Reclaiming the Old You or Building the New You?

Life can really throw some curveballs at you, can’t it? One minute you’re standing on a mountaintop and then the next, you’re cast down a deep, dark hole somewhere, wondering if you’ll ever see the light of day again. The speed with which this can happen is what makes a return to your former self feel so implausible. The rapid shift of circumstances leaves you without a roadmap to get home.

Maybe back to your old home isn’t where you’re heading. Maybe the damage to your body and/or your psyche, depending on the trauma you’ve endured, won’t ever heal completely. And if it does, maybe you wouldn’t want to forget it anyway. Maybe you can’t. You probably shouldn’t. Knowing what you know now, it may be impossible to return to your old manner of living, fully reclaiming the joys of that particular experience.

If you could reclaim it, would you really live life the same exact way anyway? You’ve changed. You’ve peered over the edge of the abyss, as they say, and you’ve seen some things. Learned some things about who you are and what is most important to you. A return to your old way of life doesn’t make much sense anymore. Parts of it can be reclaimed and yield the rewards they once did, but overall, you are heading some place new. Who knows, maybe somewhere better.

The hardest challenges we face in life are portals to pass through. Opportunities to come out the other side from the person you were. The transitions can make you stronger or weaker, but the perspective you gain from it is up to you. You can either choose to wallow in your “bad luck” or conclude that things could have been worse. You can keep your bad habits or you can try to change them. You can bury your head in the sand and blame the world for your problems, or you can lift your head up and acknowledge the “good luck” you’ve had as well. The choice is yours.

You may be living out a terrible situation that leaves you feeling like you have lost control of your life. Whatever it is you’re dealing with — mental health disorders, physical trauma, etc. — you may find yourself staring at the wall in the wee hours of the night, wondering how in the hell you’re going to be able to proceed from here. The negative thoughts are unescapable. How can I possibly do this? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I’m SCREWED. Things can look pretty bleak. I know. I’ve been there.

But you can’t stay in that mind loop forever. Something’s got to give. At the beginning of my own crisis, I had to start tricking myself into believing I can. After months of saying “I can’t”, I started replacing one out of every five cant’s with a can. At first it felt like I was lying to myself, but over time my perspective started to change. I was able to establish some easier moments. Some longer moments without the pain. Then I was able to replace another can’t with a can, working my way up, bit by bit, until I replaced all of my cant’s with cans. The cans haven’t made the pain go away yet, but they are helping me rebuild myself. Perhaps the future me will never be as physically strong as the old me, but the new me is developing a mental strength my old self would have been lucky to have.