Written by: Wendy J Olson, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It’s a New Years Eve. The clock is about to strike midnight. The presents and the tree are behind us, and we’re heading into something new. Again.
We’re full of hope. We’re full of wonder. I get it. The air is thick with it. You can’t help but drink it in. It’s in every cup of peppermint latte and eggnog we’re still trying to finish from the week before.
But here’s the awful truth we don’t realize, but will by the end of the following month: Just because the clock strikes midnight, doesn’t mean we suddenly become someone else.
It’s a hopeful thing. We think this is finally the year we get (insert vice of your choice here) under control. And don’t get me wrong, hope is really important. We can’t fully function in the world without hope. But if we don’t start doing something differently, other than letting the clock change the calendar year, we’re not going to be any different than we were the year before.
Real, lasting change takes work. Deep, hard-knuckling work. Dig in the dirt and dig old roots kind of work.
And that’s not fun.
There’s this garbage psychology out there that sells you the lie that you can change in the span of sixty seconds, that everything becomes new. That all that you were can be left behind in the past.
Enter William Faulkner, and one of my favorite quotes:
“The past isn’t dead. It’s not even past.”
You cannot, no matter how hard you run, escape your past. You just can’t. It shows up in your present more than you care to realize, more than you care to know. Without fully addressing the trauma of your past, without fully dressing those wounds you’ve been nursing with your addictions, you can’t move forward. You’re shackled to something you don’t understand, and maybe don’t even remember. But it’s weighing you down.
You feel it, don’t you? In the middle of the night when you can’t sleep at 3 am. When you feel like you can’t breathe or come up for air. That’s when it comes calling.
The pain.
The wounds.
Unaddressed trauma.
We all have trauma. Some have "big T" trauma. Others have "small t" trauma. We don’t escape this life unscathed. It’s what we do with that trauma, all the junk, that makes the difference.
Will we continue to live in our own shadow and pretend it’s not there? Or will we take the trash that was our past and turn it into something beautiful? Moreover, will we let others see us for the beauty that we were created to be?
Will YOU uncover who you were meant to be before all the pain, all the hurt, all the heartache? I bet you’re glorious.
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Wendy J Olson, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Wendy J Olson is a healing coach, founder, and president of Grit Plus Gumption Farmstead. Wendy believes in the power of story to change and shape people's lives. She walks with women through their stories of past hurts and traumas and guides them to find their own freedom and healing. Through Grit plus Gumption, she serves survivors of sexual exploitation and domestic violence. Having applied all she teaches to her own life as a survivor herself, she is able to guide women with kindness and grace, showing them there is always more freedom to be had in one’s life. She believes everyone has a story, and even if that story is really hard, it doesn't mean the rest of the story has to be.
