Three Things Your Younger Self Needs to Hear
When you begin your healing work, your younger self might be awakened for the first time since you embodied her. Maybe when you did embody her, it wasn't safe for her to express herself. Maybe when she spoke, she was not heard, but dismissed or even ridiculed. Maybe the loss of love from the most important people in her life was threatened if she acted, spoke, dressed, loved, believed- or didn't believe- a certain way. Maybe this healing journey you have begun is waking her up to freedom and unconditional love for the very first time.
I have been on my intentional healing journey for almost three years now. I say “intentional healing journey” and not just “healing journey” because I want to give credit to the healing I journeyed through before I had the tools I do now. That version of me was only doing her best, but she hurt people and hurt herself during this time when she navigated through her traumas somewhat recklessly in comparison.
Since, I have adopted many tools that I constantly keep with this version of myself, as well as my younger self, to begin healing the parts of her that feel heavy. Healing with intention is always work. It is never not challenging, never not uncomfortable. But to heal is to come home and along the way I have found three things every aching soul needs.
Forgiveness
When I started looking at my stuff, and I mean really looking, I found that a lot of my seeming misfortunes were actually a result of me allowing certain people and things to be present in my life when they proved long ago they did not deserve to be. Remember when I mentioned healing with intention? This is a perfect example.
Before I was conscious in this process, I would blame other people for how they hurt me and never took any responsibility for my own actions in the matter. Sure, I mean, the guy that pretended to be into me my freshman year of college and used me for sex was a complete asshole. He is to blame for deceiving a sad, 18-year-old me into believing there was an honest future with him when he knew there was not. But what he is not to blame for is the heartache I felt three years later when he still would not commit to me in public spaces after years of hooking up in private spaces. He showed me who he was when I was 18 years old. The only reason he was still around and able to break my heart again at 21 years old is because I allowed him to.
Once I accepted this ownership of responsibility, I felt resentment and anger toward myself for allowing him to disrespect me and use me for so long. I slowly began to understand that to remain the victim of my story is to remain stuck in that story. So day by day, I pried myself out of it until I could see clearly again.
I look to this girl now with all the love in my heart. I understand that she just wanted to be loved and when she latched onto empty words, it was just an attempt to fill the hole in her heart where her own love was supposed to go. I shower her now with radical forgiveness.
I urge you, if you resonate with this, to forgive yourself for what you did not know before you knew it. Forgive yourself for trusting people you should not have, for making decisions that did not honor your Highest Self, for searching for love in all of the places that were not honest. Forgive yourself for the things you did or said in hopes it would make you more deserving of love. Whether it is your five year old self or your five minutes ago self that is in need of this forgiveness, know she is worthy without having to do a single thing. Know there is not a version of yourself that is more deserving of love and forgiveness than this one. Tell her it is okay, even if it does not feel like it yet. Tell her she was doing her best and her best is good enough and that you do not harbor anger toward her, no matter how she chose to keep her head afloat when she was drowning alone. Tell her there is nothing she could do to ever lose your love.
Protection
While on the journey of my radical self-forgiveness, I vowed to myself that I would do better at protecting the vulnerable parts of myself that I failed to look after in the past. I did so with tenderness and every fucking ounce of patience and did not get caught up if I stumbled. The act of choosing to protect myself was a step inward toward my true heart, regardless of if I was able to perfectly execute it every day. Some days it felt like a tug-of-war. Others, it was so clearly necessary to wake up and delete 20 phone numbers without hesitation. I unfollowed accounts that triggered destructive habits within myself or contributed to my negative self-talk. I stopped replying to friends that only reached out to talk about themselves and stopped getting wasted with strangers that did not care about me one way or the other. I no longer allowed myself to be vulnerable about my wounds and experiences with people that were not safe and not deserving.
If you are well past this point, I am proud of you. I hope you practice this radical protection of your true essence with every opportunity you get. But if you are not here yet; if you are just now coming to understand your role here, look to the person that came to mind when you read about Forgiveness. Tell her you did not go to war for her in the past, and that you're sorry, but things are different now and you will not allow other people to intrude her heart and make her feel small or unlovable. Tell her she is loved and protected and that you will do everything in your now-awareness to be sure she is only surrounded by people that do the same. Tell her she is allowed to rest and not feel the need to be anyone other than herself. More than allowed to, tell her she is now safe too. Tell her she is beautiful, rawly, undeniably beautiful, not for how she is perceived by the world on Instagram or dating apps, but for how she is her own greatest love. Tell her she is safe to come home. Show her how you have been waiting for her there with the lights on all along.
Gentleness
The third thing I want to share with you, reader, who is still so kindly and bravely with me, is something that should be applied in conjunction with the two above self-love tools, but not exclusively in any sense. Gentleness, friend, is the sole way into your heart. Gentleness is the antidote to every ache, every sore, every unhealed and unseen part of yourself. That being said, if you cannot force yourself into a place of happiness, or forgiveness, or understanding, be gentle. If you don't know the way back home and all is still in darkness, be gentle. If you cannot find the courage to leave the job or the lover or friend that is not good for you, be gentle. If you're too anxious to move or too sad to pick up your feet, be gentle. If it feels as though your heart and mind and soul all live in different places, be gentle. There is a place where you will soon arrive, not a moment too soon, not a moment too late, where you can lie down and realize you need not do a single thing more. Love will wash over you (your own love and Divine's Love) and you will understand why it all had to happen, and how even though it might be grueling, you are better for it.
This journey of intentional healing is one I will always be on. There is no place of complete healed-ness on a map where I will someday magically arrive. The human part of me is still learning how to navigate, but the last thing I want to do is rush through this great period of transformation and miss a lesson of pure gold. Surely it is painful. Uncomfortable. But here lies great wisdom and even greater opportunities for love. My soul knows that within this place, lies treasure and until the treasure reveals itself in all of its magnificent glory, I will continue radically forgiving, fiercely protecting, and unapologetically nurturing with gentleness this beautifully flawed human I am.
disclaimer: the author uses her/she pronouns as this essay serves as a tribute to her younger self who identifies as such, however, the author’s experience does not speak for everyone’s and does not intend to exclude anyone by the use of such pronouns. no matter who you are, reader, these words can apply to you if you wish for them too. much love.
Mackenzie Hunt is a writer and lover of all things honest and raw. She is an artist. A mother to many plants. A friend. A therapist to the sweetest kiddos. A partner. A 24 year old girl just trying to make it through one week of Los Angeles traffic without crying. You will likely find her with her face buried in a book or dancing around her apartment with red wine in hand. Her debut collection of poetry, The Becoming, was published in 2018 and is available on Amazon. Check her out at www.instagram.com/mackenziehuntpoetry :-)
