One of the most important lessons I learned along the way was to not despise my former selves.
I see it a lot in the deconstruction world where people hate who they were as believers and church-goers.
They are embarrassed by the things they believed and the things they did by those beliefs.
Some are perplexed by what they now consider their complicity in their own abuse in those churches or maybe even their families and marriages.
The basic question is, “Why was I like that?”
Terrence Real answers that question in the above quote.
We coped. That’s what we did.
We did what we felt we needed to do at the time to survive. We chose a narrative that helped us make sense of our world. We responded that way to protected ourselves. We made choices that kept us safe.
And that’s okay.
Just by trying to understand ourselves, just by loving ourselves, and just by embracing our inner child in such a way initiates profound release and healing.
You can’t love yourself as you are until you love yourself as you were.
