Where you are is exactly where you are supposed to be, learning what you are supposed to learn. It couldn’t happen any other way – or it would have.
I don’t talk about my childhood very often. In fact, I stopped because I couldn’t manage the reactions of others and it made me uncomfortable (that’s my shit, nobody else owns that). But when I have talked about it, sometimes it surprises people that I don’t wish I could go back and change things, I don’t wish for a different life. Do I feel sad for the child that experienced what she did? Yes of course. Do I feel a sense of loss and grief for a childhood cut short? Yes, most definitely.
But, guess what happened? I lived. Not without some pretty big mistakes along the way, but I lived. Others in my same situation may not have been as lucky.
Would I be the person I am now without those experiences? No. Would I want to change the person I am right now for a more ‘well adjusted’ model? No Way. Would I give up my relationships, my career and my community to be able to go back? Absolutely not. It seems almost silly to ask those questions, yet, they are at the very heart of refusing to fall into the trap of what we all feel from time to time- emotions like regret and envy with behaviors like judgement and comparison.
In my experience, to wish for a different past is to reject the person I am in this very moment. To spend emotional energy on regret as I wish for something different, means that I am wishing for someone different. The truth is that the person you are right now, at this very moment, is the ONLY person even remotely equipped to deal with whatever you are up against in this life. It can’t happen any other way.
“All the work you’ve done up until now has been to lead you to this precise moment, to face precisely what you’re facing.”
― Baron Baptiste, Perfectly Imperfect: The Art and Soul of Yoga Practice
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