I was born tamed. What about you?

I have long ago stopped blaming my upbringing for my fears. I am convinced now that we are all born with particular traits that lead to decisions we make very early in life. So early we can't even remember.

After an exploration into my childhood feelings, I realised that I was born afraid of rejection. It was my nature to comply so that I wouldn't feel responsible for any conflicts taking place around me. I became a people pleaser as a means to be loved by those I cared about.

A by-product of my own mid-life crisis, I have come out a stronger person after nourishing my scared little five-year-old self as the adult motherly version of me. This is part of my own story that I wanted to share with you since I have realised that all the people around me have their own experience with their inner children.

Some of my friends were born warriors. I have a friend who is a bit over sixty and she remembers her five-year-old self holding a knife in defense of her scared mother reacting to a challenging situation. How can you explain this? She was born like that. No one made her react as the saviour of the family in the absence of her father. Yet, she has mothered her mother ever since. And still today, she hasn't been able to change the role she voluntarily assumed at such a tender age.

Different inherent personality traits are very evident amongst siblings who are raised in the same household. They are all exposed to the same parents and still react in their own particular ways.

Why is this important?

Realising that you made some early life decisions that might be affecting your wellbeing and your relationships with others, gives you the power to change in ways that will benefit you. First of all, you stop blaming your parents, siblings, teachers, etc and you assume your responsibility to deal with the behaviour or attitude. Once you define what you would like to change you can then work on healing the wounds you've been carrying for years and start working on the better version of yourself. 

It is never too late to change for the better. We should never stop growing as long as we are still breathing. Personal growth is part of being alive. What traits can you work on that will improve your life today? Let me know in the comments below or on social media. 

PS: It's great to be back on the blogosphere. 

You REALLY attract what your fear: Write to overcome it

Three years after writing my autobiographical novel, the reason WHY I wrote the book has become clearer: I was afraid of dying so I killed myself in the novel, at 88.

Once I completed my first book, Clara Thinks to Us, I created this blog as a way to explain my incursion into authorship. Heal by Writing was a title right on target. I was indeed healing from an autoimmune condition, expressed as food intolerances. I was intolerant to so many kinds of food that I thought "If I don't heal, I will surely starve to death".

I am now free from food intolerances. I know I have ONE intolerance that will be impossible to overcome because it is determined by my genes, so I avoid it and I can manage all the other limitations to have a balanced and healthy diet. I am now sure I will not die in the short term from starvation due to intolerances.

You truly attract what you fear

I have recently experienced what I feared most: infidelity first hand. I am a child of an unfaithful spouse and I went through all the counselling that came with overcoming such an ordeal. I thought I had it all worked out. I had a plan B for when it happened. I had warned my spouse since before we committed that I wouldn't be able to overcome such betrayal. And we took measures to prevent it. But if you FEAR it you ATTRACT it. Law of Attraction, they call it. 

It hit me today when I thought of how I'm not afraid of having a car accident. I'm always placing myself in the percentage of the population who always manages to avoid clashes. And I haven't had an accident since someone bumped into me when I stopped suddenly at a red light in my birth country, Venezuela. I was 18. It's been over 30 years since then and I haven't had another car accident. 

I also placed myself in the minority who succeed in a developing, corrupted country like Venezuela. I placed myself in the minority who manages to marry a foreigner and never return to chaos. But I didn't place myself in the subset of the population where there are no infidelities. I just feared it would happen to me. So, once I discovered writing as a means to HEAL, I wrote different scenarios about my fear. 

Creating scenarios

• My best case scenario was my Novel of Hope in which infidelity did not happen. Alexis was faithful to Clara for over 27 years. 
• I created happy endings for friends whose marriages were breaking previous to my own infidelity experience. I wrote a series of books in Spanish, Mejor Sola. 
• I imagined what I would do in case the infidelity symptoms I was experiencing at home corresponded to the pathology. I wrote a book in my head.

Facing reality: facing your FEAR 

Once I had unequivocal proof that I was facing infidelity as a spouse, after I had experienced it as a child, I proceeded to implement Plan B. Everything happened very fast because I had already considered all the possible options in my head. 

Even though my fear had become a reality, I was prepared to face it. I knew I could find a hopeful outcome in ways I had imagined in my books. But I had not imagined the turn of events that could occur in the face of reality. 

Writing truly helped me face my fear and process it in an efficient way. I might even write a book about it one day. Do you think it could help you or others? Let me know in the comments.