Last year around this time, I finally made one of my goals a reality. For a while now, I have had the idea of starting a personal blog to share and connect with like-minded individuals. In a previous blog, I mentioned how I wanted a space of my own to speak my truth about how I perceive this 3D reality we live in, share my growth, talk about past traumas, or simply talk about any topics that I find fascinating. As a dreamer and, sadly, the unrealistic person that I am, I had already envisioned how I wanted to launch my personal blog; in my mind, it all sounded and looked perfect and easy as pie. But to be completely honest, I was just excited about the end results and using my blog as a way to make money without having to work a regular 9-to-5 job. I wanted the luxury, but mostly the freedom that I kept seeing from other bloggers and creators, without thinking logically about the steps I needed to take before reaching that goal. And as excited as I was to post my very first blog on my own website, a few posts later, I completely gave up and stopped posting. Until Now. 

As I get older and become more self-aware, I’ve noticed that I have developed some coping mechanisms throughout my life whenever I’m feeling unpleasant emotions. This blog was another example of the type of person I have become when I’m no longer getting a dopamine rush. My first instinct is always to avoid feeling uneasy. It’s easier for me to steer away from any negative emotions than to actually feel them. That’s when I lose interest in the project or hobby because I feel so anxious and scared about all the work I need to do that I would rather give up and not even try. But which feeling is it? Boredom? Fear? Or could it be that I developed a behavior driven by all of these negative emotions that has led me to become a chronic procrastinator? –  Let’s find out in the next episode of DBZ lol. 

This is a pattern, aka a trauma response, that I have continued repeating throughout most of my life and that I am finally aware of. The difference is that I am now choosing to be honest with myself about what is stopping me from accomplishing my goals. When I get an idea, I immediately start feeling excited about it and completely dismiss the parts where I actually need to put in the work and make some sacrifices in order to manifest my dreams into reality. It’s almost as if my mind only wants me to focus on the good parts of it and pretend my dreams will somehow appear by blinking my eyes. I find myself constantly stuck in this loop of starting over or wanting to start something, but for whatever reason, I physically can’t get myself to do it or finish it. And the guilt of feeling like a failure eats me alive each time. 

If I am being completely honest, the fear of failing and being judged stops me pretty much all the time. It took a really long time to come to this conclusion. As much as I tried to avoid it and pretend those fears were not real, I simply couldn’t anymore. I had to look myself in the eye and see how much it was preventing me from doing the things I dream about. Listening to the audiobook “The Mountain is You” by Brianna Wiest is also helping me tremendously, and I am realizing that I am my own worst enemy. I am the one stopping me from becoming the person I want to be, or, I should say, the person I know I am capable of being. And sure, let’s add the fact that I could also have ADHD to the mix (I have not been diagnosed by a professional, btw, just by TikTok), and that’s just the cherry on top that I needed to become the master procrastinator that I am today. Yay! Me! 🙂

Change will not happen right away. I am very aware that it will require some work, discipline, and accountability to get out of this loop that I’ve been stuck in for years. I just need to stop being scared of failing and actually put in the work that is required in order to accomplish my dreams and build the life I envision. As I once heard, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” Yes, it’s way easier said than done, but it’s possible. I don’t want to be 80 and regret the time I wasted because I was afraid. Fear is what is keeping me stuck in this comfort zone, and I am done feeling safe or thinking, “I am not good enough.” I want to take risks. I want to fail and try over again, but mostly, I want to stay true to my word. I don’t know how long it will take to get to this imaginary finish line that I have for myself or what’s going to happen when I get there. But one thing I know is that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I sure as hell don’t want to wait 200 years to start working on the life I want and deserve.

Feeling misunderstood can be a quite sad and very lonely road.

For as long as I can remember, I have always tried to be more like the people I have surrounded myself with, just so I can be liked or accepted. The fear of being judged or made fun of didn’t allow me to reveal my authentic self for the majority of my life. And I only shared that very important side of me with 2 or 3 people. I am not really sure how that fear was formed or created, but if I had to guess I’d say it comes from my childhood (shocker, lol).

I think I had a happy childhood. I say I think because when I look at pictures of myself from when I was a kid, I see a happy little girl playing alone or with her cousins and mostly dancing and singing around the house. But the truth is, I don’t remember most of my childhood. I know my brain has suppressed around 90% of those memories probably to protect me from any type of pain I felt growing up. Isn’t it amazing how our brains work? My brain is literally protecting me from myself. Or it can be that because I have aphantasia – the inability to visualize things, (aka my mind is blind AF), and that makes it nearly impossible to remember any early memories. Fun Fact: I recently learned that the majority of people can actually see things in their minds, and here I thought this whole time it was a figure of speech when someone would say things like “imagine” this or that. #MindBlown lol. I know, right?

Anyhow, I am not sure what the real reason is behind why I can’t remember most of my childhood, but some of the things I do recall briefly include watching my mother compare herself to her older sister. I also witnessed and listened to some of the adults in my life spout nonsense about those who dared to be different, labeling them as weird or strange. Growing up in a very judgmental environment where everyone is always comparing and criticizing each other impacted my life tremendously without even realizing it. Which is why I grew up with the fear of not being liked for who I truly was. And just like my mother, I also started to compare myself to others. It first started with my cousins, then it progressed to imitating my school friends, and suddenly any sense of individuality I had vanished.

It didn’t help at all that I migrated to the US when I was going through puberty while also dealing with my parents’ divorce. I remember feeling like a complete outcast on my first day school, as if I were an alien visiting Earth for the first time. I felt so out of place and confused because I didn’t know anyone and didn’t speak a word of English. Good thing I was placed in a bilingual classroom, but truthfully, I really don’t remember how I made it through the first day of school. But I am almost 99% sure that my almost 13-year-old self wanted to die. The culture shock was definitely real, and in order to survive this new reality, I did what almost any teenage girl would have done in a brand new place. I blended in and became like some of the girls in my classroom in order to prevent feeling misunderstood.

I spent the majority of my teens and 20s trying to be like everyone I surrounded myself with. I had no sense of self, nor wanted to get to know me because, honestly, I hated myself. I wasn’t content with who I was or how I looked, and I constantly compared myself to my girlfriends and my cousins, but mostly to girls on social media. It didn’t help that I kept chasing the attention of men, and in order to attract boys my age, I thought that I had to be “a certain way.” On top of that, I grew up in a household where some sort of expectation was placed on me without even realizing it. The feeling of having to fit into this mold was present almost all the time, and of course I resented that. Deep down, I knew I didn’t want to be put into this imaginary box that was created for me. I just wanted to be me. Whatever “Me” was. Everything I had experienced up to this point in my life made me suppress everything that I really was. But mostly the feeling of being misunderstood and judged was always there, and the result of repressing very important parts of myself had me living a very unhappy and unhealthy life for a very long time.

It wasn’t until I started to really do some inner healing work that I noticed my true essence slowly coming out. Something in me awakened that helped me no longer care about the opinions of others (or maybe it was the fact that I was turning 30 and I stopped giving a f*ck about a lot of things lol). But the fear of being judged started to finally disappear after all of these years, and it felt so freaking liberating. By nurturing my inner child, I began to finally accept and love all aspects of myself, even the weird parts that I had kept hidden and neglected for so long. Everything started to come out to the surface, and I no longer had any intentions of keeping anything concealed anymore. I embraced all parts of me, including the very weird ones that I didn’t like or felt ashamed by. And just like that, I became free, like my girl Elsa when she ran away to the forest to finally explore her powers, which helped her find inner peace and build her beautiful ice castle. Yes, Frozen is one of my favorite Disney movies #LetItGo. 

Feeling misunderstood or different from others can be really lonely and painful, but at the same time, it can also be your superpower. It only depends on how you choose to see it. The real magic happens when you finally remove all of the extra layers that were added for protection and allow your soul to fully shine. But it all starts with you, by learning to love and accept all parts of yourself, and that can only happen when you stop seeking external validation. It took me 32 years to acquire this knowledge, and I can only hope my story inspires or helps anyone who is feeling the way I felt for the majority of my life. It will get better, I promise you. Trust and believe in yourself and your journey but most importantly, love yourself the way your inner child would want to be loved. 

<3

How can I open up and share my feelings with my mom when she plays the victim and tries to dismiss them?

This is a struggle I face whenever I open up to my mom and share my perspective on the childhood experiences that had a tremendous impact in my life.

The times I have opened up in an attempt to be vulnerable with her, she seems to feel attacked and as a result she doesn’t validate my experience. I can’t speak for her but I can imagine she must feel like I am criticizing or questioning her character. And in doing so she ends up gaslighting me without even noticing how it makes me feel.

Fortunately for the both of us, I know she does not mean to do that and I’m well aware she does not do so intentionally nor understands the term “gaslighting.” Merriam-Webster defines gaslighting as “a psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” 

My mom comes from a different generation than me. It almost feels as if she was raised lifetimes ago because of how closed-minded her mentality is compared to mine. The best I can do is educate her about the things that she’s doing and how hurtful it can be on my end. But most importantly, I am learning to be more patient with her and continuing to set healthy boundaries to improve our mother-and-daughter relationship.

However, if I’m being honest I learned the term gaslighting 2 or 3 years ago while I started my healing journey and seeking therapy. Before that, I had never heard of it before nor was I aware that I was experiencing it myself with both romantic and personal relationships. Now that I am older and a bit wiser, I understand she always did the best she could with the knowledge that she had. And if I had any bad childhood experiences, hers were definitely worse. 

Regardless, it doesn’t justify the suffering I encountered because of the consequences of her poor actions. That is not to say I’m not thankful for the things she did that attribute to the woman I am today. But do I wish she wouldn’t have done certain things? Of course! I would have LOVED being raised by the healthy version of my mom. My life would have been a completely different telenovela than the one I’m currently portraying in right now LOL and our relationship would have been completely different today.

There are days when I need to remind myself that my mom and I don’t share the same level of self-awareness. That she doesn’t mean to hurt me with her words or actions. That I need to be more patient when she’s not understanding my perspective instead of taking it personally or lashing out at her. That she’s not perfect but neither Am I. We are just two human beings making mistakes and learning from those mistakes along this journey we call Life.  

As I gain more self-awareness, I am also learning to be more compassionate and understanding towards my mom. We might not always see things eye to eye or share the same beliefs but at the end of the day the love we have for each other is and will always be there. I am forever grateful for everything my mom has done for me and I hope that one day I am in the position to repay her in any way I can, not because I have to but because I want to.

<3

This past August, my sister and I took a 4 day trip to Florida. Our mom had promised her a Disney trip (mind you, she’s taken her to Disney 4 times already) but was getting cold feet because of all of the walking they would be doing. Instead, she asked me if I could take her. All expenses would be paid so without hesitation, I said “YES! One thing about me (I’m the baddest alive #ImABarb ok? lol), I LOVE to travel; I was NOT about to pass on a free trip to the most magical place in the world! Like Hello! Who would?

<3