“Common sense tells us that if we put another hour into novel writing each night, ate better, woke earlier, chose more affirmative thoughts, spoke honestly, and connected more genuinely, we’d live better lives. But the real question, and the real work, is not understanding what’s good for us, but why we choose otherwise. Understanding the fabric of resistance is the only way we can unstitch it.” – Brianna Wiest

Throughout the duration of your existence, you’ve built up a file cabinet of individualized experiences that have shaped your perspectives and molded your beliefs into what they are today. Whether you know this or not, everything you’ve been through has altered the ways you think, behave, and react. What you struggle with today as an individual is likely a result of something you went through as a child or young adult.

Have you ever noticed how, through your own memory, you can go back into your file cabinet of referred experiences and relive a remembered moment from the past in the present? Furthermore, the ones that stand out and differentiate themselves from the rest of your lived experiences are likely to have induced a stronger emotional reaction than the rest. Thus, making them unique, important, and worthy of space in the limited storage capacity of your memory. Even further, both your macro and micro traumas have morphed the way you see and perceive the world around you. And so, you must begin asking questions.

Look back at your experiences; the painful and disruptive ones especially, and aim your curiosity towards understanding how their occurrences may have altered your perspectives. This inner work is vital to understanding yourself better. And understanding yourself better will help become aware of your weaknesses and live better. Only by revealing where you’re weak can you work to turn them into strengths. Or at the very least, not weaknesses.

That said, your aim here is to come to a more clear comprehension of why you are the way you are.

The traumas you endured, the ideas that were drilled into you, and the beliefs that were pressed upon you as a child and young adult have most certainly influenced your actions on a deeper level than you may be aware of. Our traumatic experiences can vary from surfaced scratches to deep wounds. And our traumas, more than our euphoric memories, hold much heavier weight when dictating our perspectives and further yet, our actions today. Because there is an animalistic part of us that prioritizes our survival instincts above all else.

Whether you know this or not, you seek safety, first. And when you experience any sort of trauma, your fight or flight response is ignited and instigates quick, responsive action. You scurry in the face of uncertainty, pain, and challenge in a desperate search for immediate safety. This may occur after the fact, too. Even after the real danger is long gone (or far away), the fragmentation of thought introduced by your memory presents a perceived threat. This manifests itself as preparation. Your mind, then, seeks to anticipate similar trauma that may be coming in the near future. That initiates the introduction of fear and anxiety, all with the purpose to help you prepare, avoid, and save yourself from the potential pain that you know stems from disturbing experiences. The confrontation with what’s unknown, you’ve learned, is potentially dangerous.

As I felt this need to understand myself better, especially as I’d grown into adulthood and began to notice how reactive I was, I began to unravel the fabrics of friction that I often experience in my daily life. One reaction sticks out in my mind, and that was how quick I was to get angry with the most trivial of matters when they didn’t unfold in accordance with my constructed expectation. Another, was in how afraid I was of confrontation, which ultimately resulted in my fear of disappointing people. What I learned, was that this wasn’t only the result of growing up with a reactive parent who was also an alcoholic, but also after having to go through and be put in the middle of an ugly divorce when I was fourteen. The disagreement between my parents was apparent, but it wasn’t until my stepdad entered the picture when the real problems arose. Merely mentioning my stepdad’s name in front of my real dad enraged him, and my dad, especially when flustered, was not someone you wanted to mess with. There were fights, both verbally, and physically. And as a consequence I’d learned to walk on eggshells around my dad as a young teen. I recalled this even as I’d stepped into the pros, struggling with denying things like interviews or player engagements. Even if my time or capacity was at its brim, I’d rather avoid the confrontation or potential to upset someone. Because I’d seen firsthand for so much of my life how even something as subtle as mentioning someone’s name could induce so much anger, pettiness, and disgust. I had to go back into my past with a shovel (an expression that came to me as a byproduct of voluntarily going to see a counselor), and try to scratch the surface of my understanding of myself to reveal all the other ways that my parents divorce might have affected me. With that briefly being noted, what I’ve come to reveal has been a powerful principle that resides within the understanding of our traumas.

That being, the bigger the trauma the bigger the breakthrough.

Yes, it’s a daunting task to go back in time and reveal some of your most unsettled experiences. One that many people try their whole lives to avoid or run from. Because none of us want to induce our own suffering. What seems safer on the surface would be to escape and avoid. To numb and distract ourselves, subsequently forcing us to miss out on the growth necessary to evolve. This is not the way.

Contrarily, we must invite this inner work if we are to step into the best version of ourselves. We must dial back our theoretical timeclocks and work to not only understand these heartbreaks but heal them as well. So let this message serve as an invitation to you, the reader, to bring a shovel with you into your past and dig up the roots of your beliefs, triggers, desires, motivations, and limitations. All of which can often be stemmed back to a childhood experience. You need to bring a flashlight to reveal even the darkest, most avoided nooks of yourself so that you can heal them properly and move forward most productively. Because without doing the inner work of getting to know yourself better and pulling back the covers to reveal the mini monsters that inhabit undesirable places of your heart, you’ll never be able to fully optimize your experience or maximize your potential.

Which drives me to leave you with this:

Every day, every moment, and every experience blesses you with opportunities to get to know yourself better.

Unmasking where you feel limited, weak, and inadequate starts by acquiring the willingness, courage, and bravery to go back to the places you wish you could avoid forever. It requires strength, curiosity, and serious vulnerability. You need to do this, however. And doing so should be your main priority for the time being. Because without engaging in this inner work, you may never know what’s haunting you, withholding you back from living in blissful alignment with the present moment. You may very likely never come to understand what’s limiting you from accomplishing your goals and delaying you from starting to build the life you desire. You’ll never surpass the obstructions that are likely robbing you from the growth, progress, and astonishing abundance you could be experiencing right now.

So, start by taking inventory. Begin to be on the lookout for reactions and responses that are less than desirable. See if you can find their link to your past. And remember, understanding the fabrics of your programming, limitations, or resistance is the only way you can begin to unstitch it.

Do not be afraid. As Ryan Holiday says: The obstacle is the way.

And self-awareness is the starting point to the meaningful growth you desire. Your ascendance towards a better version of you, is devastatingly bounded, making it near impossible to reveal.