“You are too sensitive, nobody can tell you anything”. “Your life’s chaos, no wonder you lose everything”. “You’re overweight, you lack glamor, do something if you want to have a partner”. “This child’s restless, are you sure he doesn't have ADHD?” “Are you anxious again, really?” “I see what others are doing and I love it, but I'm still not up to the task” (said to yourself).

These phrases are heard repeatedly, and unfortunately, they’re always fashionable. When I was a young girl, I was one of the many who were told “are you crying again? Come on, it's not so bad” (This was said with fed up and seriously concerned faces). I dreaded disappointing others so much, I was so afraid of being disapproved that I began to hide my feelings, I swept my vulnerability under the rug and smiled.

Behind the phrases above, there’s a subliminal message that shames, repudiates and disempowers the recipient. They sound like this: "get rid of all that, it's exhausting, get over it".

How did we usually respond to that? Blaming and labeling ourselves, and hiding, after all, that was safer and easier than accepting that our vulnerability wasn’t well met by our closest circle.

Even the most well-meaning adults may have pushed us to cover up what we felt, sometimes we hid our emotions ourselves when we compared ourselves with our environment, and all those feelings ended up being neglected. We have self-imposed parameters that we have bought from culture, which sells us that only by being or having this or that we’ll be able to achieve what we set out to do. There’s also something pervasive in our lives and it’s our internal narrative based on our painful childhood and / or adolescence: "I’m not good for this." But it’s time to stand up for ourselves and integrate all our pieces, which is only possible from a place of deep self-compassion and not from self-rejection.

The work on oneself begins by pausing and silencing the voices of reprimand from outside and inside, accepting everything that belongs to us and taking charge in order to attend to the parts that require our recognition. We can reparent ourselves as we wish adults had when we were young. All this reminds me of my children, when they come home feeling overwhelmed. I can’t demand that they get over it and calm down at that moment. I can only offer them my heart and my conscious presence, I embrace them and wait. Only then can they come out of the trance and begin to express themselves by crying and/or talking, and from that place we begin to dig into their experience in order to heal.

The work on oneself isn’t always joyful and calm, we have to be very brave and persistent but the reward is always pleasant.

There’s a universe that wants to be revealed within us but it’ll only whisper the answers when we’re open and gentle with ourselves.

At the core of our being, we’ll find what’s been silenced and forgotten along with our greatest wisdom and creativity. Only when we dare to assist and reorganize all those pieces with loving kindness, can we shine brightly from the inside out, and we can take the necessary actions to achieve our goals from an inspired place.

A big hug ❤