If it hurt you, it can’t shield you.

The biggest changes happen in silence when no one is watching. 

Your pain cannot shield you- a bitter pill to swallow.  A tricky part of self-awareness can be managing that insight you’ve gained about yourself. 

The effects subconscious, hidden parts of us creep on us slowly- like shadows lurching in the dark. We know something is there hiding in the woods, but when it confronts us wholly, we’re still caught off guard. And then we either fight, flight, or freeze. 

Say, someone once called you clingy as a teen. You responded by being more guarded about your social presence to a point that you eventually became a fly on the wall. Now people think you’re guarded and uptight. You know why that is, and your hurt got a temporary fix, but it’s not really healed.

Self-awareness is an aspect that needs to be led from insight to action. Because when it remains for too long as information we simply know about ourselves, it’s akin to stuff at home collecting dust and building a pathogenic ecosystem within itself. 

Self-awareness in action is dealing with the tender parts of ourselves by rewriting our narrative and owning it in our words, so that what we know about ourselves doesn’t define us, but it constantly evolves into something we have power over.

Perhaps one possible solution to the aforementioned instance is- So one person thought you were clingy. And that’s simply an opinion. Teenage is the age to change and make mistakes. You know there are people who think otherwise and are wiser for it too. So, for how long should you be hidden? 

We believe the stories of our pain are source of strength. But endurance is not the same as strength. Change is. Taking the leap of faith is. And strength isn’t always fighting a war with things having to necessarily explode defying the laws of physics. The biggest changes happen in silence when no one is watching.