A Journey of Remembering

You know those moments when you suddenly realize you’ve been living your life on autopilot? That’s where I found myself 6 years ago, sitting in my office, coffee getting cold, when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had spent decades trying to be what everyone else needed me to be, and somewhere along the way, I lost track of myself.

In the space where my childhood should have flourished, I never knew what I was missing. When shadows are all you’ve known, you don’t recognize them as shadows - they’re just the world as it is. I don’t say this for sympathy, it’s just my reality. Growing up in an environment where my needs came last taught me to dim my light and exist only for others’ approval.

I became really good at it too, that shape-shifting thing where you can walk into a room and immediately sense what people want from you. It’s like having an emotional weather vane constantly spinning on top of your head. Exhausting.

The interesting thing about patterns formed in childhood though… They don’t just disappear when you grow up. They follow you, quietly dictating your choices until one day you’re sitting with cold coffee wondering whose life you’ve been living all this time.

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Our deepest pain often becomes our greatest portal to healing. I’m learning to see it this way now. Those early wounds that taught me to make myself small? They’re actually doorways if I’m brave enough to walk through them.

I’ve spent a lot of time with myself trying to “fix” these broken parts of myself. But lately, I’m taking a different approach. I’m honoring these wounds not as permanent scars but as openings to a more authentic life.

I’ve come to understand something special that feels like a miracle in my own life, those tender, wounded places in our hearts, the ones that have experienced the deepest pain? They mysteriously become the very soil where our most profound strength and intuitive wisdom take root and bloom.

With each step toward reclaiming my voice, I come back to myself. Sometimes this means saying “no” when I would usually say “yes.” Sometimes it means sitting with uncomfortable emotions instead of rushing to fix everyone else’s problems. Often, it means letting go of relationships that only worked when I was willing to be less than who I am.

This journey isn’t always pretty. There are days when I catch myself slipping back into old patterns, when the pull to shrink myself for someone else’s comfort feels as familiar as my favorite sweater. In those moments, I’ve learned to hold space for myself instead of judging. I breathe into the discomfort and offer reassurances like I would to my daughters.

This whole process of unlearning old habits and remembering who I really am happens on its own divine schedule, it unfolds naturally in perfect universal timing that can’t be rushed or forced into some neat plan, no matter how impatient my ego gets. The universe knows exactly when I’m ready for each lesson and revelation. Sometimes I have to remind myself to trust the process and know that everything is aligning exactly as it should.

*This is just a glimpse. Read the full reflection over on True and Authentic.

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Read the rest of this piece and join the conversation on True and Authentic, my Substack journal.