I Am Sorry For What I did When I Was In Pain
We often hear about self growth as a beautiful, peaceful, and romantic journey. And while it can be all of those things at times, what gets lost in the conversation is the shadow side to self-growth.
When we engage in therapy and self-reflection, we’re required to take a deep and honest look on how we function in the world with ourselves and others. But making space for these insights is also opening the space to some hard truths about ourselves.
In many ways, self growth is a grieving process, and a very intense one at times.
In this process, we learn ways in which we’ve both been harmed and caused harm ourselves.. Therapy opens up the process to be honest about when our communication styles are coming up short or lacking maturity; to reflect on times we’ve pushed others away because it felt like the safest response to an emotionally activating relationship. Therapy asks us to hold our multiple truths at once: that those behaviors came from a desire to protect and care for ourselves, and they still impacted other people.
There might be people out there that past versions of ourselves have hurt.
These past versions of ourselves may have lost friends, loved ones, even opportunities for happiness due to harmful coping mechanisms. It’s common to grieve how things could have been back then if only we hadn’t been in so much pain.
What do we do with these agonizing memories that show our potential for harm? When we realize we handled past situations with the least of ease? So many difficult emotions can come up in this grief and feeling them can be painful. It might bring up feelings like shame, sadness, guilt, and regret.
How do we begin to gain closure from our past?
Beginning Self Forgiveness: Understanding why we did that when we were in pain
When we experience adverse life events, we can adapt defensive mechanisms in order to survive and make sense of those circumstances.
For example, if you experienced complex trauma, such as childhood trauma, you’d have adapted by learning to examine your surroundings for danger and find ways to keep yourself safe.
Our brains and behaviors rewire to focus on self-protection. Many styles of defensive structures can surface in order to accomplish this, which can often come off as hurtful and push others away. Maybe, in an attempt to keep intimacy and danger at bay, or avoid further trauma, we find ways to stay constantly busy, or depend on being controlling or defensive, and self isolating. More information on potential defensive styles can be found in the post, Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn .
There are other ways that we may have developed harmful behaviors. Through parents or primary caregivers, we may have been modeled poor communication, ineffective emotional regulation, ineffective conflict resolution, and so much more. This wasn’t our fault but these behaviors ended up hurting others. How do we cope with that reality?
A big way to move towards self-forgiveness is to try and understand our past selves and the origins of their behaviors. Outlets such as therapy, journaling, honest conversations with trusted ones, are safe spaces to develop this awareness. These mechanisms were developed with a purpose in the past, but we are now stronger, safer, and wiser and no longer need them.
I hope that you can forgive yourself for doing the best that you could with what you know in the past.
Reaching out to our loved ones
The next step to move towards self-forgiveness is to begin connecting with others. Going through this mental process is a very brave and difficult thing to do. But we’re not meant to go through it alone–it’s important for us to. reach out to loved ones for support and assurance through the process.
Ask yourself:
What support do you need during this time?
Do you need people to turn to for advice? Comfort? Relaxation?
How can those in your life support you through this growing and grieving time?
Where do you experience social joy and connection?
How can you balance self-growth and enjoying your life?
Make sure to have things to look forward to and consistent sources of enjoyment. Remind yourself of the joys that you can feel and elicit in others.
Along with difficult emotions that come with this kind of grief, it’s common for negative messages about ourselves to arise with them. We may believe that we are bad, toxic, mean, hurtful because of ways our past selves behaved; which is an isolating inner dialogue to have. When this happens it can be helpful to reach out to trusted friends and ask for clarification and reassurance.
Ask yourself:
What do you want your loved ones to know about your growth and realizations?
Do you need reassurance from them and in what form?
Do you fear they agree with your inner dialogue?
Connecting to loved ones can often be a valuable tool to ground us, reality check us, and provide relief to this often lonely and turbulent journey.
Recognizing strengths
When we’re reflecting on our mistakes and ways we’ve grown (or needed to grow), it is important to remember the positives we bring to the world.
Try periodically checking in with yourself:
What are your positive qualities and how do they impact others?
Where do you experience and when have you experienced relationship success?
What do others value in you?
You are a human who is fallible but also has such goodness and it is important to remember that.
To leave you with strengths to start off with, being a person who is reading this blog and reflecting on the ways that you have impacted others, that in itself shows strengths of emotional maturity, positive intentions, compassion, and self-awareness!
BLOG AUTHORS ALL HOLD POSITIONS AT THE GENDER & SEXUALITY THERAPY CENTER (G&STC). THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN BY THERAPIST IN TRAINING ADINA GUTIERREZ FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR THERAPISTS AND SERVICES PLEASE CONTACT US.