January 4, 2022. Paris.
did you ever feel like deleting everything you’ve been and been through and starting all over? like talking to the video game maker of our lives and saying: hey, it’s been nice to be me, but i’m not interested anymore, can you give me another set of parameters?
did you ever feel like running very very far away where nobody knows everything you’ve been and been through and reinventing yourself?
how much easier is it to run away than to heal?
i’ve been running away most of my adult life and i had no clue. i was seeing myself as an adventurer, a brave soul, traveling around, shifting careers, changing friends and countries. i never felt like i belonged, i never felt like i was arriving anywhere. some people believe that the new car they want to buy is what they miss to be happy. i believed that the next country, the next job, the next friends would be what i needed. i believed that the next adventure would be the one.
four months ago i went through many external turbulences that ended by leaving my apartment, throwing away half of what i owned and going back living at my mother’s house for the second time in the same year. it was too much for me to understand at the time and i thought that life was telling me that Paris was not the place for me. it felt oh so very safe to envision moving abroad. i spent a week listing my options. i looked at countries and visas, i talked with people living on the other side of the world, i looked at apartments and yoga studios. i thought about going back to Bali, and then Tel Aviv. i thought about going back to the South of France where i grew up. and one afternoon, i called some of my very close friends and told them the news, i was moving to Mexico. i could see myself living in a cute cabin on the beach, lying in the sun, drinking coconuts and teaching yoga to tourists. the next day i looked at plane tickets but couldn’t make myself buy one. a part of me was pulling me back. and suddenly moving to Mexico felt like giving up. it was too easy. it was not what i was supposed to do. i had been working too hard. i had to keep going. i had promised myself i would keep going. i would not run away. not this time.
it took me a few more weeks to find the strength to come back to myself and face what i had been going through. to remember that my external life is only a reflection of my internal life. that if i had been going through so much on the outside, something was out of balance on the inside.
coming back living at my mother’s house the first time, a year ago, was a deeply challenging experience for me, not only for the obvious material reasons and the social pressure, but on a more emotional level. i felt constantly triggered. being so close to my family brought back older versions of myself, insecurities i thought i had healed, negative beliefs and protection mechanisms. i felt in a constant state of emotional survival. and i knew that this is what i had been running away from.
when you start reading about traumas, you realize that we all have some. some traumas are very tangible, physical traumas are usually the ones we talk about. most traumas though are invisible. we don’t even know we have them. we don’t even know they’re here. it can be as simple as a fraction of a second when as a baby you didn’t receive what you needed.
we live in a society that tends to rank sufferings based on facts. we ask what happened, but we don’t usually ask how it felt. facts don’t matter much. it somehow doesn’t matter whether your mother hit you or if she didn’t hug you when you felt sad. what matters is how you internalized it, how it shaped your inner world, what you understood from it. not being hugged can feel as emotionally devastating as being hit. not being hugged can create a trauma when sometimes being hit doesn’t. if you say that you’ve been hit, there is acknowledgement and a support system here to help you. if you say that you haven’t been hugged, you’ll probably be told to toughen up and go back home. i believe we live in a world where people haven’t been hugged enough.
we often hear and think things like: compared to what others are going through, you can’t complain. but there is no hierarchy in suffering. you have the right to your story, you are allowed to feel exactly how you’re feeling, no matter how others are feeling. my suffering is not deeper than yours. your trauma is not more severe than mine. we coexist. if i take care of my suffering, you’ll be happier. if you face your trauma, you’ll make the world a better place.
traumas are created by moments in your life when you didn’t feel safe — physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually — to be yourself. traumas result in the setting of protection mechanisms, conscious or unconscious, preventing you from being who you are, making you be who it feels safe to be.
traumas are not facts. traumas are feelings — emotions and physical sensations. the question should never be: what happened? but rather: how did that make you feel? traumas are never outside of you, they’re not some events that have happened to you, they’re in you. if you lost someone, if someone you loved deeply died, your trauma is not the death of a person you love. it is the emotions that arose when that happened, the sensations experienced by your body, the core belief that resulted, the protection mechanisms you created to prevent yourself from ever feeling how that made you feel. this is why sometimes you get triggered by events that have apparently nothing to do with the event your trauma came from. because deep down you didn’t register the fact itself as being dangerous, but the feeling.
i had a box full of traumas i wasn’t aware of. i wasn’t aware of the box, i wasn’t aware of the traumas, i wasn’t super happy to receive the news. i really felt like not opening it. but somehow discovering the box was the hardest part. feeling safe enough with myself to see the box, this was the victory, this was the badass part. when you see the box, you know you’re ready to open it.
opening my box felt like finally seeing my inner child, acknowledging her and telling her: i believe you. i believe what you’ve been through, i believe what you felt, i believe your version of the story. it doesn’t mean that my version of the story is the story, that it’s the only version. there are as many versions as people involved. we all have a different version of the truth and they all matter. how you felt is as important as how i felt. but if you don’t take your side, if you’re not the one believing your version of the story, trusting your truth, who will?
i found in my box memories i had forgotten. i understood where my protection mechanisms came from and why as a child i felt like i needed them. i stopped fighting myself, i realized that what was getting in the way of what i wanted to do was not there to sabotage me but to protect me. and slowly i let go of some walls i had built that i didn’t need anymore. i’m not done yet, i still have a long way to go. and i’m aware that i’ll probably never be done, every new experience on my way may bring back forgotten traumas. but i don’t feel like putting all my belongings in my suitcases and jumping on a plane anymore. i still fantasize about living in a cute cabin on a beach, sleeping with the sound of the waves, and living a slow and peaceful life in nature, but when i’ll decide to do it, it won’t be because i don’t want to be where i am but because i want to arrive where i go.
in my case, running away was very literal. i was physically running away. most people though spend their lives running away without even leaving their house. they run away by buying things they don’t need, watching tv, scrolling social media, taking drugs, committing to a religion, eating, having sex, pretending they’re someone they’re not. we live in a society where running away is the norm, distractions are everywhere, we somehow believe that happiness is in the next pair of jeans we’ll buy. and that’s ok. it’s ok as long as you’re aware, as long as you know. you know that the chocolate you’re eating won’t make you feel safer to be who you are but it will make you feel better for a minute. as soon as you’ve finished eating, you’re back at feeling how you feel. distractions are necessary but they don’t help to heal. the only way out is through.
willing to go there, willing to see your box, is the only thing you have to do. it may be the bravest decision you’ll ever make. allowing yourself to see what’s in you, to feel what you’ve been afraid to feel, to hold the hand of your inner child and to say: i believe you, i am here with you now, i am here to protect us. you are allowed to feel everything you’re feeling. you are allowed to feel sad and angry as long as you want. just remember that you’re doing it for you. this is your life. you’re opening your box because it’s the only way to feel safe to be who you really are. and being who you really are is the greatest gift you can give the world.
i love you,
Camille
Dear Camille,
So nice to read your thoughts, in the last few days, after the end of 2021 and the holiday celebrations I feel uneasy, uncomfortable with some feelings. Sometimes it take me time to figure it out what it is. Your letter helps to clarify even more what I had been feeling lately, I feel so relief I’m am not the only one dealing with the uncomfortable, the feelings we don’t want to talk about. The only way is through. 💖
Thank you for the post.
Wish you a wonderful year ahead.
Sending you big hug
Martha