Processing Childhood Experiences

And the ongoing saga of discovering the Truth

Sep 19, 2025

If there was something "wrong" with me as a child, if I wasn't feeling well, then I believed I finally had permission to take care of myself. Otherwise, I believed I had to default to being submissive and doing whatever my parents told me to do, even if it didn't feel good for me, for fear of punishment.

Fear controlled me and taught me that "not feeling well" was ironically how I could be empowered to make choices that would "feel good;" it wasn't optimal but better than being forced into the uncomfortable routines my parents expected of me. Innocently I believed safety was found in illness. Such bizarre yet completely understandable coping mechanisms that the mind creates.

With this in mind, it makes perfect sense why I have been struggling with health issues for the past decade, it's what I was conditioned to believe I needed in order to be "okay." It's amazing how these patterns are so deeply ingrained at such a subconscious level as a survival technique. And then it takes many years of consciously deprogramming oneself in order to be aware of these patterns and to start making healthy nourishing choices that actually feel good for myself.

So many layers of fear have been coming up in the past years; ongoing severe anxiety, panic attacks, emotional overwhelm, nerve pain - it's been incredibly intense. My nervous system has been so shut down in a state of freeze since childhood, I didn't even know how repressed I have been my whole adult life; I wasn’t even aware of how incredibly tense, tight and constricted my body has been, having lived completely disassociated from the body. It's required drastically slowing down and significant amounts of rest in order to help my nervous system feel safe enough to feel again and to start examining all of these layers of conditioning.

Occasionally, often after storms of great inner turmoil, I have these moments where the body starts to feel relaxed, peaceful and joyful. It’s a bit disorienting because it’s such an uncommon experience. I’ve been so accustom to being hyper vigilant and in an ongoing state of stress that relaxation is still foreign for me. It doesn’t necessarily last long but it’s a little glimpse of life on the other side of trauma.

Today I spent some time listening to relaxing piano music while doing a little art and watching the rain. I felt like a child again (before all the trauma kicked in), just enjoying the moment, being creative, not stressing out about what I “should” be doing with my life, not worrying about the future, not fixated on trying to heal myself. Simply enjoying being.

Part of this deprogramming of childhood conditioning is also examining the belief in the "separate self." Who am I? Am I the victim of childhood trauma? Am I the healer of past pain? Am I the seeker of peace, love and freedom? Am I the story of my life? Am I the feelings, thoughts and sensations of the body? Am I that which appears and disappears? Who/what perceives suffering and healing? Is the perceiver defined by the perceived? Are they separate? Is the perception that has always been here completely whole as it is?

Sitting with these questions, I'm reminded of the stillness and silence that remain and abide amidst all the chaos that can be experienced. In order to work through and process all of these layers of fear and conditioning, it’s required myself to hide away from the world for some time. But from this place of silence and stillness, slowly it begins to feel safe to engage with life again. And part of that process for me is writing here on substack. So thank you for being part of my healing and awakening journey.