Imagine that your mind is a filing system.

Everything you go through in your life, your mind files away.

That is its job.

It catalogues everything you have been through.

It stores the event.

It stores how you felt.

And it stores what you decided about that experience.

Imagine, for example, that when you were little, you fell off your bike.

You badly hurt your knee, had to go to the hospital and needed stitches.

Your mind creates a file about that experience.

Falling off the bike hurt.

Going to the hospital may have been frightening.

Having stitches was painful.

Perhaps you decided that riding a bike was dangerous.

Your mind stores the actual event.

It stores how you felt.

And it stores what you came to believe because of what happened.

That is a relatively simple example.

But what happens when the experiences we go through are much more painful?

In my childhood, for example, I was smacked often.

Over and over again.

Every time I was smacked, my mind was creating another file.

Being smacked hurts.

Being smacked is frightening.

Being smacked makes me feel ashamed.

It makes me feel guilty.

It makes me feel as though I have done something wrong.

Because as a little girl, I didn’t have the understanding I have today.

Perhaps the child within me thought:

If I was a good girl, my mum wouldn’t need to smack me.

That must mean I’m a bad girl.

Perhaps I’m not good enough.

Perhaps I’m not worthy of love.

And all of this information goes into the file.

The event.

The fear.

The anger.

The sadness.

The shame.

The guilt.

And the beliefs we create about ourselves because of what happened.

The problem is that most of us were never taught what to do with these experiences.

We weren’t taught how to sit with our emotions.

We weren’t taught how to understand what happened to us.

We weren’t taught how to question the beliefs we created about ourselves.

We weren’t taught how to look at our experiences through the eyes of love.

And so we carry them with us.

We grow older.

We go to school.

We find jobs.

We create relationships.

We have families.

We build lives.

But somewhere within us, those old files remain.

And sometimes we don’t even realise they are still there.

Years later, someone comes along and says something that makes you feel unworthy.

Suddenly, you react.

Perhaps you become incredibly angry.

Perhaps you withdraw.

Perhaps you feel afraid.

Perhaps you feel an overwhelming sadness.

And you wonder:

Why am I reacting like this?

Perhaps something happening today has touched one of those old files.

The experience may be different.

The person may be different.

The circumstances may be different.

But the feeling is familiar.

The feeling of not being good enough.

The feeling of not being worthy.

The feeling of being powerless.

The feeling of being afraid.

And suddenly, all those old emotions come rushing back.

Perhaps you are not only reacting to what is happening today.

Perhaps something happening today has simply opened a file that was created many years ago.

Healing does not mean pretending the past didn’t happen.

It doesn’t mean pushing our experiences away.

And it doesn’t mean becoming angry with ourselves because we are still affected by something that happened many years ago.

Perhaps healing begins when we are finally willing to look at the file.

To sit with the person we were when the experience happened.

To look at what we felt.

To look at what we came to believe about ourselves.

And to ask:

Is this still true?

Am I really not good enough?

Am I really unworthy of love?

Do I still need to believe this about myself?

Sometimes the beliefs we continue carrying were created by a much younger version of ourselves who was simply trying to understand what was happening.

Perhaps it is time to sit with that younger version of yourself.

Not with judgement.

Not with impatience.

But with love.

Perhaps it is time to open the file.

Look at what is inside.

Understand why it was created.

And begin looking at your past through the eyes of the person you are today.