I can see how I made it difficult and gave false hope about making change. I was good in some settings, but the underlying issues were not being addressed. My approach wasn't working for the relationship. I can understand that she may have been waiting for me to change. She was hopeful and holding on, potentially. These are just thoughts that give a hypothetical view at a thought process. I am curious about the reality, and I would love to find out and listen to how these feelings actually arose.

I can see these things because I felt these myself. I thought I just would just keep working on myself, and she would get better with time. That was totally wrong. Let me be clear that I do not endorse that approach. I saw all the potential of who she is once she is able to be herself and speak up with confidence and poise. The strong woman who she is, I saw that. I also saw her showing up regularly as a crying mess. I thought the answer was to snap out it and get back to work. There's no time for crying and it doesn't help, and that's weak stuff getting in the way. I pushed that perspective. I am passionate and forceful.

This passion has gotten me in trouble. She stopped being herself, and I feel like I am to blame. I didn't allow her to be herself. I was advocating for getting rid of those emotional pieces and just being a positivity robot. I advocated this for myself. I beat it into my head and was so mean to my inner child. I would dismiss and invalidate myself, telling myself I wasn't allowed to feel a certain way. I emotionally abused myself. I called myself names. I scolded myself for the way I would feel. I would do my best to make those parts of me smaller, with the goal that they disappear entirely. This is not my goal anymore. It actually feels a lot easier to allow the water to flow instead of trying to stop the river. I can let the river flow and welcome the life that comes with it.

On our topic, not for potential. I am starting to see that I saw the potential and who she will become. I wasn't patient enough to let her become herself in her own time, being there for her along the journey. I would like to be the witness and the comfort zone. I didn't do that. I tried to rush her to where I was because I wasn't able to do the work with her in that moment. I had blocks in place that didn't allow me to look at the painful parts of my past. I couldn't admit that I was affected by the past trauma. I wanted to show how much of a big boy I was and how it didn't affect me. Hahaha. That made me laugh out loud with how it sounds now. I know that little boy did little boy things. He's growing up and healing. I will give him the grace and forgiveness he deserves. I offer myself forgiveness, and a part of me rejects the forgiveness. A part of me says I am not worthy of love and forgiveness. That part of me can present a lot of evidence to support the case. Instead of arguing and saying that part of me is wrong and stupid for thinking that, look at all this other evidence, instead of that, I can hold that part of me that is saying it feels not worthy of love. I welcome that part of me. I embrace it with compassion. All of me is welcome. Gently, I can ask why they say they are not worthy. He replied and said that everyone has left, and it just keeps seeming that way. We've never talked about it. That's why he only sees it that way. I only shamed and dismissed that part of myself, to convince it to think otherwise. I never addressed why part of me would feel that way, and it's understandable, but it's also not the situation I find myself in today. I don't have to react and lash out in a misguided attempt to protect some perceived fear.

I am regularly going through a mental exercise where I hold that little boy. The little boy walks up to me, and he's upset and crying, then he walks to run away. I tell him it's okay. It's okay, buddy, what's wrong? I pick him up and hold him. He tries to talk but the tears keep flowing and won't allow him to get his words out, just snot bubbles and cries. I hold him, I embrace him fully. I tell him that I am there for him. I'm right here, buddy. Feel it, let it out, go for it buddy. I'm here.

I remember being told as a child to go my room. I felt encouraged to go away and not come back until I was not upset anymore.

I asked someone to walk with a broken leg, and then I laughed when they couldn't. I told them they shouldn't feel bad, they should laugh about it. I waited out for the leg to heal, but it never did. I got mad because they wouldn't heal the leg. Where I lose credibility with myself here, I was not letting them heal and told them they should just be healed. I also pushed physical therapy too early, and the exercises were actually preventing healing at this stage. It is true that these exercises are great tools at a later stage, but we can't just jump to the advanced stuff and be mad at them for not being able to do it.

It's like giving kids calculus before they learned addition; then trying to force them into and not allowing any space for them to experience and process the emotional difficulty faced when doing something beyond current capabilities, and I wouldn't give the right encouragement. I expected them to just figure it out. Not cool man. These are just kids, and they need guidance. This is how I treated myself. I may had inadvertently pushed some of these incorrect ideas with passionate fervor that was definitely misplaced.