“If you don’t deal with your demons, they are gonna deal with you. And it’s gonna hurt.” – Nikki Sixx
We all have gone through trauma at some point in our lives. You know those deeply disturbing experiences that change us forever. Death. Abuse. Destruction. Heartbreak. Loss. Anything horribly negative and severely impactful can be categorized as trauma.
No wonder we spend so much time attempting to avoid facing it. We don’t want to discuss it. We don’t wish to seek professional help. Hell, in some instances, we don’t want to even acknowledge that it happened. We want to forget. Forget that any of it ever went down while constructing some solid ass walls around our hearts to ensure that the “bad things stay out.”
Confession. I am an expert at building emotional walls. I can draw up a blueprint, hire the construction workers and tell you exactly what routes to place the “Do Not Enter” roadblocks on. But once I realized how dope life is when you free yourself, I stopped building walls, nurtured my intuition and chose to embrace the “All that I’ve been through has made me all of who I am” philosophy.
As someone who has experienced her fair share of trauma, I can say that dealing with your issues is no walk in the park. You are constantly triggered. You become angry all over again, and everyone who is trying to help just “doesn’t get it.” But once you overcome what has been holding you back for so long, you experience peace. You are no longer a slave to your past and a hostage to your abusers. You are indeed free.
Many people don’t want to face their own trauma for fear of reliving the pain that comes along with it. But avoiding it robs you of actually getting THROUGH the pain. Imagine yourself walking through a tunnel. You see the light at the end, and if you continue to walk, you’ll no longer be in the tunnel. Facing your pain allows you to reach peace. We have to go THROUGH things to get to the other side.
A large portion of your trauma doesn’t even belong to you. You are simply a casualty of another person’s pain. But when emotional scars are present, it’s very difficult to distinguish what is truly yours. You didn’t deserve to get abused as a child or assaulted by your significant other. The person who broke your heart simply made a choice that did not include you anymore. But without addressing your trauma, you will never see what truly belongs to you.
The most crucial benefit of facing your own trauma is that it allows you to reach your greatest potential. Everything is energy. We are energy. How far you propel in this realm heavily depends on how much positive energy you have and am able to expend to the world. So do yourself a favor; make the decision to no longer harbor pain, but make room for joy.
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