, I was afraid to.
Because what if, in disappointing people, I lost them? What if they chose to leave me? What then? I couldn’t bear the thought of that. The feeling of that. So, in order to protect myself from getting hurt, I ran away from me.
The other day, I thought back to my childhood, and how someone in my family used to treat me a certain way, based on their own childhood wounds and conditioning, and how that led to me having very little self-worth/believing that I wasn’t worthy. As I was thinking more about it, I heard a voice within me say, gently yet firmly, “I’m sorry that happened to you. It’s not your fault. But you have to rewrite the code.”
I’m sorry that happened to you. It’s not your fault. But you have to rewrite the code.
As I let that sink into me, I realized how true it was. And how free it made me. Yes, how people treated me wasn’t my fault and was a reflection of their own internal world (obviously I didn’t purposely hurt people and then expect them to not have a strong reaction in response to that — there’s a line between acknowledging when someone is projecting their own wounds onto you and you just being mean or cruel toward them), yet now, as an adult, I have the tools, knowledge, and ability to rewrite the self-limiting beliefs that I’ve had about myself. I’m no longer that little girl who was dependent on her parents, her siblings, her friends, or her peers for love, acceptance, and safety. I can give those things to myself now.
I’m definitely not perfect at this though. I still have moments where a part of me feels tempted to run away from myself so that I’ll feel liked by others or like I “belong” to a certain group — but these moments don’t come up as often as they used to.
Most recently though, I’ve been running away from myself and from doing inner work by hastily scrolling through photos of myself and by avoiding re-reading my posts here and on IG. Whenever I do look at my photos, I feel myself cringing, I feel embarrassed, and I feel like I want to hide. And when I think about re-reading my posts, I feel like hiding too, and also cringing. A part of me wants to look away from me and my work. She’s scared of the judgements she’ll give to herself, and afraid of the judgements others may give to her. So this is something I’m working on — getting to know these parts of me that are afraid to be seen and to be judged, being present with them, and pouring my love into them.
No more running.
As always, I hope you’re all having a deeply restorative Sunday, and I wish you a beautiful week ahead.
Oh — and Happy Fall! 🍂
All my love,
Christina
Monk. When I finished watching Queens of Mystery, I looked for another mystery/crime/suspense show I could watch. And that’s how I found Monk! I’m in the middle of Season 3 already.
Valtari- Sigur Rós. What a beautiful album.
Alba Botanica Hawaiian Facial Mask. I used this yesterday, and my skin is glowing! So soft (though that’s also thanks to my amazing moisturizer) and looking and feeling so rejuvenated.