September 2020 Quote: What I Am

“The pain is the past

I am not pain.

I am not the ‘past.’

I am love and light

I am kindness and goodness.

R. G. Conyngham

To all you beautiful lights of the world, I did not have the easiest childhood. A lot of don’t. Life is not easy and we’re not always handed the cards where we live in a castle or a mansion and we have all this money and a happy picturesque family. Life just doesn’t work that way. I have been through things that have caused me pain and strife, and I think we’ve all had those moments in the past where we felt absolutely miserable, sad, and pained—-moments we thought we’d never get through or see the light from.

But we did.

And we are all here, better and stronger because of that pain.

A lot of the time though, for me, I look back on those hard moments in my life and think how it made me who I am for better or for worse. You see, I’m what people would call a very shy person. I don’t talk to a lot of people, I don’t have an active social life, and I am very son spoken. Here’s the thing: people think if you’re shy, you automatically don’t like talking to people. And yes, sometimes I don’t like talking to people because it makes me beyond nervous and overwhelmed, but I LOVE talking to people too because I love forming connections with them. Not all people who are shy feel this way, but I do. I wasn’t always like this. I don’t think anyone is born shy. People are made shy. Sure, nature versus nature might say otherwise and there is some truth to people being born shy, but the environment a person grows up also plays a big role too.

As a kid, I was outgoing. I was loud, I would scream from my balcony the most ridiculous things and the people below would look at me. I would run around with friends and talk to boys without fear. Gosh, I was killing it on the boy department because I had no fear and it was so easy to talk to them 😂. Now? NOTHING 😂. I had a huge group of friends as a kid. I was never afraid of presentations. Then something changed one year and I don’t know what, but all of a sudden I just retreated into a shell. I was all of a sudden, this “shy” girl.

To this day I find myself looking back on my younger self, wondering why I can’t be like her? Why can’t I be fearless like her? Why can’t I be loud like her? Why can’t I be happy like her? Why why why why why?

It always makes me feel terrible for thinking these thoughts because it makes me feel like somethings wrong with me and that I changed for worse.

But then I remind myself, that year, things changed. I was growing, my body was growing earlier than other girls. I had a complex family life that was shaking at its foundations. I had relatives making comments about my body and me being shy. I had friends who were all getting boyfriends and here I was in elementary school when this was going on, thinking I wasn’t good enough. I was going through a lot of pain. That pain went all the way to middle school and gosh knows I retreated more into myself. I was trying to find myself. The picturesque family I knew shattered before my eyes.

I was in pain.

So it’s not fair of me, the me at 19 years old, nearly 6 years older than the me who was going through a lot of change, a lot of pain, to compare myself to the me then. It’s not fair of me to ask myself why I can’t be the me I was at five when I had absolutely no comparison, ridicule, or hardship in my life I was aware of. I can’t be who I was when I was five! That would be weird! 😅

People grow and evolve and it’s natural. I grew shy. And for the LONGEST time people made me feel guilty for it—-bad for it—-and I hated myself for being “too quiet” or “reserved” or “a closed book.” And I have a whole blog post coming about what it means to be shy. So I’ll link it when it comes out. But recently I heard someone say that being shy isn’t a bad thing. Some people are quiet and some people are loud. People can look at a shy person and say that that person is “too quiet” and they might not like that. On the flip side, someone else can look at a loud person and say that that person is “too loud,” and they might not like that either. So in either cases, no one wins because a person is either too much of something. To me, it highlighted how it’s natural to be shy and it’s okay. It is who I am and it’s all about perception. If someone loves me for me, they will accept that, yes, I am quiet and shy at times, but you know what? I am also loud and talkative around the right people who make me feel comfortable being who I am. People who don’t make me feel bad for it. Because when you tell someone to stop, it’s only going to make them angrier and makes them want to keep going. It’s a similar feeling to when someone tells me to stop being shy. It makes me angrier and I feel bad for who I am, so I keep being shy even if deep down I do feel guilty for it because they made me feel bad for it.

Heck, I can’t switch a flip that easily and stop being shy. I just can’t.

Because I am shy.

And I could have been furious at everyone who ever made me feel inferior, not good enough, or worthless. I could have let that anger consume me. I could have let that sadness drown me.

But I chose each day to be who I am even if it is shy. I chose each day to be better than those who have hurt me with the words they’ve said or actions they done.

Because it was my past. It was my pain.

But I am not past, I am not my pain.

I am not someone who will let other people’s hurt, anger, and fear make me be a smaller person—-a person who hurts others. I hope you will not let other people’s hurt, anger, and fear make you the smaller person and to succumb to the same hurt to hurt others.

I have a whole quote of the month about this and I’ll link it below, but I talked about:

Hurt people hurt people

It’s something I say all the time on the blog now 😅.

I say it a lot because it holds a lot of truth. People who bully, tease, or harass others do it from a place of feeling and being hurt themselves. It’s why people say you never know what a person is going through. A person might be going through a family divorce, maybe they lost a loved one, lost their home, or they’re getting abused. You never know. Sure, it doesn’t excuse the way they take the hurt out on others, but it makes it understandable to why they do. Hurt people hurt others. They want others to feel the pain and sorrow they felt.

Maybe the people in my life were coming from a hurt place to hurt me and make comments about my body and my appearance. I don’t know. But it hurt. But does that give me a reason to tease someone else for their body too?

No.

I mean, I could.

But I wouldn’t.

We shouldn’t.

It’s not going to help anyone to hurt someone else because you felt pain in the past. It’s not going to give you this great satisfaction that someone feels miserable and lowly because you made them feel that way. It won’t. It really won’t.

What will give you a great satisfaction is to rise above that hurt, the pain, the past, and choose kindness, to choose light, to choose love. That’s what they say, don’t they? The best revenge is to live a good life. Or what’s the other saying? Kill them with kindness.

Because if you’re just doing you and someone else doesn’t like it and they make you feel bad for it, that’s their problem, not yours. You living your best life and someone else being mad at that isn’t your concern. That says a lot more about how they feel than you. Don’t let them drag you down to their level. Choose kindness. Reach out to them in a nice way and maybe ask them why they feel the need to say something so rude to you? Or if they are going through something and need to talk, that you’re there for them. Be a hand to lift them up.

Be the goodness that they need when they’re slipping away to the pain, the past.

You really don’t know who’s on the edge of a precipice.

You might be standing there with them because they brought you there, but you make the difference on whether or not you both fall down or you both walk away safer, stronger, and more united.

Be the light in the dark even if you are filled with darkness.

Be the love in the hate even if you are bashed with it.

Be the goodness in the world even if the world seems bad and hard.

Be the difference.

I don’t expect you to always put on a brave face and be there to save others, no. You have to look out for yourself too. If you feel sucky one day, feel sucky 😂. But don’t let your sucky day make other people feel bad. Take a day for yourself, tell people you’re not in a good mood and you just want to be by yourself before you say something you regret. And tell the people you love that when you’re ready, if you’re ready, that you’ll talk to them about what you feel or what you’re going through. You matter a lot. You don’t always have to be strong for others each and every day.

Be strong for yourself when you can. Truly.

You are not your past.

You are not every single moment that people made you feel bad about yourself. Not good enough. Where you felt like a failure. Where you felt like you’re world changed completely.

You are not your pain.

You are not every single sad moment you’ve spent crying yourself to sleep or throwing a doll across the room or punching a wall. You are not the hurt that other people projected on you.

You are you.

You are light,

Kindness,

Love,

Goodness,

and Strength.

You are everything you are because you choose to be.

Choose

Light,

Kindness.

Love,

Goodness,

and Strength.

Because once you do, you will find that not only are you better for it, but everyone around you and your life will be better too. And who knows? Maybe you will heal those who have been hurt because of your unconditional choice.

I didn’t like being teased as a kid. I didn’t want my whole house to fall to pieces. I didn’t want to feel insecure and be labeled “shy.” But all of those things made me who I am. I am proud each and every day to be who I am because I choose to be shy, soft spoken, a bit curvy, and introverted, but I also choose to be kind, honest, respectful, emphatic, open-hearted, and good. To be more than my pain and past.

I hope you will too.

With all the love and kindness,