The Question is…What’s Next
Hindsight is 2020. Which can be good. But it can be hard because you might be thinking, “Well, damn, if I'd only known then what I know now.”
Are you like me?? The not knowing then actually gave me the knowledge to know what I know now.
All of that struggle while life was happening and while I was weaving and bobbing through my life and making choices that I regretted or making choices that really didn't take me where I wanted to be, I knew that I didn't know something.
What I didn't know was, when I finally got to the other side of survivor in most of the areas of my life, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who I was, and that became a new learning journey.
I had healed from my sexual abuse when I fell in love. I fell in love because I was open for someone to truly love me in the way that honors me.
But even in that relationship there was still fear and tension and “what if’s.” And there was a lot of feeling about, “Damn, I fell in love at 49. Why couldn't I have fallen in love at 18 or 19 or 20 and had decades of this relationship?” So even though it was a wonderful relationship with love, it was riddled with “could-a-been’s” and hurt.
When he died five years later, I had a new healing to do. And through that healing, I recognized I still had some lingering fears and limiting beliefs and little gremlin messages that now had the opportunity to pop up again in my vulnerability.
Who am I? What do I do now?
When we experience traumas and difficulties in our lives, it's not the traumas and the difficulties that we are struggling with. It's what we've learned unconsciously as a result of them.
As I've been working with clients, who are widows and widowers, who are divorced, who are survivors of sexual abuse or child abuse. I'm noticing that they spent so many years healing they didn't plan for what would happen after they had healed.
They spend so much energy in the healing process that when they get to the other side, the big question is lurking, unanswered, unaddressed: Who am I now? What do I do now?
Someone who's been married for 35 years and now is a widow or divorced, who are they without that partner? Who do they want to be without that partner? Who does society tell them to be without that partner? How does or did that relationship define them?
Someone who has spent a lifetime focused on healing from their childhood traumas has really used so much energy. Who are they without that pain?
Who are you NOW? What do you do NOW?
If you've put a huge amount of effort into healing yourself, but something still doesn't feel right. It's probably, what do I do now?
When I started to recognize that I had concentrated so much on healing, but not on what comes after, I realized where the work continues. The deciding what I want based on my values, my beliefs, my desires.
What a great time to be able to look at those values and beliefs and desires and recognize if they're mine or are they somebody else's that I picked up or I was told to do. We live our lives mimicking other people. That's how we learn. But how many things did I learn that I didn't want to be taught in the first place.
This time of Getting Past Survivor is such an amazing gift to give yourself after all that energy you put in to healing your heart. You're in a place where you can ask, “I've healed now what?”
Healing is not linear.
It happens all over the place. You could be healed financially and be very successful and be on your fourth marriage. You could have a very long, wonderful marriage, but struggle with money either by holding onto it or overspending or feeling guilty about it.
You might feel that you are healed spiritually but are struggling with your weight or eating. Healing is just not linear. As we really break things down into all the different areas of our lives as far as who we are and what we do, we have healed a lot, but we don't know what we're going to do now. We don't know who we are based on our values.
So that was big for me to be able to sit here and say, “Hold on a second! Wait a minute! Who am I?”
Who am I in my family?
Who am I as a parent?
Who am I as a sibling?
And while my parents have both passed away, I still can ask: “Who am I as a child to my parents?” Even the memory of my parents? How have things changed? How are things different?
How am I true to myself?
When I look at the parts of myself that have healed, most of them have healed. There are a couple that are lingering behind, and that's okay. But the places that I have healed, who am I now in those areas?
And so, as you're thinking about yourself and the work that you've done to heal parts of your life, where are you now? Who are you now as the healed person in those areas of your life?
If you're like me, and every client I ever had as a therapist or as a coach, when you have learned something about yourself and you have changed something about yourself, there's the question of now what?
Who am I now?
I invite you into that self-exploration to see where you've healed and where you need healing. But really notice even in the places where there needs to be healing, there's still enough healing to allow for self-creation.
Click on this link to access an expanded Wheel of Life. Go through it and notice the words that tug at you notice the ones that make you happy. And notice the ones that give you some distress. Chances are distress will be a clue to where you are confused about what happens next, or maybe areas that you still need healing.
If you want to discuss your “Who am I now?” further, click the link below and let’s talk about finding the authentic you!
