I Was a Different Person Then

Art by Satou Odori

How many times have you come to a place in your life where someone recalls a version of you from the past as though it still exists? Have you ever found yourself saying, "I was a different person back then"?

I've been thinking about that and how literally parts of us can be kicked out of the body and a different version of us takes over the driver's seat. Maybe with each trauma and each part of ourselves we cut off to fit a situation or another person, a part of us dies and leaves the body.

I can recall a happy child version of me when I was 3 and 4, but it wouldn't be long before parts of that sweet innocent child would take hits and suffer casualties. 

Illustration for Mario Rapisardi's poem
"Lucifer" (1877) by Gino De' Bini

By the time I was in my 20s, I would say my inner child was fully dead and pushed out to fend for herself. I walked through life feeling mostly numb and dead inside. Rage was about the only emotion I could regularly emote. 

I wasn't always a nice or kind person. In fact, I was sharp tongued, bitter and harsh. That is the person who was left in the driver's seat...the one who took over because the original was too weak to survive what "Oktobre" had to survive. I've dumped memories from my past and when people say, "do you remember?" I have to admit that I don't remember a lot from when I was that other person.

Illustration for Mario Rapisardi's poem
"Lucifer" (1877) by Gino De' Bini

What the spiritual journey back to self did for me was help restore the parts of me that were kicked out of the body. Those parts were the lamb that was sacrificed for the sake of survival. 

Isaiah 11:6

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

When we talk about the above bible verse about the wolf dwelling with the lamb, this is about integration of all parts of self. The little child shall lead them because when we successfully heal, our inner child can be rebirthed to become who they were always meant to be before the trauma and need to deploy armies and go into survival mode. When innocence and purity returns, we start to listen to that sweet child and allow them to experience what excites them and light them up. We indulge their desire to BE, LAUGH, and PLAY.  When we heal and shift out of survival mode, we are free to experience life in creative mode. 

Art by Antonella Fant

I'm not at all the same person I used to be. 

There are multiple versions of who I have been in my past. There are probably a fair amount of people who remember me as being a shitty, mean, depressed and sarcastic person. There are people that knew the old version who only will ever see that version no matter how much I change before their eyes. 

Hesiod and the Muse
 by Gustave Moreau

Letting go of those old relationships is an act of love for that inner child that desperately wants to be welcomed home to us and living in the open, unfettered and free.

Forgiveness and redemption is something each of us who choose to heal should gift ourselves. We have to forgive ourselves for who we have been if those people weren't always the best people. We have to forgive our journey through darkness, but ultimately redeem ourselves through bringing our light child back into ourselves through learning from all of our experiences and making different choices going forward.

Art by Marc Fishman

To be the highest version of ourselves, we have to integrate all parts of self. We don't have to hate and cast out the version that made horrible choices, but, rather, forgive them and teach those parts how to make better choices, how to work together as a harmonious team to achieve their best life for the whole of self.

To the one who I dream most of...

I see you.

I see you in my dreams and I see the new one you are becoming. 

I love you.