Before I went full time with Cleen Carma, I worked in the hospitality industry. It feels like a lifetime ago.
In those 20 plus years, I’ve gotten so many phone numbers from people who wanted to keep in touch. You know I never reached out to any of them?
It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. I did. I really did. But I didn’t feel good enough. I felt like I would have burdened them with my existence.
So I let their business cards or numbers written down on slips of paper fade in some drawer until I decided too much time had passed and threw them out.
It wasn’t just keeping a distance from people, it was not being me because I didn’t know how to be myself.
From a young age, I was taught that showing certain emotions was wrong, sticking up for myself wasn’t ladylike, and having opinions meant I was problematic. So I did what made sense to me. I abandoned myself and became what others wanted me to be. And when they didn’t like who I was, I shapeshifted into a new mold.
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I perpetuated this cycle, as toxic as it was. There was a huge part of me that was so desperate for love that if I could just be everything for someone, maybe they would love me in return.
It never worked. It was too exhausting and I never could live up to someone else’s fantastical version of me.
When I look back on it- I look at it with both sadness and reverence. I can’t believe I let others dictate my worth and moreso, I can’t believe why I disrespected myself so much. A part of me wants to shake the old me, and ask, “Why?”
But I know why. I didn’t know how to be myself. I was too scared. I didn’t feel safe enough.
And it may not make sense, but I look at it with reverence because, I look at my old self and she believed in love. I mean, really believed in love. I still do, but there was an innocence to the old me. Even though I was surrounded by people who intentionally inflicted pain on me, I hadn’t yet been weathered by it. The lessons hadn’t sunk in so I naively coasted through life thinking everyone loves.
In a sense, it’s true. We all love. Even when we love to hate. But not everyone is capable of empathy and remorse and with that, there’s no genuine connection. Only taking until there’s nothing left to take.
These were things I didn’t know back then. And when I did finally figure it out, I valued other people’s opinions more than my own so I became more self-sacrificing.
A part of me also felt I needed to atone for being me and suffer in my own existence. It kind of felt good to not like myself because then I didn’t have to own everything about myself and my life. It was comfortable staying where people placed me, where I placed myself. Until it wasn’t.
There’s so much more but those are some of my yearly reflections. I’m sorry that the majority of this was about me but I got this nagging feeling that someone needed to hear this so that they don’t feel so isolated in their own experiences or to help see a blindspot.
Anyway, what are your reflections? The memories that have inadvertently defined your character? The ones that when you look back on, there’s so much deep insight that even if you wanted to, you couldn’t be mad at yourself because you know it’s no longer who you are? You’ve detached yourself too much and shed too many layers of who you used to be. And that’s a really beautiful thing- to grow in such a way that you’re able to take a step back and be a witness to your own life.
If you’d like, there’s some journal prompts below. I think it’s a great way to celebrate the winter solstice- a time of diving into our shadows so come springtime, we’ll be reborn. Maybe burn a candle, make a cup of hot chocolate, and get comfortable in the discomfort. It’s in those moments, when you lean in, that you find your resilience and meet the parts of yourself that need the most love.
Ask yourself the following questions to help you wipe the slate clean, purge the old, and bring in the new.
- What are you ready to release?
- What inner truths do you want to rewrite?
- Do you still carry hope in your heart? If not, why?
- One word for the next year- what is it and why?
- What would you like to bring in this new year?
- What is the most elevated version of yourself like?
- How do you want to be remembered?
- If you could only be described in one word, what do you want it to be?
- What do you secretly want but don’t say out loud?
- If you didn’t have anything holding you back, what would you do? What would your life look like?
I’ll see you in the new year…in the meantime, love yourself so much that even a Hallmark Christmas movie would be jealous.
