I hope you’re holding up in this special era.
All I keep saying to myself is,
“What a time to be alive.”
So much is taking place right now in the world. One thing I know for certain– in each one of our little worlds, I know different occurrences are taking place for each of us.
I’d like to share a piece of where I’ve been spiritually and developmentally.
This past summer, in the midst of a pandemic, humanity war, heat of politics, and a civil rights movement– I went through a nasty breakup. I cried and cried my eyes out. Not solely because of the grief of my ex and I ending, but rather because—I was crying for all the things I numbed and never cried for. I was Soul Searching.
WHAT MANY PEOPLE DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT SOUL SEARCHING IS THAT IT REQUIRES:
Here are 5 Uncomfortable Truths about Healing that coincides with Soul Searching:
This past relationship, I found myself in the state of grief and being totally fed up and done.
I was fed up with the cycle of toxic men and relationships I continuously found myself in. And this time, I was determined to never find myself back in another toxic and dysfunctional relationship ever again. Which led me to the journey and pathway of Soul Searching.
I was searching for all the whys.
I was searching for the why to why I always found myself in a different relationship but with the same dysfunctional conflicts and fair-wells.
Why did I keep accepting men that all hurt me the same way?
Why was I the way that I was? Why did I feel a lack of love?
A lack of value? A lack of strength to walk away from men that I knew didn’t deserve me or matched my character and value?
Why was I constantly getting hurt the same way?
These internal questions led me to soul searching for my own healing and growth.
I had to come to terms with: I kept finding myself in these different relationships with the same problem because I kept failing to heal the wound; and as a result it just kept bleeding and receiving different bandages, but no real healing applied to the wound.
You get that?
Imagine a wound, that is bleeding and bleeding but all you do is put a bandage over it, yet you keep on bumping or hitting that same wound, delaying the healing each time. You might have put a bandage over the wound, but prior to the bandaging, did you clean the wound sufficiently? Did you then make a plan to be gentle with yourself in order to avoid hitting or bumping the wound again so it could heal without the interruption of being hit or bumped again? And finally, did you change and clean the wound daily, to preserve a successful healing process? Or did you just solely put a bandage over it and went about your day?
Well that last one was me.
I was solely putting a bandaid over my deep wound and nothing else. I wasn’t cleaning it daily or changing the bandage, and I certainly kept on bumping it and hitting it against something delaying the healing process each time.
So what that means in literal terms is this:In my relationships, I was never healing the wound. I wasn’t ever really taking the time to study where this wound even came from or executing the proper changes in my life that need to take place for healing. As a result, I kept attracting the same type of men because my internal wounds were never dealt with or healed.
Do y’all ever just know something that “runs in the family” that you all do and everyone just accepts that it runs in the family and is just a “family thing?” No-one ever really reflects on where it came from until you realize it’s actually not normal or healthy.
Well that was me. I wasn’t taking the time to really reflect on why I kept allowing and accepting these same type of men into my life.
Until I realized, this pattern in men kept happening; and though I am not the sole reason for finding myself in these predicaments, I played a part.
I had to become one with myself and really reflect on why I even continuously accepted to feel this way and be treated this way.
It took me having to dive deep into my childhood and past trauma. There were things that I never addressed to myself, but they were affecting me in the way that I kept choosing a pattern of men, who all mistreated me or turned out to disappoint me deeply.
I kept choosing these men because of past trauma that happened to me in my past that deeply hurt me, but I never addressed it directly with myself or healed from it.
As a result, I kept choosing the same men, they just had different faces. But their attributes were the same.
In 5th grade, I went to a predominately white school in Utah.
I was always the only black in my class.
I was often the very first black person many of my peers had encountered within their personal life within elementary school.
I felt like the outsider much of my days at school and within my community. I would hear comments about my hair being different or strange, or how different I was than them. As I got older, to my preteen years, the white boys at my school started to vocally express how I “just wasn’t their type” and was deemed as unworthy or not of the same caliber as my white girl peers—since I was a dark skinned black girl.
This was where I started seeking acceptance and attention from boys who didn’t find me pretty or worthy. This was a piece of the root to my wound.
I wanted so badly to be valued and accepted by them. I wanted them to just think I was pretty and human. Because of that, for all of my middle and high school years, I accepted poor treatment from boys.
I use to be okay with a guy telling me he liked me privately but avoiding me in public. I would be okay with having sex with a guy who was embarrassed of me publicly and blatantly told me not to ever tell anyone he talked to me or that we even had “thing” going on.
I was okay with that because I was so desperate for some sort of acceptance and validation from the guys that didn’t value me.
I wanted to feel that nothing was wrong with me and that they were just being young boys who didn’t know any better, but that maybe deep down they liked me.
But as I got older, because I never healed from this painful traumatic past of mine, this internal wound kept showing up in the men I was dating and choosing.
Only this time, I was choosing men that said all the things I desired hearing growing up, but they failed to meet the actions they perfectly worded to me. I kept choosing men who recognized my hurt and wound, because they too were wounded and unhealed.
As a result, I found myself staying for too long with men I should have never begun with. Even when I knew I deserved better and something didn’t feel right within a relationship, I desired that love from these men as a way of feeling worthy and whole. I desired them to realize I was a great woman and that they needed a woman like me and that I truly deserved to be treated right. I was desiring the things I wanted my boy peers to see in me while I was younger. I was desiring the love and empathy that I wanted from my male peers back from middle and high school. I was desiring these men to to give me what I never got. And this untreated wound was showing up in the men I was choosing in college and even up until my last relationship.
So my soul searching process and journey has included confronting childhood wounds and trauma.
It included crying for the little girl inside of me that didn’t cry back when I should have. I was crying for not knowing any better back then. I was crying for not loving myself enough to just say “to hell with those young boys” but instead I gave my body away to men that never saw my worth even though it was right in front of them and myself the whole time. I was crying for the years I didn’t love myself or protect myself from undeveloped, poor character boys—that I thought I needed validation from. I was crying for the years I accepted all the things I didn’t deserve.
I cried and cried for that little girl on the inside of me.–and it felt so good.
It felt good because for the first time, I had addressed it and really felt the depths of the pain of the past trauma that I experienced growing up.
I was able to heal and forgive myself for failing to love myself just because some young guys couldn’t see the beauty in a young girl who looked different from her counterparts.
I finally allowed myself to really feel all the trials and trauma that I have endured and numbed throughout my life. I was able to feel so much of the trauma that actually really hurt me but I wasn’t addressing. I took the time to connect the dots and cry in order to heal.
SOUL SEARCHING REQUIRES:
Crying,
Honesty,
Transparency,
Uncomfortableness,
Rawness,
Reflecting,
Oh, and crying again.
And lastly, but most importantly, soul searching requires—getting naked in front of God and yourself, and asking him to expose the root of your wounds; and for the strength to heal them.
My pain and trauma from my childhood regarding my insecurities throughout my middle and high school years is just one of the wounds I had to confront within my soul searching process. Soul searching requires discovering/facing many wounds and truly feeling those wounds in order to heal them.
I look forward to sharing more of my wounds with you all in future blog posts.
I’m happy I was able to share one of my scabs with you. It’s no longer a wound because it’s finally scabbing over and beautifully healing in a heathy process.
Like many of you, I still have my days where I get in my feelings (sad lol) due to life’s turns, but overall, I truly am at the happiest state of mind I’ve ever been because of the healing and soul searching God allowed me to experience.
I call this season of my life the rainbow. 🌈
Oh and by the way, soul searching is a forever thing, as long as you’re alive, there will always be something to bloom from. Don’t run from it, think of it as more beautiful petals being added to the flower that you already are. Fully developed flowers that have bloomed are the prettiest, so keep allowing yourself to bloom friend. God’s grace will never deceive you in the end. ❤️
Be gentle, be kind, be love, we are all doing the best we can. ❤️
Jesus Christ Changed My Life because He freed me from old wounds and trauma.
“‘But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the LORD…” — Jeremiah 30:17
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