I've discussed grieving your past self, your younger versions or your childhood in previous videos.
But after reading through the comments I noticed that many of you are unsure where to begin or what it means to grieve those parts of yourself.
So today I want to dive deeper into this process.
The biggest barrier to grieving in this way is its intangibility.
When someone dies, you have proof, a tangible loss to anchor your grief in.
But when it comes to grieving your past, it's different.
Because there's nothing to hold on to.
You might feel the urge to downplay your experiences, to compare them to bigger things that happen in the world.
You might even think, I mean, since it happened long ago, I should be over it by now.
But let me offer you something, and this is backed by neuroscience.
Your brain struggles to differentiate between physical and emotional pain.
The areas of your brain that process both are very similar.
So, even though emotional wounds aren't visible, your brain registers them in the same way it would a car accident or a fall.
When you are physically hurt, you take steps to heal and even if you don't, the injury eventually scabs over with time.
Emotional pain doesn't work like that.
Without care, those wounds remain as fresh as the day they happened.
That's why you may feel like a prisoner of your past.
The part of your brain that's in charge of emotional reactivity is not bound by the rules of linear time.
Its reaction.
In present day situations can be heavily influenced by unresolved wounds and anxieties about the future.
You are reacting to layers of history, emotion and experiences that have piled up over time.
It's like walking through a minefield.
Every time you step forward, you're bracing yourself, unsure when or where the next explosion, the next emotional explosion will happen.
The constant vigilance of survival mode, trying to avoid those blasts, leaves no space for healing.
It's only when you stop to assess the field, the terrain, that you can begin disarming those mines, one by one.
In survival mode.
You may have been fighting for so long that you don't realise that you are missing core parts of yourself.
Your emotions, your sense of safety, your peace of mind.
And often the demons you are warring against are really just ghosts from your past.
So what if we go back there and lay things to rest?
Maybe our lives today can be more peaceful and fulfilling.
When you stop...
When you stop, the adrenaline that's been keeping you going will wear off.
And once it does, all the ignored and unaddressed pain will come rushing in.
That's when your grieving process can truly begin, if you let it.
That will be your first step towards healing, towards letting go, towards building new structures.
So how do we actively do this?
You need to probe into your past and recognise everything that happened to you as losses.
Loss of innocence, loss of safety, loss of childhood, loss of opportunity for your brain and nervous system to develop at a natural pace.
If you spent years making excuses for those who hurt you, I encourage you to set that aside for now.
Multiple things can be true at the same time.
Yes, they may have been in a rough spot.
Yes, they may have not known better, but that does not diminish the impact of the actions on you, okay.
The effects of the actions on your life.
Especially for those people with childhood trauma.
If you, as an adult, are still hurting in this way, imagine how world shattering, how reality breaking, it must have been for the younger version of you.
Acknowledge the severity of what happened to you.
It was that bad.
Okay, it was that bad, it was terrible.
It's okay to feel angry, to cry all the tears you had to swallow just to survive.
It's okay to take that time And if you're struggling with remembering or processing difficult memories, try using free writing to let your thoughts flow onto paper without judgment.
Forget grammar, forget spelling, just write.
You can ask yourself, what parts of my past do I still carry with me?
What did I need back then?
Who should have given it to me?
Why didn't they give it to me?
What exactly did they do?
What exactly did they say?
How did I feel about what they said and did?
What has not receiving that thing they should have given to me done to me?
If they did it right, what would be different today?
These are just prompts to help you express what has been buried deep inside.
And by the way, you don't have to do this alone.
You may want to work with a professional or join a support group.
If these aren't accessible, create a safe, cozy space in your home, in your room, where you can sit quietly in reflection to unearth these hidden memories and feelings.
A lot will come up.
And you might even discover that some memories are missing.
This happened to me.
This could be because they were so painful that your mind protected you from them so that you could keep moving forward.
And it will break your heart.
Don't force it.
Trust that what needs to surface will in its own time.
During this process, it's essential to allow yourself to feel whatever arises without judgment.
OK, no judgment.
I've spent countless hours sitting in silence taking care of my younger self, seeing all that we endured, feeling everything.
Allow yourself to feel it all.
You may feel anger sadness regret, rage or even guilt for feeling those emotions, especially if you're someone who has been conditioned to dismiss them or people have planted all these ideas in your head about why things happen.
It's OK.
It's OK.
All you have to do is remember you are human.
Those are emotions.
You will feel a range of them.
And it's a critical part of your grieving process.
OK, you can hold space for conflicting feelings.
That's normal.
That's human.
Acknowledging that it's both possible to love and be hurt by your past.
That there was love at some point doesn't mean all the other things did not happen, okay?
Treat this as a real physical period of mourning because it is.
It will hurt, yes, but that pain is part of the healing.
Give yourself permission to feel without rushing through it, okay?
You might suddenly break down in public.
I speak from experience.
But it's okay.
You won't stay there forever.
Grief isn't something that has to be finished.
I personally don't think you ever stop grieving.
But as you walk through everything, your relationship with it changes.
It won't always be this visceral, okay?
You don't have to tackle everything at once.
Take it one day at a time.
Healing happens in small, meaningful steps.
Each moment you spend allowing yourself to feel...
It's progress, okay?
Remember, we're grieving.
That's what we're doing.
Now I know that some schools of thought discourage digging into our past, arguing that it can be counterproductive to our healing.
But I believe it's all about intention.
I don't know everything, but what I do know is this.
When you go to the doctor with an injury or unexplained pain, they don't just put a band-aid on it.
I mean, if they're doing their jobs correctly.
They investigate, they figure out what happened and assess the severity of your injury.
You might even get an x-ray or a scan if they're feeling very fancy.
They're not doing this to keep you sick.
They're doing it to determine the best course of action for your recovery.
Okay?
Asking you to dig into your past isn't about wallowing in pity.
It's about helping you understand what you carry so that you can figure out how to heal it.
The goal is to acknowledge your pain, identify your wounds and take action as your adult self.
To give yourself all the things that you were denied.
To create safety for the child within.
I really wish I could give you a step-by-step guide on how to grieve, like go left, go right, jump up, jump down, but it's such a personal process.
It looks different for everyone.
Do whatever you need to do for yourself.
It's all about embracing your past with compassion and understanding, so that you can begin to reclaim the pieces of yourself that have been hidden away.
As always, it's been an absolute pleasure.
My name is Pearl and I'll see you in the next video.
