The dark side of personal progress

How do you want to be remembered? What part of whom you are will be
remembered? Will you even be remembered in any way? We’re all putting up
a fight but is it the good one? Fighting in any way is meaningless if we don’t
learn to defeat the less beautiful parts of who we are.

Under my personal achievements lay many struggles from past wounds. I

have a hard time seeing things clearly and my own value at times because
trauma leaves you with a pair of broken lenses through which it becomes hard
to see the world as a safe place where most people are too focused on their
own path, with no time to plan to hurt you, for real.

Some of you have seen me in a few situations so far. I am very reactive. I

today’s society being reactive equals to acting low value. It’s like acting on your
emotions doesn’t connect to being an adult. Everyone seems to know that by
default, everyone but you. The interesting part of all this is that most ‘’self-
aware’’ adults turn their back on you. They don’t deal with all the broken
pieces in you and no one tells you why. This is how you end up feeling even
more hurt and abandoned in your personal struggles and trauma.

What is trauma anyway? Well, sometimes is nothing more than words: spoken
and unspoken in key moments.

Still, there are two types of people in the world.

 Those that care about words

 Those that don’t

The problem is that most times they live together.

Words are power! And here in toastmasters I suppose we all understand that
at a deeper level than others.

 Words are living beings - say the holy writings.

 ‘’First it was the word’’ – says the bible.
 Egyptian pyramids are still left unopen and tombs are left untouched up
until today just because someone somewhere in a time we can’t even
 remember spelled a curse over that one place on earth. They whispered
words of evil meanings.
 The legend says that actors who have spelled the word ‘’Macbeth’’ from
Shakespeare’s Othello theater script before the show have had strange
accidents happening to them.
 Last but not least, a mother’s words can at times bless or curse her own
child!

And other examples can follow!

See how powerful words can be? We love them in literature and positive
situations and fear them in history and interpersonal relationships. Needless to
say more about how words can influence and persuade in both good and bad
ways.

Therefore, I am one of those people that deeply care about words. I am also in
the situation of having lived up to 30 years and counting, with someone who
doesn’t care about words and believe me when I say it is extremely traumatic.

 It crushed my only pair of lenses in a way that makes me feel hurt and
excluded when maybe I shouldn’t, just because people I’m not even that
friends with, make plans without me.
 It blurred my perspective in life, in a way that sometimes, stops me from
seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
 It stole my voice in a way that at times makes it hard for me to speak up
for myself.
 It limited my happiness in a way that if someone jokes around in a
certain way or throws some words, carelessly I would feel attacked and
hurt and I might remember them forever.

The struggle is real and it’s killing my joy for living when it hits, it takes away
my hopes and the ability to see how far I’ve come already.

The truth is, I learned to act reactive because I had to focus on surviving to
someone else’s traumatic reactiveness, when I should have focused on
simply growing and enjoying my childhood. I grew up forced to be resilient
and defensive instead of feeling safe and relaxed.
But it’s not just about what happened to me or about other people, it’s also
about what I choose to do with all that and I’m one year in the healing process.

I suggest you all to be careful with your words! They can build characters or
destroy lives but mostly they build context and create a history page of your
existence, in someone else’s memory book. Is this how you want to be
remembered?