Wounds and reactions

It's not easy to accept the truth about ourselves, especially about the nature of our deepest wounds. Self-truth explorations are rarely painless, which is why many of us need a large measure of adult experience under our belts before we are emotionally equipped for such an undertaking. So why look back at all? why not just forge ahead with our customary determination and will? As many of my clients propose, "Let's just leave the past in the past."
And yet we cannot leave well enough alone because the liberation of our potential calls for completeness. All of our resources must be fully functional and available if we intend to take our abilities seriously. No matter how smooth our upbringing may have seemed, without mending the splits and self-doubts we bear, we cannot be as fully alive and powerful in our creative endeavors as we are intended to be.
The goal is not to revictimize ourselves by opening up old wounds merely for the sake of feeling bad all over again. Blame is not the point, either-not toward ourselves or toward those who raised us, loved us, or worked with us to the best of their ability. At first, most Everyday Geniuses resist the idea of dredging up old wounds and revisiting the detours they wish they'd never taken. No one wants to reexperience emotional pain and regret. Yet the wounds of Everyday Geniuses are not the kind that heal with the mere passage of time. Luckily, most Everyday Geniuses are practiced in recycling their experience. Their innate optimism and tenacity help them find creative ways to make use of all of their experiences, even agonizing setbacks. To give meaning to what happens in their lives, they look for ways to tyrn bad into some form of good.