We’ll always be who we were

I can remember being a person who had self-control in certain emotional situations where others didn’t.  Then a season of life came during my 40s where I lost that sense of self—where I gave in to those emotions.

We can easily begin to believe that we lose touch with those parts of ourselves we were justifiably proud of.  I’ve had counselling clients who have also said, “I really thought I’d lost that part of myself,” when they were shown that those parts of self hadn’t disappeared.

We all need a certain reminding that we’ve not lost those parts of ourselves we cherish.

That which we identify with—even if it seems a long way back, and even if it seems we can no longer connect those dots—can always come back into view.  It’s not gone.

What was part of you that you still cherish is still part of you, it just might need rearranging in who you are today.

For me, all those years I resisted actually giving up and throwing my hands in the air, watching on as others did, didn’t serve me as well as being placed in situations where I was pushed too far.

Being pushed too far by life and finding that I really do have limits that are beyond my SELF control has shown me an empathy I need to see the plight of others in real terms.

Yet in falling into a state of being that others see as a weakness, because they have no empathy for situational matters, means I lived in a place of believing I was ‘less than’ and perhaps even ‘not good enough’.

I’m glad to have been there, because that kind of demoralising state of mind really affects a person.  It intuits within us such a strong sense of doubt when we’re in that place that we begin to lose who we are.  We’re then tremendously vulnerable to the exploitation of others, because we stop speaking up for ourselves and others.

Perhaps it says more about others who judge us according only to what they see and not according to how we feel in challenging situations.

Empathy in situations where people are behaving emotionally is the first step to them being understood in WHY they’re responding certain ways.

Clawing our way back to a stronger sense of self—especially to reclaim certain character traits that are inherently part of who we see ourselves—is vital in the makeup of who we are.

If you feel you’ve lost part of who you are, and you’re grieving having lost that trait, be encouraged that that part of you is probably still there, and it will shine again, just in different ways.

You will always be you.  And you are beloved.