As important as it is to look forward, it’s just as important to look back to reflect on your story and your past. In order to grow into a healthy version of yourself, you have to know your story and you have to own it. Your story is writing itself day by day. And you have to recognize how your past is writing your future. Your past affects you. You are not your past, but you have been sculpted by it. How is your past positively and negatively affecting you? What areas have you not processed or worked through yet?
When I saw this staircase, I knew I needed to make this picture into a blog post. We can be climbing the stairs, our future plans in sight; but if we don’t reflect on how our past got us to where we are at, we’ll be walking into a future unprepared. Your story is everything. It’s who you are. And you can’t grow into your future self without acknowledging the past that sculpted you. You have to get to the root of who you are as a person.
Finding a balance between walking forward and looking back can be hard. We’re always moving forward but we need to take our past and let it pave the way to our future instead of letting it weigh us down or hold us back.
I imagine it like this: I process a memory and connect it to how it has affected me or shaped me into the person I am today and I lay that memory down and take the next step up the staircase. Each processed memory is another step closer to becoming a better person. It’s a step of trust, growth, and bravery. I’m using my story to learn more about who I am so that I can grow as a person.
Have you ever asked yourself: Who am I?
Who are you? What’s your story? How can reflecting on your past make you more aware of who you are? How can you work on personal growth in this season of life?
EMILY DICKINSON 