Most of us have defining moments in our lives when we can look back and there is a clear line of distinction. There was life before these moments and then there was life after these moments. Whether we realize it or not, these moments changed us.
They made a mark on us and altered the way we see ourselves, our relationships and the world around us.
It doesn’t matter if you can remember them or not but I promise you they’re there. It’s the reason you are the way you are, see yourself and life through a certain filter and most likely the reason you experience the same challenges over and over and over again.
What was one of my moments?
It was when I was 12 years old and my parents moved me from a small ethnically diverse Catholic school to a large, prestigious and mostly white private prep school in Los Angeles.
I went from a school where most people looked like me, or some version of me, to a situation where nearly no one looked like me. I went from being one of the smartest students to often struggling to keep up with the classes. And mostly I went from being relatively popular to not having a clue as to how to fit in with 12 year olds wearing $200 jeans and using $300 backpacks.
The immediate scholastic demands and social pressure took a toll on me and the world and the Bianca that I had previously known crumbled.
I straightened my curly hair. I wore colored contacts. I locked myself in the silent section of the library any free moment I had. I was frenzied, stressed out and I was in a near constant state of trying to prove that I could fit in and keep up.
And so, a new filter/story of my life cemented itself: I am not good enough.
Now this was technically not a “new” filter as there were experiences prior to this that had begun to form that specific thought, but this transition was the most pronounced and the “nail in the coffin” so to speak.
Resting itself deep within my subconscious, that belief was the catapult to some prominent mindsets and ongoing challenges that began to shape my experiences on this Earth:
- Overwhelm
- Perfectionism
- “This is too hard/much”
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Stress
Unsurprisingly I experienced a life altering nervous breakdown in 2012 and since then I have been uprooting the weeds in the garden of my heart, body and mind and healing these mindsets on a deeper level.
Moving through the pain and the emotion that allows these weeds to grow in the first place allows me to remove those filters. I now see and connect with myself and the world in a clearer, loving, healthier and more vulnerable way and as a coach I work with others to do the same.
So now I ask, what is your story? How did it shape you? What filter did it bring to your life?