Dear Fellow 20-Somethings: We Owe It To Ourselves To Fix Ourselves
/Sometimes it’s a major event that serves as the wake-up call: a break-up, a falling-out with a parent, a scary plummet to our own personal rock bottom.
But just as often, it’s something more mundane: living on your own for a while, or having an odd dream, or meeting a friend’s family for the first time.
Whatever the situation may be, it forces something foul to our attention. That, while we have been fortunate enough to arrive at this point in lives, something inside us is...off.
Not quite right.
Maybe even—broken.
For some of us, it’s puzzling. Maybe you came from a relatively standard upbringing: two parents, suburban living, a more-or-less “average” life. And yet, somehow, you look in the mirror and see cracks in the person that you have become.
And for some of us, there may be clear episodes that ruptured your internal settings; perhaps some painful or traumatic experiences that you’ve forgotten about, pushed away, convinced yourself that it had no bearing on you, or carry with you every single day.
Regardless of how you may have arrived to this point, I am here to tell you: you are not alone. And you're not permanently damaged goods; you can undoubtedly mend those breaks in your being.
But I’ll also tell you up-front: it will take work. And it is up to you—no one else, only you—to do that work to fix yourself.
You may think it an unfair burden. You didn’t choose any of this. You aren’t the reason you have these issues. You did nothing to deserve all of this mess. And while this all may stand as true, laying blame rarely accomplished anything. By all means, do what you need to do to release your frustration. Point the finger, lay out your thoughts, throw harsh words: if you must do these things, let them be done. But keep this part short--because prolonging anger does nothing but ravage the one who harbors it. Instead, save your energy, for you will need every ounce of it to continue on to the next steps.
This is where the aforementioned work begins. There’s almost no getting around it. Society tells us that “time heals all”; but an equation of time with no work renders nothing changed. So you must commit to the work.
Truly committing to the process may require things of you. It may require you to enlist the help of a professional. It may require you to break off certain relationships. But most often, you will likely be required to dig deep. Meaning, you’ll have to take an internal mental and emotional dive. Recall unkind memories. Face ugly truths. Sink to the coldest parts of yourself, the parts that you (intentionally or unintentionally) barricaded with red restriction tape; you will have to enter those corners, and sit and hold and unpack the things that are there. While it may seem scary, the truth is that you become stronger every time you do this. And you also learn. Learn about those gaps in your being, and how things in your past may have created or contributed to them. You’ll discover how things can thrive and grow inside of us, even when they aren’t given light. You’ll see how the things you’ve hid and avoided and ignored still manage to erect roots that shoot past the restriction tape and pull at your current circumstances like marionette strings. But most importantly, you’ll learn that while you can’t erase your history, you don’t have to let it hurt or limit you anymore.
This work is usually not something tangible or that you can see. Yet this quality makes it nonetheless easier. It can be grueling work. It will probably be slow, and at one or more points it will probably be painful. And you may not be able to easily see or measure any progress from one day to the next. But you owe it to yourself to stick to the process.
Why?
Because what lies on the other side is worth it. The freedom. The joy. The lightness that you can experience when you aren’t bearing the heavy burden of Anger, Shame, Fear, Guilt, Regret, Stress, Inner criticism, and/or other forms of emotional baggage that go by any other name. I wouldn’t be able to speak on this so deeply if my words didn’t come from experience. In the end, it’s really all worth it.
