Today I have received a message from my classmate from primary school. He asked me if I got the news. I said I know nothing. He said one of our classmates committed suicide… They believe the reason was his troubled relationship.
I immediately thought that we never react this way to something that is happening now. It’s usually linked to some unresolved trauma we carry unconsciously from our childhood, which makes us overreact and project our pain onto a given situation.
I’m speaking from my own experience, as I’m well aware that what triggers me comes from my childhood. From my family dynamics, situations I lived through when I was little.
If my ex-partner did something I didn’t like, I no longer say he is responsible for how I feel. I pause and take time to understand what in me attracts this situation.
I didn’t always have this perspective. I used to blame everyone for how I felt…
Most of it is unconscious. We don’t even remember until we set the intention to bring light to those forgotten memories. Or until we find ourselves overreacting to seemingly little things, or when our lives are falling apart and we wonder why…
THE PRIMARY SCHOOL
Looking back to when I was in primary school, it wasn’t a very happy time of my life. I was this shy girl, who thought so little of herself. I was chasing A-grades, as that gave me some sense of enoughness.
I was hoping I will get the attention of my mom. My old self was the perfect target for bullies, which I experienced right when I entered the first grade and also in higher grades. It also continued in the first year of my high school, until I stood up for myself and said enough.
We do what was once done to us. We also do the best with what we know.
I was mean to some of my classmates as well, just like I was happy for once not being the target. If I recall our classroom, we had a wide range of troublemakers, A-students, the favorite kids, outsiders… we all tried to find our place in those dynamics and sometimes were just doing our best to make it through those times.
As kids, we can be mean: we call out every single difference. Some make fun of those who get good grades, others become the clowns of the classroom, as that is what gives them a sense of enoughness when others laugh at their jokes. Troublemakers call for attention which maybe don’t get home and in contrast another group keep heads down, not wanting to stick out too much and playing the invisible one (I was in this club).
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT WE LIVE IN OUR HOMES
No one had any idea what was going on behind the closed doors of our apartments in panel houses. Our understanding was very limited to see that our parents had troubles with anger, manipulated us, and drank more than was healthy.
Instead of addressing this, we found a way to escape and protect ourselves, and as a result, we closed our hearts.
We found other things to worry about. Also our empathy wasn’t developed enough. Shame has kept us silent ever since then. Many found a way to escape this pain in partying, working hard, drinking & drugs … you name it.
At that age, I didn’t see much hope. I saw the world being against me, as there was something wrong with me. I had times when I also didn’t want to continue this way, especially because of endless fights with my mother. I didn’t feel loved or supported, but I couldn’t walk away until I turned eighteen.
I had no clue how much unresolved generational trauma was passed on in this town. How much of what our parents did was exactly what their parents had done to them. That’s something I was only able to see and understand once I left the town and distanced myself from it for some years.
Sometimes we need a different perspective.
I chose a university that was 150 km from where I grew up, so I could distance myself from all of it. I moved to Scotland, where it felt like I had a bit more freedom to take my life fully in my hands and stop being dependent on my parents.
And probably the most important step was moving to Portugal. The kindness of strangers and the level of care and empathy helped my healing process. I could trust people again, I felt accepted for who I was, and it felt like starting a new happier chapter.
The safe space made me feel safe to open up about what I lived through. It was a big releaf.
Yet wherever we go, we still bring ourselves with us, which meant that soon enough, I was triggered by some people, and I had no clue why. It took me some years of personal development, where I invested a lot of time in questioning everything.
Everyone became my teacher to show me what I had to heal.
Each time I returned back, to my home town, I could see it from a whole new perspective. From a place that I hated back then, I’m now able to see it with more compassionate eyes, as I was once in that position too, when my trauma made me overreact. It’s like running in an endless loop on autopilot until I was able to see that it was never about others but about what I carried inside of myself.
It doesn’t have to stay this way
There is a way out of it, not by escaping life, but by accepting the responsibility for where we are right now and making a decision that we need to do something about it.
What changed my life was my curiosity to understand why we do what we do. I wanted more for life than what I saw around me. I wanted to understand why people settle for surviving when we can be living.
That question led me to personal development and helped me to find a deeper meaning in all of this suffering, which was necessary to help me find a way to love myself more.
Rewrite your story, rewrite your life
When we see life not as something that happens to us, but what happens for us, we will see every challenge, every trigger as an opportunity and guidance to be more ourselves.
Once we love ourselves more, our reality changes. We will attract healthier dynamics into our lives.
Let’s say there is a constantly repeating pattern in our lives, which will only change once we learn from it.
Good or bad, who knows
Coming back to the message I received today, we never know, whether what happens to us is good or bad. Only time will show.
It’s sad to hear that someone who was my age took his life, but I believe that everything happens for a reason. Maybe this will wake up some of the people who were close to him to look at their lives and accept their responsibility to change something. To stop running away from their fears and face them.
Maybe.
To me those news made me realise how I need to step up and share more from my own life, despite my fears. I would be selfish not to, just because I have doubts, because I fear judgment.
The death of my granny was a really difficult time for me, but I choose not to run away from the pain. I was curious and open, and I kept asking what this could teach me. I stayed almost four weeks at home, I meditated, and I allowed myself to feel all the pain, and after those weeks I got a huge insight that changed the way I saw life.
Every challenge in our life is there for a reason. It points us back to ourselves and find the love we craved everywhere else inside of ourselves.
So good or bad, we will never know, but possibly some years later, we will be able to look back and see how important that moment was for us, so we could become the person we are today.
Back to our parents
When I reflect on my own family, I think about how my father neglected me when I was 18y and hasn’t spoken to me since then. It’s exactly what was done to him when he was younger. I’m not saying this to excuse him, but if they are not aware, they simply just do what they know best.
My mother didn’t feel loved, so she didn’t know how to give me the love I needed.
In a way, I have all of this in me, but there is a difference: I’m conscious of it; therefore, it’s my responsibility to break this chain and choose love instead.
There are many things I’m still healing, probably many I’m not aware of, but it doesn’t stop me. Because, I know that this work of transforming pain into love is the one that has true value for our souls.
The main reason why we are here. It’s what makes us feel alive again.
Maybe our parents closed their hearts, I did that too, but no more! Life can be so much more than surviving.
The responsibility is ours. We can’t blame our parents for the way we live. In the end, it’s what we choose to do with our lives moment by moment.
I choose freedom and love, no matter how challenging that might be. This choice will benefit everyone around us. Let it be your parents, your own relationships, and especially your own kids.
