The Box They Put You In
The past is the key that opens up your future.
It’s a Saturday night and “normal people” are probably out and about - partying, maybe? Or just having fun.
Could be they’re at home too, feet up on the sofa, watching some addictive series and eating Maltesers.
Who knows.
I’m doing none of those things.
Actually, I just had a sexual encounter with myself. Casual. My vibrator decided to join.
It was good - although, honestly, I missed real cock. But whatever…
There’s this ache that lives in me.
Maybe you feel it too.
It’s the ache of seeing clearly in a world that doesn’t want to look.
Of knowing that change is possible - profound, beautiful change, a whole new world - and yet watching people you love stay stuck.
Not because they’re lazy. Not because they’re broken.
But because they’ve never been taught how to leave the familiar behind.
We all want better.
Every soul I’ve ever met is hungry for something deeper: more peace, more intimacy, more freedom.
Even those with good lives feel it.
That quiet whisper: there’s more.
But how do we reach it?
Let me tell you something.
My grandfather’s father was killed in the Spanish Civil War.
Shot dead by Franco’s military.
My grandad was 14 and suddenly became the “man of the house” because he was the only man left - his mother and three little sisters depending on him.
Years later, still carrying the weight of resentment toward life for stealing his father, he married my grandmother.
But they had no home of their own.
They lived with relatives, all crammed into a single bedroom - with two babies, one of them my mother - until they could finally afford a place.
My family was fucking poor.
And the mentality that came with that? It was simple:
“Life is shit. You need to work your ass off just to have a decent life.”
I see it now.
I see how that belief shaped my parents - and how it tried to shape me.
But I rebelled.
Of course I did.
The Truth
The truth is, we’re all shaped by three invisible forces:
Our own mind (subjectivity): the blind spots, the ego, the self-love that distorts how we see the world and ourselves.
Our parents’ emotional world: their habits, fears, and wounds that seeped into us before we had any say.
Society’s mold: what we’ve been told to want, to fear, to follow, to become.
These forces put us in a box before we even knew we had a shape.
We think we’re living freely, making our own choices.
But most of the time, it’s just the past repeating itself - our childhood wounds in grown-up clothes.
Old ghosts driving the car while we decorate the dashboard.
Unfortunately, this “inner child” rhetoric sounds a bit cheesy and new agey, and many people reject it.
But man… it is relevant.
You want to change your life?
Start there.
Not with a vision board.
Not with your next “plan.”
But with the fucking PAST.
Not to dwell.
To see.
To name what’s been running the show.
Sometimes, all it takes is one honest sentence to begin:
“My mother never listened to me.”
“My father never touched me with kindness.”
“I never learned how to trust love.”
Or…
“I lost my father and I broke.”
My grandfather never looked within.
He died young, profoundly unhappy and hurt - you could see it in his face.
He passed away one month after retiring at 64. One month.
After working full time for fifty years straight. 🥹
That’s how we begin to get free.
With truth.
With tenderness.
And then… step by step… we move forward.
We stop judging ourselves for carrying things we didn’t even pack.
We create space between the inherited reflex and our actual response.
We find the courage to act differently, even when our entire nervous system is begging us to stay small.
It’s uncomfortable - like that split second when you dive and you’re not on the ground or in the water yet.
That free-fall moment when nothing’s holding you.
No certainty, no anchor.
But that space?
That’s where you meet your soul.
That’s where rebirth happens.
We’re not here to endlessly replay our programming.
We’re here to alchemize it.
To compost it into something richer, more whole, more ours.
Yes!! Do look back!
But only to loosen the grip of what no longer belongs.
Only to bless it, and let it go.
And then move forward - not as a reaction, not as a performance.
But as your truest, freest, wildest self.
If you're scared? Good.
That means you're standing on the edge of your next becoming.
Look back.
Move forward.
Trust the leap.
I’ve been doing that for the last few years.
And it’s working.
Trust me.
Love,
Rose 🌹
Wise counsel, dear Rose. So very true. If we let the past define us, we stay stuck there. Those years of early programming, all the lived experiences, have made us what we (think) we are today. But, we aren’t! Our true Work is breaking out of that prison created and defined by our past. Not an easy task but it is possible. I, for one, am a strong believer in meditation as a tool to accomplish this. But…. It is always a work in progress.