EQ with Lou

Who would you like to talk to soon?

I almost bypassed this question, but decided to ponder on it a moment. Why? Because I am working daily to evolve to “her”. Why? I believe that most of our own healing is delayed by our inability to bravely and courageously face our pain. This delays our evolving momentum.

See, the reason this is an important question is because I believe that the ability to reflect on who we were supposed to be before the trauma can give us a point of reference for the purpose of our lives. Pain creates change and will many times point us to our passion AND purpose. I say this with a level of confidence in part because of what it is that I do for work.

Many of you know that I basically get paid to talk to people all day & not just ANY people. Specifically, those who are seeking me out because they have recognized that they’re experiencing some sort of mental difficulty. A lot of them disclose deep hurt associated with traumatic events which essentially is causing them to stay stuck, fall behind, or feel as if they can’t be their best selves.

So this leads to a different question but still a related question for each of us: do we know what our best self looks like? If we don’t, we run the risk of not knowing what we’re striving toward.

This is why I would choose to talk to who I was before the trauma ever happened. Not because I have not come to terms with who I am now, and certainly not because I don’t believe all experiences contribute to making us the people we are. Why? Because I understand that as a result of any trauma, our brains respond and this changes our perception of the world.

Pathophysiologically this means that our brains undergo what is known as “post traumatic growth”. Our brains will have the same chemical response to both a real and a perceived threat. In other words our brains cannot tell the difference, but there IS a difference. The longer we spend time trying to go back to the beginning of life before the trauma, or reliving these difficult experiences, the longer we prolong forward momentum in life. aka evolving.

I’m curious to know when 6 year old me developed a crazy sense of optimism? As in how was it possible for a little girl to continue to see the positive light in a world of darkness? For years, I stayed in that mindset basically forgetting who I was. So much so that I forgot the things I once loved… until I started to recognize the lies I was living and replacing them with truth.

Inner conflict is experienced when we live a life that is out of alignment with our values, our conscience, or what we’ve been taught to believe. That’s right, it’s essentially a readjustment that ONLY occurs as a result of deep personal reflection and true grace. Together these two things give each of us the ability to talk to our best selves who may be buried deep beneath the wounds and pain we try to avoid.

I’m suggesting from both personal experience and clinical experience that by identifying our pain and leaning into it instead of away from it, we can resolve to evolve. Our natural instinct is to move away from pain, yet the ability to brave the pain yields the greatest potential for all versions of ourselves.