The Process is not Linear

As the new year approaches, many of us are writing down our new years resolutions for 2024. In addition to the looking forward, I have also been looking back at the goals that I had for myself in 2023, 2022, 2021 and so on. In doing so, I've been asking myself, have I actually made progress? Am I regressing?

I'm pretty comfortable with people knowing that I've been going to therapy since I was 17. Therapy has played a pivotal role in who I am today, and I don't harbor any feelings of guilt or shame around that fact. Why should I? However, what this means is that I have had a pretty good idea of how past traumas have affected me and what I need to work on for quite some time now...or so I thought. As I began seeing a new therapist this summer, I thought that I had it all figured out. I talked about my trauma with ease, almost as if I was reading them right off of a page. I made sure to connect the dots for her, my new therapist. You know, give her the layout of the land. Our first couple of sessions went something like this: "Yes and I have a tendency to do X and that's because of X, Y, Z and it's something I'm working on, of course." I just figured I needed a little guidance, but I assured her that I was by no means a blank canvas. I had been doing "the work" for years now, so some of the "big things" were already taken care of. And then boom, I experienced a significant loss and it all started to go south again. That's when it occurred to me, I actually have no idea what I'm doing and maybe I never did.

Honestly, it was an incredibly sobering experience. I was forced to be more honest with myself than I had been willing to be in years. The cracks that I've routinely glued together or taped were bursting at the seams. It was either I faced the reality of what was being revealed to me through this loss or continue to find refuge in the toxic cycles of shame and co-dependency that have served as my safety blanket for as long as I can remember. It was distressing to realize that I still had so much work to do on myself, when I've been committed to intentionally unpacking my traumas, healing and growing for the past five years.

What stands out is my tendency to self-abandon. That word feels weighty, but I promise that it comes out in little ways that tend to sneak up on you. Every time you say yes to something that you neither have the capacity for or interest in, you're self-abandoning. Every time you suppress your feelings of anger, fear or discomfort to "keep the peace," you're self-abandoning. Every time you press "snooze" instead of doing something that genuinely brings you joy and helps you to self-regulate like going to the gym or getting up early enough to eat breakfast, you're self-abandoning. For me, this tendency to self-abandon is ever-present in my relationships. Time spent journaling frequently, meditating daily and having weekly therapy sessions these past few months has helped me to discover some of the roots of this tendency.

Note: Living in a society that expects unwavering strength, humility, excellence, and selflessness from women, in particular, Black women, plays a significant role in my (and others) tendency to self-abandon. Black women are frequently told that our worth and value are dictated by how much we can give to others and how much harm we take from others, without complaint. We are told to be small, lower our expectations and not to advocate for ourselves. Our wants and needs are unfairly deemed to be inconveniences to others. Let this be a reminder that what we experience interpersonally cannot be disjointed from the systems of oppression that impact our daily lives. Healing is not just a matter of working through our personal traumas. It is a radical act that directly challenges the limiting narratives of Black womanhood and personhood that are celebrated and sustained by racial capitalism.

Anyways, going through my journals this past year, I've realized that I self-abandoned profusely this year. The irony of it all is in a blog post I published at the beginning of this year, entitled "2023 is all about me (kinda)," I SPECIFICALLY wrote about working on my self-abandonment tendencies and championing my needs, regardless of the consequences. Seeing this was particularly demoralizing. It made me wonder how I could have fallen into this cycle yet again.

Well, the brutal or perhaps, liberating truth is that growth is a lifelong process and it is most certainly not a linear one. Our traumas and tendencies (positive, negative and neutral) do not spawn out of the earth at any given moment. They take years to be engrained into our neural pathways, so they will undoubtedly take years to be properly nourished and addressed. What may present as a regression, can also be seen as additional information and context around an area of growth that you may already be aware of to some degree. Sometimes it takes experiencing a particular person, event or relationship to discover a blind spot (or a few of them!). Little by little, each experience you have is an opportunity to learn more about who you are and to pivot in order to grow into who you want to become. Picture yourself and your life as this beautiful, intricate puzzle. Today you may marvel or perhaps grimace at a particular aspect of this puzzle that you hadn't noticed before. Tomorrow, you may find yet another. It isn't about finding the solution to every aspect of this puzzle. It is about being committed to the life-long discovery of this puzzle. Now I won't sugar coat it and say that growing is easy or that it is always simple to view pain as our biggest teacher. It is a difficult process, but it is also worthwhile. Sure, this process of learning, healing and growing is not linear or predictable, but if you're anything like me, you're a little stubborn even in the face of potential regressions. I refuse to be hardened by life. I refuse to let life's challenges take away my optimism, joy and sense of self.

As you look to the future, give yourself the grace and patience that you need to make mistakes, to confront the same ol things you have been working on for years, and to be imperfect. Surprise surprise, at the tender age of 22, I haven't got this life thing figured out yet. That expectation is neither realistic, nor helpful to me in my process. After all, new years resolutions aren't really about checking off every item of the list. They are a reminder to yourself of what you are striving towards and who you are striving to become.

Art by Devanjana Yadav, pixels.com

May you all welcome this new year in peace <3