Tag: #selfreflection

When Old Wounds Shape New Decisions: What uncomfortable emotions can teach us when we're willing to stop running from them

When Old Wounds Shape New Decisions: What uncomfortable emotions can teach us when we’re willing to stop running from them

Posted on by mrsmonarch

Have you ever had a reaction to something that seemed a little bigger than the situation called for?

Someone makes an offhand comment, and it bothers you for days. You’re left out of a conversation, and suddenly you’re questioning where you stand with people you thought cared about you. An opportunity comes along that should feel exciting, but something about it leaves you feeling suspicious, unsettled, or strangely rejected.

You know the circumstances aren’t the whole story. But you can’t quite put your finger on what else is going on.

I’ve had moments like that. And one, in particular, taught me something about the value of paying attention to uncomfortable emotions instead of trying to shove them out of sight.

It began with a message from a woman whose work I admired. She was accomplished, well-known in her field, and someone I considered successful. She had come across my work and found it inspiring. Her message was complimentary, and I was genuinely encouraged by it.

Then came an invitation to join an organization she was involved with that she felt would help me “connect” with others I could network with. The cost was $50 a month.

Suddenly, my feelings changed.

What had started as a pleasant exchange left me feeling disappointed and, if I’m honest, a little used. An ugly little thought crept in: People always want something from you.

Now, I could have decided the woman had an agenda. I could have questioned her sincerity, dismissed the opportunity, and moved on with my day. That certainly would have been easier… 

Instead, I decided to sit with the feeling for a while.

Not because my feelings were necessarily right. Not because the woman had done something terrible. But because my reaction was telling me there might be more to the story than I could see at first glance.

I wanted to understand it. Why was something so seemingly small creating such a landslide of emotional turmoil in me??? 

The Trouble With Pushing Past Our Feelings

Many of us have learned to keep moving when something hurts.

We tell ourselves we’re being too sensitive. We minimize what happened. We find something else to do, make excuses for the other person, or tell ourselves it isn’t worth thinking about.

And sometimes, moving on is exactly what we need to do. We don’t have to dissect every uncomfortable moment or turn an ordinary disappointment into a personal-growth project.

But there’s a difference between choosing not to dwell on something and refusing to acknowledge what we’re feeling.

You see, when we automatically dismiss an emotion, we can miss an opportunity to learn something about ourselves.

Anger may be pointing to a boundary we haven’t acknowledged. Disappointment may reveal an expectation we never examined. Rejection may stir up an old belief that we aren’t wanted unless we’re useful to someone.

The emotion itself doesn’t always tell us the truth about the situation. But it can tell us where to look.

That distinction matters.

Our feelings deserve our attention, but they don’t automatically deserve the final word.

We can acknowledge what we’re feeling without assuming our first interpretation is correct. We can give ourselves permission to be uncomfortable without immediately assigning blame or rushing to make the feeling disappear.

Sometimes the most useful question isn’t Who’s at fault here?

It’s Why did this affect me so deeply?

So, I prayed about what I was feeling and asked God to help me look beneath the surface. Then I asked myself a question I hadn’t expected:

When was the first time I remember feeling this way?

And that’s when I remembered Connie.

Sometimes, the Present Takes Us Back to the Past

Connie was a girl in my third-grade class. She wasn’t simply popular. She had a kind of social authority that seemed to determine who belonged and who didn’t.

If Connie liked you, you were in. If she didn’t, you could find yourself on the outside looking in.

I remember the sting of that exclusion. I remember wanting to be accepted and feeling the powerlessness of not knowing how to change the situation.

Of course, I was a child. I didn’t have the emotional maturity or perspective to understand what was happening, much less make sense of what it meant about me.

But children draw conclusions.

Sometimes we take a painful experience and quietly turn it into a belief about ourselves or the world around us. We may decide we’re not interesting enough, not important enough, or not quite the kind of person others choose. We may begin to expect rejection before it happens, or become suspicious when someone shows us attention.

We don’t necessarily make these decisions consciously. But they can become part of the lens through which we interpret later experiences.

And years after third grade, I recognized a familiar feeling beneath my reaction to that initial invitation.

The circumstances were different. The woman who contacted me wasn’t Connie. I had no reason to assume she was trying to exclude or use me. An invitation to join an organization was not the same thing as a child being pushed outside a social circle.

But something about the experience had touched that old sense of being valued only when there was something for others to gain.

The feeling was familiar, even when the facts were not.

That realization didn’t mean my present-day concerns were imaginary. It meant I needed to separate what was actually happening from what the experience had come to mean to me.

And that is where the real work began.

What If We Looked Beneath the Surface?

When someone hurts or disappoints us, it’s natural to focus on what they did. Sometimes, that’s entirely appropriate. People can be selfish, manipulative, thoughtless, and downright unkind. Looking inward does not require us to excuse harmful behavior or take responsibility for someone else’s choices.

But even when another person has behaved badly, we can still learn something by examining our own response.

Why did this particular experience cut so deeply? What did I tell myself it meant? Have I felt this way before? And is the belief underneath my reaction actually true?

Those questions can reveal a great deal. For example: 

What wounds buried deep inside of me still long for healing? and … Where can I still experience significant personal growth? 

Perhaps being overlooked today reminds us of years of feeling invisible. Maybe a disagreement with our spouse awakens a fear that we’re not valued. Perhaps an unexpected request leaves us feeling used because we’ve spent years believing our worth depends on what we can do for other people.

The present situation may be real and worth addressing. But the intensity of our reaction may also be carrying something from the past.

When that happens, we have an opportunity to examine the meaning we’ve assigned to our experiences.

Consider the difference between these two thoughts:

People only want me when I have something to offer.

And:

I’ve had experiences that left me feeling valued mainly for what I could give. I need to pay attention to whether that’s happening now, without assuming that every request someone makes of me means I’m being used.

The first thought turns past pain into a rule about the world. The second acknowledges the pain while leaving room for present-day evidence, discernment, and a different outcome.

That’s emotional growth.

It doesn’t mean we force ourselves to think positively. It doesn’t mean we convince ourselves that everything is fine when it isn’t.

It means we become willing to question the conclusions we’ve carried for years.

We can ask whether an old belief still serves us, whether it reflects the whole truth, and whether there is a more accurate and mature way to understand what’s happening.

We may not be able to choose the first feeling that rises in us. But we can learn to choose what we do with it.

And that choice can change more than one uncomfortable afternoon. It can change the way we approach relationships, opportunities, conflict, and even ourselves.

God Can Meet Us in the Uncomfortable Places

For me, looking back at those early experiences helped me understand something else: the pain of being overlooked had made me particularly sensitive to women who felt unseen.

I knew something about what it was like to question your place in the room. I knew the ache of wondering whether you mattered to the people around you.

Over time, that understanding became part of the compassion I wanted to bring to my work.

Now— I don’t believe every painful thing that happens to us is necessary, good, or divinely arranged to teach us a lesson. Some things are simply painful. Some are unfair. Some leave wounds that take time and honest work to understand.

But I do believe God can meet us in those places and work in us through what we bring to Him.

Sometimes growth begins when we stop asking only, Why did this happen to me? and become willing to ask, What has this experience led me to believe—and is that belief true?

That question doesn’t erase what happened. It doesn’t make the past acceptable or require us to be grateful for being hurt.

But it does give us a way forward.

We can recognize the ways we’ve been shaped by our experiences without allowing those experiences to dictate every decision we make from here.

And we can invite God into that process—not to shame us for our reactions, but to help us see ourselves and others more clearly.

Understanding Gives Us Room to Choose

After reflecting on my reaction, I still had a decision to make about the invitation.

I chose not to join the organization. I had other priorities, and the commitment didn’t fit the season I was in.

But I could make that decision without needing to decide the woman was insincere or that the invitation was an attempt to use me. I didn’t have to turn my discomfort into a verdict about her character.

I could acknowledge my feelings, examine where they might have come from, consider the facts in front of me, and make a decision based on what made sense for my life.

That may sound like a small distinction, but it isn’t.

When we understand what is happening beneath our reactions, we create space between feeling and response. We no longer have to let an old wound interpret every new circumstance for us.

We can set a boundary without building a case against someone. We can acknowledge disappointment without deciding we’re being rejected. We can recognize a familiar pattern without assuming the present must end the way the past did.

And sometimes, when we do that work, we discover that the situation needs to change. Other times, we discover that the meaning we’ve attached to it needs to change.

Often, there is a little of both.

The point isn’t to find a way to make every situation comfortable. The point is to become more honest about what we’re experiencing and more thoughtful about how we respond.

That’s not weakness. It’s maturity.

 

The Next Time Something Stirs You

The next time an interaction leaves you unusually unsettled, I want you to remember this: you don’t have to solve it immediately. You don’t have to talk yourself out of your feelings, and you don’t have to act on your first interpretation.

Give yourself a little room.

Ask yourself:

  • What am I actually feeling? Name the emotion without judging yourself for having it.
  • What happened—and what am I telling myself it means? Separate the facts from the story your mind may be building around them.
  • Have I felt this way before? If the feeling seems familiar, consider when you first remember experiencing it.
  • What belief might be underneath this reaction? Are you assuming you’re unwanted, unworthy, unsafe, or responsible for keeping everyone happy?
  • Is that belief true in this situation? Look at the evidence. Stay open to what you may have missed.
  • What would a wiser response look like? You may need a conversation, a boundary, a change in expectations, or simply a more truthful way of seeing what happened.

You may not find an answer right away. That’s okay. Self-understanding isn’t a race, and not every emotion has a neat explanation.

Some situations require us to speak up. Some call for distance. Some reveal a pattern we need to work on. And some will turn out to be ordinary disappointments that we can acknowledge and release.

The goal isn’t to question yourself until you become responsible for everything that goes wrong. It’s to become curious enough about your own reactions that you stop handing the past so much authority over the present.

Because an uncomfortable emotion doesn’t have to be an enemy. Sometimes it’s an invitation to notice something that needs attention.

We don’t grow by pretending we’re never hurt, angry, jealous, disappointed, or afraid. We grow when we’re willing to be honest about those feelings, examine what they’re telling us, and decide whether the conclusions we’ve drawn still deserve a place in our lives.

That kind of work takes courage. It also takes grace.

We’re not going to get it right every time. We’ll still react before we think. We’ll occasionally misread a situation, uncover an old hurt, or discover a belief we’d rather not admit we’ve been carrying.

That’s part of being human.

But we can learn to pause. We can ask better questions. We can invite God into the places we’d rather avoid. And we can begin making choices from a place of greater understanding instead of simply repeating the responses we’ve learned along the way.

Progress is Messy. Transformation is Beautiful. Grace Makes it Possible.

Because God isn’t finished with you yet!

 

***If you’ve found encouragement here at BTBAB, sharing our posts helps other women find their way to this community, too. And if you’d ever like to support the work behind the words, you’ll find a Buy Me a Coffee tab here on the website. It’s a simple way to say thank you, and every contribution helps keep BTBAB running and its resources freely available to the women who need them. I’m grateful you’re here, and grateful for any way you choose to support this little corner of the world.

 

When We Betray Ourselves: What happens when keeping the peace means abandoning yourself

When We Betray Ourselves: What happens when keeping the peace means abandoning yourself

Posted on by mrsmonarch

There is a particular kind of heartbreak that is difficult to recognize while you are living it.

It doesn’t always look like betrayal.

Sometimes it looks like compromise.

Sometimes it looks like being patient.

Sometimes it looks like loving someone enough to make sacrifices.

Sometimes it looks like keeping the peace.

And sometimes it looks like slowly abandoning pieces of yourself because you’re afraid of what might happen if you don’t.

Until one day, you look around at the life you’re living and realize:

I didn’t just tolerate something. I participated in my own disappearance.

That’s a hard thing to admit.

But sometimes the truth needs to sting.

My grandmother used to call that an iodine and alcohol bath.

You know the kind.

You fall off your bicycle. You scrape your knee. There’s gravel and dirt ground into the wound.

And then comes the part where somebody who loves you pours something on it that makes you wonder whether losing the entire leg might actually be preferable.

It hurts.

But the purpose isn’t to punish you for falling off the bicycle.

The purpose is to clean the wound.

And sometimes that’s what honest self-examination does.

It stings.

But it cleans.

The Part We Don’t Want to Look At

Let’s get something straight before we go any further:

What someone else did to you belongs to them. (Yes, they could have been kinder. Gentlier. More faithful. More supportive. More considerate. I’m not excusing their bad behaviors.)

But what you choose to do with what happened belongs to you!

And that’s where this conversation gets uncomfortable. 

Because we can spend a tremendous amount of time asking:

Why did they do that?

Why didn’t they treat me better?

Why didn’t they love me the way I loved them?

Why did they take advantage of me?

Those are legitimate questions.

But eventually, another question has to enter the room:

What did I do?

Not what did they do.

What did I do?

What did I tolerate?

What did I repeatedly excuse?

What did I know but refuse to acknowledge?

Where did I say yes when I meant no?

Where did I abandon something important to myself because I was afraid of what I might lose?

And perhaps the hardest question of all:

What have my choices produced?

That’s not blame.

That’s accountability.

And accountability is where things can finally begin to change.

Personal Responsibility Is Painful

We don’t like to admit we made a bad choice.

We’d much rather explain it.

We were afraid.

We were young.

We didn’t know.

They pressured us.

We were trying to keep the peace.

We were trying to make the relationship work.

We were trying to be a good Christian.

We were trying to be loving.

And sometimes those explanations are completely legitimate.

But an explanation doesn’t erase a consequence.

And understanding why you made a choice doesn’t mean you have to pretend it was a good one.

Sometimes the most liberating sentence we can say is:

“I screwed up.”

I made a terrible choice.

I ignored what I knew.

I stayed too long.

I gave away too much.

I kept saying yes.

I kept going back.

I kept making excuses.

I kept hoping something would change while continuing to participate in the very pattern that was making me miserable.

That’s painful.

But there is something incredibly powerful about being able to say it.

Because once I can admit I made this choice, I can also begin to say:

I can make a different one.

That’s the part I don’t want us to miss.

Personal responsibility isn’t another brick to strap onto your back.

It’s the moment you realize you have your hands on the reins.

Look at the Wagon

Picture your life as a wagon.

You’re sitting in it, and the wagon is moving.

Maybe it’s moving toward peace.

Maybe toward health.

Maybe toward purpose.

Or maybe you’re sitting there wondering how in the world you wound up somewhere you never intended to go.

You’re frustrated.

You’re exhausted.

You’re looking around thinking:

How did I get here?

So you start looking for somebody to blame.

Maybe somebody pushed the wagon.

Maybe somebody hurt you.

Maybe somebody made a terrible decision that affected your life.

Maybe they absolutely did.

But eventually you have to look toward the front of the wagon.

Because there are horses pulling it.

And those horses have names.

There’s People Pleasing.

There’s Fear of Rejection.

There’s Avoiding Conflict.

There’s I Don’t Want to Be Alone.

There’s Everybody Else’s Needs Come First.

There’s I’ll Deal With It Later.

And then there’s that particularly stubborn horse:

But They Did It First.

Maybe you’ve been feeding these horses for years.

And every time you make another choice that reinforces the pattern, you hitch them a little tighter to the wagon.

Then one day you look around and realize:

These horses have been pulling me in the same direction for a very long time.

That’s when things get interesting.

Because you can sit in that wagon and complain about where you’re going.

You can spend years explaining why the horses behave the way they do.

Or you can finally reach forward…

and grab the reins.

Our Choices Create Precedents

This is the part of personal responsibility that I think we desperately need to understand.

Our repeated choices become patterns.

Our patterns create precedents.

And eventually, those precedents can become the life we are living.

Every time you override your own boundary, you’re teaching yourself something.

Every time you say yes when you mean no, you’re teaching yourself something.

Every time you silence your discomfort to keep somebody else comfortable, you’re teaching yourself something.

Every time you abandon a dream to keep somebody happy, you’re teaching yourself something.

Every time you accept disrespect because you’re afraid of what will happen if you don’t, you’re teaching yourself something.

You’re establishing a precedent.

This is what I tolerate.

This is what I sacrifice.

This is what I don’t talk about.

This is what I do when I’m afraid.

And eventually, you may not even recognize the behavior as a choice anymore.

You’ve practiced it so often that it feels automatic.

That’s how we wind up living lives we never consciously chose.

Not because we had no choices.

Because we made enough small choices in the same direction that eventually the direction felt inevitable.

It isn’t inevitable.

But it is ours to change!

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Here’s where things get really interesting.

We’re very good at creating stories that make our choices feel reasonable.

I stayed because I loved him.

I kept quiet because I didn’t want conflict.

I gave up that opportunity because the timing wasn’t right.

I kept forgiving because that’s what good Christians do.

I didn’t speak up because I didn’t want to hurt anyone.

Maybe.

But what if there was something else underneath the story?

I stayed because I was afraid.

I kept quiet because I was terrified of what would happen if I told the truth.

I gave up the opportunity because choosing myself felt selfish.

I kept forgiving because I didn’t know how to admit I needed something to change.

I didn’t speak up because I was afraid my needs would make me less lovable.

Sometimes what we’re calling love is actually fear wearing love’s clothes.

And sometimes what we’re calling patience is really fear of making a decision.

Sometimes what we’re calling humility is really our inability to believe we’re allowed to have needs.

Sometimes what we’re calling forgiveness is simply our refusal to confront a pattern.

Again—this isn’t about beating ourselves up.

It’s about telling ourselves the truth.

Because a pattern doesn’t become healthy simply because we’ve gotten really good at explaining it.

What Are You Getting in Return?

Here’s another question worth asking:

What am I getting from continuing to make this choice?

We all make relational transactions.

We give love.

We give time.

We give forgiveness.

We give patience.

We sacrifice.

That’s part of being human.

But sometimes there’s a hidden transaction underneath all of that.

I’ll give up this if you’ll stay.

I’ll keep quiet if you’ll love me.

I’ll make myself smaller if you’ll choose me.

I’ll keep everybody happy if nobody gets angry.

I’ll surrender this dream if I don’t have to be alone.

And now we’re not simply giving.

We’re trading.

We’re giving away pieces of ourselves in exchange for something we desperately want.

Safety.

Belonging.

Approval.

Being needed.

Being chosen.

Relief from loneliness.

And if what we’re getting feels worth the price, we keep paying.

Until eventually the price becomes so high that we can no longer ignore it.

That’s often when the pain becomes impossible to explain away.

And sometimes that pain is exactly what finally wakes us up.

Selflessness Is Not Self-Abandonment

This matters, especially for women of faith.

We are called to love.

We’re called to serve.

We’re called to forgive.

We’re called to sacrifice.

But selflessness and self-abandonment are not the same thing.

Sacrifice says:

“I freely give something of myself because love calls me to.”

Self-betrayal says:

“I surrender something essential about myself because I’m afraid of what I’ll lose if I don’t.”

Those things can look remarkably similar from the outside.

But they’re very different on the inside.

One is freely given.

The other is fear making the decision.

God did not create you so that you could spend your life disappearing in order to keep somebody else comfortable.

And if you’ve been doing that, the answer isn’t to hate yourself for it.

The answer is to wake up.

Look at the choices.

Look at the pattern.

Look at where those choices have taken you.

And then decide what you’re going to do differently.

This Is Where Becoming Begins

There is a beautiful difference between condemnation and conviction.

Condemnation says:

“Look what you’ve done.”

Conviction says:

“Look.”

Look at the pattern.

Look at the choice.

Look at the consequence.

Look at the story you’ve been writing.

And now—

choose.

That’s the turning point.

Because recognition isn’t the destination.

It’s the doorway.

You don’t have to spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for choices you made when you didn’t know what you know now.

But neither do you need to protect yourself from the painful truth that some of those choices were bad ones.

Own them.

Learn from them.

Change them.

That’s growth.

And that’s where becoming gets really exciting.

Because personal responsibility means the direction of your life isn’t entirely in somebody else’s hands.

You get to have a role in what happens next.

Grab the Reins

You may not be able to change the past.

You may not be able to change another person.

You may not be able to change the circumstances you’re standing in today.

But you can change your participation.

You can stop feeding the horse called People Pleasing.

You can stop letting Fear of Rejection decide where the wagon goes.

You can stop allowing Avoiding Conflict to determine what you’re willing to tolerate.

You can stop hitching your future to I Don’t Want to Be Alone.

You can stop using Everybody Else’s Needs Come First as an excuse to abandon your own.

And you can finally retire that old excuse:

But They Did It First.

Maybe they did.

But they’re not holding your reins.

You are.

And that is very, very good news.

Because when you take responsibility for your choices, you gain the ability to make new ones.

And new choices create new patterns.

New patterns create new precedents.

And new precedents can create a very different life.

You Don’t Have to Keep Going That Way

Maybe you’re looking at your life right now and realizing you’ve been heading in a direction you don’t want to go.

Don’t waste that realization.

Yes, it may hurt.

Let it hurt.

Let the iodine sting.

Let yourself admit the things you’ve been unwilling to admit.

I made a bad choice.

I ignored the warning signs.

I kept choosing what was familiar over what was healthy.

I tolerated something because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.

I participated in a pattern that is making my life miserable.

Those aren’t sentences of defeat.

They’re sentences of awakening.

Because now you know.

And knowing changes what is possible.

You can stop the wagon.

You can turn it around.

You can choose a different road.

You can learn new ways of responding.

You can establish new boundaries.

You can make different decisions.

You can become different.

Not because you were worthless before.

Because you’re finally willing to take the reins.

So What Story Are You Writing Now?

Maybe it helps to look at the whole thing like this:

What happened → What I did → What I learned → What I believed → What I repeated → What it produced → What I can now choose.

Look at that last part.

What I can now choose.

That’s the gift hidden inside accountability.

You don’t have to pretend you didn’t make the choices.

You don’t have to minimize their consequences.

You don’t have to dress them up in prettier language.

And you don’t have to stay trapped inside them forever.

You can look honestly at where you’ve been.

You can acknowledge the part you played.

You can grieve what those choices cost you.

And then—

you can grab the reins.

Maybe the life you’ve been living has been shaped by choices you wish you’d made differently.

Okay.

Now you know.

And knowing means you get to make the next choice differently.

So, girl…

Look at the wagon.

Look at those horses.

Look at where they’ve taken you.

And now—

grab the reins.

Because you don’t have to keep going that way. 

That’s not another brick on your back.

That’s handing you a pen— and giving yourself the authority to change the direction of your life story! 

Until Next Time, 

The Hidden Beliefs Shaping Who You Are: Look for the Threads

The Hidden Beliefs Shaping Who You Are: Look for the Threads

Posted on by mrsmonarch

There is a phrase I have said more times than I can count.

Maybe you have said it too.

“I’m fine.”

Sometimes I actually am.

But there have been plenty of times when “I’m fine” meant something else entirely.

It meant:

I’m not fine at all.

I don’t know how to talk about this.

I don’t have time to fall apart.

I don’t know if this is a safe place to unpack it.

If I start talking about it, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.

Please don’t ask me again.

And sometimes, if I’m really honest, it has meant:

“If I can convince you I’m fine, maybe I can convince myself.”

I don’t think most of us do this because we’re trying to deceive anyone.

I think we do it because we’re trying to keep functioning.

We have things to do. People who need us. Jobs to finish. Meals to make. Messages to answer. Responsibilities to carry.

So we develop little phrases, little habits, little ways of moving through the world that help us keep going when something underneath us is hurting.

“I don’t care.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“I can handle it.”

“I’m just tired.”

“That’s just how I am.”

“I don’t need anybody.”

“I’ll deal with it later.”

Sometimes those things are true.

But sometimes they are cover stories.

And I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what might be underneath them.

Not because I want to diagnose us.

Not because I think every difficult experience from childhood is secretly some enormous trauma.

And certainly not because I think we need to spend the rest of our lives digging around in the past.

Quite the opposite.

I think there may be enormous value in becoming curious about the things we have been carrying without realizing we were carrying them.

Because before we start talking about growth, perhaps we need to know what we’re growing from.

You Can’t Grow an Acre in a Flowerpot

Our culture is absolutely fascinated with growth.

Be better.

Think better.

Eat better.

Exercise more.

Set boundaries.

Build confidence.

Become your best self.

Heal your inner child.

Raise your standards.

Change your mindset.

Set goals.

Get disciplined.

And some of that advice is genuinely good.

But I’ve been thinking about something:

You can’t grow an acre’s worth of garden in a ceramic pot on your porch.

Not without first considering the soil.

What’s already in it?

What’s growing there?

What has taken root?

What’s depleted it?

What’s been buried?

What has been watered?

What has been neglected?

What has been growing quietly beneath the surface while you were busy trying to plant something new?

I think our inner lives work much the same way.

Before we start throwing seeds of self-improvement into the soil, perhaps we should stop and take inventory.

Not because something is wrong with us.

Because where we begin matters.

I Remember Being Picked Last

I can still remember being in third grade, standing on the school playground while teams were being chosen for kickball.

The power players were chosen first.

Then came everybody else.

I was the second-to-last kid chosen.

And even then, I wasn’t really chosen because somebody wanted me on their team. There was one other girl left, and apparently I was considered the slightly less risky liability.

I remember the feeling.

Pick me.

The embarrassment of standing there while name after name was called.

The quiet humiliation of being passed over.

And the painful realization that nobody seemed particularly excited to have me.

I wasn’t sitting there thinking about childhood development or self-esteem.

I was a little girl.

I just knew it hurt.

And I don’t know exactly what that moment contributed to the woman I became.

Maybe it contributed something.

Maybe it didn’t.

Maybe it was one tiny thread among many.

That’s actually the point.

Not every formative experience is huge.

It doesn’t have to be catastrophic.

It doesn’t have to qualify as trauma.

It doesn’t even have to be something we remember clearly.

Sometimes it’s a comment.

A comparison.

A rejection.

A moment of embarrassment.

A time we felt invisible.

A time we were praised only when we performed well.

A time we learned that someone else’s happiness seemed more important than our own feelings.

A time we needed comfort and didn’t know how to ask for it.

Sometimes it’s one event.

Sometimes it’s a hundred little ones.

And sometimes those experiences begin weaving themselves together.

Look for the Threads

Think about a blanket.

When you’re wrapped up in one, you don’t see thousands of individual threads.

You feel warmth.

You feel comfort.

You feel protected.

But the blanket is nothing more than a vast collection of individual threads woven together.

Our lives are like that.

A moment happens.

We experience it.

We interpret it.

We decide what it means.

Then another experience comes along.

And another.

And another.

Sometimes the experiences aren’t even objectively the same.

But they feel the same.

And somewhere inside us something whispers:

“See? There it is again.”

I wasn’t chosen.

See? There it is again.

I’m being overlooked.

See? There it is again.

Someone else was preferred.

See? There it is again.

I’m disappointing somebody.

See? There it is again.

I’m not enough.

And eventually, those individual experiences can become woven together so tightly that we stop seeing them as individual threads at all.

They become part of the blanket.

Part of the way we see ourselves.

Part of the way we interpret other people.

Part of the way we make decisions.

Part of the way we protect ourselves.

Sometimes even part of what we call “just who I am.”

What If Today’s Reaction Isn’t Entirely About Today?

Have you ever had a reaction that surprised even you?

Something happens and suddenly you’re way more hurt than you think you should be.

A comment.

A rejection.

Someone else’s silence.

A friend’s choice.

A spouse’s behavior.

A criticism.

Being left out.

Feeling ignored.

And you find yourself thinking:

“Why is this affecting me this much?”

Instead of immediately telling yourself you’re overreacting, what if you became curious?

Ask:

Is my reaction entirely about what is happening right now?

Maybe it is.

But maybe today’s event has touched an old thread.

Ask yourself:

Have I felt this particular feeling before?

When?

Where?

With whom?

What was happening?

And then, perhaps the hardest question:

What did younger me decide about herself the other times she felt this way?

Maybe she decided:

I’m not important.

I’m not pretty enough.

I’m too much.

I’m not enough.

I have to work harder to be chosen.

I can’t depend on people.

My needs are inconvenient.

If I make everybody happy, they’ll stay.

If I’m useful, I’ll be valuable.

If I never need anything, nobody can disappoint me.

We may not consciously remember making these decisions.

Children don’t usually sit down and formulate beliefs about themselves.

They experience something and try to make sense of it with the information they have.

And sometimes the explanation they come up with follows them into adulthood.

This Isn’t About Blaming the Past

I want to be very careful here.

We’re not building a courtroom.

We’re not trying to find somebody to blame for every insecurity we have ever experienced.

And we’re not going to turn ordinary childhood moments into diagnoses.

We’re investigating.

That’s different.

Because something can have affected you without being the single cause of everything you struggle with.

Someone else’s choices can hurt you without becoming their permanent ownership of your identity.

And a childhood experience can matter without needing to be labeled catastrophic.

We’re simply becoming curious about the threads.

Because sometimes today’s reaction isn’t entirely about today.

Sometimes today’s moment is touching something that has been woven into us for a very long time.

And We Don’t Have to Pull the Whole Blanket Apart

That’s important, too.

We’re not going backward so we can live there.

We’re going backward just far enough to understand what came forward with us.

We’re not digging through our past because we’re broken.

We’re digging because what we don’t understand can quietly continue to influence us.

And eventually, what we have never examined can begin to feel like identity.

That’s just who I am.

I’m just sensitive.

I’m just a perfectionist.

I’m just independent.

I’m just a worrier.

I’m just not good with conflict.

But what if some of those things aren’t simply personality?

What if some of them are learned responses?

What if some of them began as protection?

What if something that protected us then is quietly imprisoning us now?

I don’t know.

And neither do you.

Not yet.

That’s why we’re going to investigate.

So This Week, Just Notice

I don’t want to give you a neat little three-step plan for fixing your life.

Life doesn’t work that way.

Neither does healing.

Instead, I want to invite you to become curious.

Maybe this week isn’t about figuring yourself out.

Maybe it’s simply about noticing.

Pay attention to the phrases you reach for when you’re overwhelmed.

Pay attention to the moments when your reaction seems bigger than the circumstance.

Pay attention to the feelings that seem strangely familiar.

Pay attention when something happens and a little voice inside you says:

“See? There it is again.”

You don’t have to figure out what it means yet.

You don’t have to force a memory.

You don’t have to decide that you’ve discovered the one event responsible for everything that has ever happened to you.

Just notice.

Maybe write it down.

And if something keeps tugging at your attention, let yourself become curious about it.

Because sometimes the first step toward healing isn’t changing anything.

Sometimes it’s finally seeing what is there.

Find One Thread

Maybe you have a phrase.

Maybe you have a reaction you don’t understand.

Maybe you have a feeling that seems strangely familiar.

Maybe you have a memory from childhood that you’ve never considered important.

Maybe you have absolutely no idea where to begin.

That’s okay.

We’re not looking for drama. We’re looking for patterns.

So don’t try to pull your entire blanket apart.

Just find one thread.

Hold it gently.

Look at it without judgment.

Wonder where it might lead.

Because we’re going to spend some time together over the next several weeks learning what to do with the things we uncover.

We’re going to look at the beliefs hiding underneath our coping mechanisms.

We’re going to examine what those beliefs have been doing in our relationships, our choices, our boundaries, our self-image, our striving, and even our attempts at self-improvement.

And eventually, we’re going to ask whether some of the things we have been trying so hard to change aren’t actually the things that need changing at all.

Maybe what needs changing is why we’re doing them.

Maybe the goal isn’t to become someone else.

Maybe it’s to become whole.

But we can’t begin to understand that until we know what we’re carrying.

So this week, don’t fix anything.

Don’t judge anything.

Don’t unravel the whole blanket.

Just look for the threads.

And if you find one…

write it down.

Because…

We’re going to need that thread. 🦋

 

Until Next Time, 


 

Layers of the Heart: When Gratitude and Grief Exist at the Same Time

Layers of the Heart: When Gratitude and Grief Exist at the Same Time

Posted on by mrsmonarch

 

One of the most confusing parts of being human is realizing that our hearts rarely feel just one thing at a time.

Some days I find myself deeply grateful for the life God has given me—the blessings, the lessons, the people who have loved me well. And yet, in that very same moment, I can still feel the quiet ache of losses that changed me forever.

Gratitude and grief… living side by side in the same heart.

I can feel excited about what the future might hold—new opportunities, new places, new growth. But right alongside that excitement is a small knot of anxiety. Change always asks something of us. It requires courage to leave the familiar behind.

Hope and uncertainty… walking hand in hand.

I can feel strong because of what I’ve survived, and still feel tender in the places that healing hasn’t quite reached yet.

Strength and softness… both telling their story.

For a long time, I thought these mixed emotions meant something was wrong with me. Shouldn’t gratitude cancel out grief? Shouldn’t faith eliminate fear? Shouldn’t excitement erase doubt?

But the longer I live, the more I realize something important:

A heart that has lived deeply doesn’t experience life in single emotions. It experiences it in layers.

Just like the butterfly’s journey holds both struggle and transformation, our own lives hold moments that stretch us between what was… and what is still becoming.

Feeling multiple emotions at once doesn’t mean you’re confused.
It means you’re human.

You can be grateful and still grieving.
Hopeful and still uncertain.
Healing and still tender.

All of those things can be true at the same time.

And perhaps that’s part of the beauty of becoming.

Because the same heart that remembers loss is also capable of extraordinary hope. The same soul that feels fear can also choose courage.

Transformation doesn’t erase our past—it gathers every part of our story and turns it into wings.

So, if your heart feels full of many emotions right now, take a deep breath.

You’re not broken.

You’re simply becoming.

Until Next time, 

☕ Join The Porch

Members of the Built To Be A Butterfly Community get emails like this every Tuesday and Friday evenings. If you found us through social media, Pinterest or Google, and this post encouraged you today, I’d love to invite you to Join us on “The Porch”. 

What exactly IS “the Porch”? Hmmmm…. 

It’s exactly what your mind dreams up when it’s allowed to think of quieter, slower days. It’s a “place” we are building in cyberspace— that allows us to “gather” whenever our schedule allows, shut out the world and simple BE REFRESHED.

A 10 minute pit stop, twice a week where I share encouragement, faith-filled reflections and honest conversations about the journey of becoming.

And, if this season of life has you constantly on the go…. You can now listen to the audio version of this post on Spotify! 

Pull up a chair, pour a cup of coffee, and stay awhile.

[Join The Porch]

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