Hugging My Hurts Tight…

Avoidance just doesn’t cut it anymore

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

I always love reading about the positive lessons learned in articles. They lift me up, remind me that there is another way to look at painful episodes in our lives.

But truth be told, I’m not sure that I’ve ever applied that to myself.

Negative experiences were ‘exactly that’- Negative, and to be avoided, pushed to the back recesses of my brain, never to be uncovered.

I imagine this dark, musty attic, in semi-darkness, junk strewn to hip height, cobwebs everywhere…

And once those memories were deposited there, I’d run in the opposite direction. Back to work, back to avoidance.

I have some compassion for myself, as we all should (not for me — for yourselves). Perhaps in amongst some of those stories is actual trauma, and that’s a different beast to just an uncomfortable moment in our lives.

But I can’t assume that Trauma with a capital T is the case for me. That wording feels again like an attempt to make me unique, or believe I have it worse than my imaginary competition.

Feeling ‘special’ — even in terms of hurt and pain is not useful for me.

But I do see how I’ve avoided facing these painful experiences, and not growing in ways I could…