Reflections of a past life

Reflections of a Past Life

John Paul Derryberry

I once spent a lot of time with someone who said many mean things about me. They made me feel about an inch tall. They intimidated me, were rude, made it so others couldn't help me, and constantly undercut any progress I attempted to make. I blamed numerous folks for this person being around me, mostly so I didn't have to blame the person hurting me most. Turns out that the person doing all this damage to me was someone very near and dear to my heart; it was myself. I was destroying my own life.

Not everyone's demons come from within; lots of people terrorizers are, in fact, real people with horrible intentions. Yet mine, for as far back as I can remember, was the reflection in the mirror and, more importantly, how the reflection in the mirror didn't match who I wanted to be. It was often haunting for me to realize the person I wanted to be was being stopped by the thought patterns of the person I was.

It's something I worry about a lot today, even though I'm in a healthy frame of mind and have been for years. Mostly because I have grown into roles as a public speaker and professional where my job is to care for others, and I realize how fragile that relationship can be. The perception of healthy and unhealthy can swing based on one's view. And our view of life, if left unchecked, can become so skewed and out of touch that it often leads to anger. Navigating that can be difficult, yet it's worth the struggle. Because beyond that struggle is a version of ourselves that offers our loved ones, our community, and those in our orbit a chance to realize they matter just as much as we do.

It's a path that illuminates a course to a healthy life. It's a way to have others not feeling small, like I once did. It's a method to remember you once were in the wrong and need help to keep leaning into the best version of yourself. We have all felt small; we must not forget those who helped us feel big again, whether that was a friend, a loved one, a stranger, or even ourselves. It's those people we should surround ourselves with; it's those people who deserve our attention and our energy. When I turned my life around for a while, I didn't recognize the reflection in the mirror, who was that healthy individual looking back at me. Turns out that was me all along.