Listening To Our Younger Selves

I remember being little and carrying the weight of all the stories I was secretly collecting about my own experiences. I wanted so badly to share these experiences with someone who might have had the time to understand and appreciate what I was going through. But I couldn’t find the right person.

I wanted so badly for someone to tell me that my stories were special and beautiful, and that they were worth telling. But I was too scared my stories wouldn’t be appreciated.

I didn’t understand that the point of telling our stories is not to get approval for them, but to get them out into the light and oxygen where they can breathe and share their important messages with us, about who we are.

As I grew older, I realized my younger self was still there, still wanting so badly to share her stories. So finally I went to work for her, trying to find someone who might have some time to listen.

And I really wish I could tell you it hadn’t taken me so long before it occurred to me that I was the person this young girl had been waiting for.

Once I figured it out, I asked the little girl to tell me her stories. And her stories were wonderful stories - full of feelings big and small and magical. And I cherished each one instead of judging them or making them wrong. And finally that little girl had a chance to be heard and seen as the star of her own experiences.

Some of us parent our own children, some of us are parenting our own children within, and many of us do both at the same time.

I hope if you’re listening, whether you’re young or not young, you will take the time to stop what you’re doing and listen to the stories within you, to remember how much they matter, because each one has the ingredients that created the incredible human being you are today.

—JLK