Trauma rewires the brain.

And we can learn to rewire it again.

To those who have gone through hurt in the past, I feel you.

The pain you experienced before was real.

It's not at all the case that you don't want to love or feel close to people.

You know as well as I do, our hearts long for such closeness again.

But we can't seem to shake this feeling of unsafety - what if we offered our hearts but it got broken again?

----

Losing my mum suddenly when I was five left broke my sense of safety and security in relationships..

I didn't know this at the time, but the pain forced parts of me become self-protective.

It stopped me from getting too close to people, even romantic ones, so I would never get hurt again.

This seemed to work for a while. But as I grew older, I also felt more and more empty.

I was missing out on what all humans were wired to have - to love and be loved.

To be close and feel safe with someone again.

But parts of me were still hurt, wary of getting too close, of people disappearing, and being abandoned

They needed to heal.

----------

So, to those parts of me which I can still feel lingering in my chest:

"I know you're scared. You're fearful that we will get close to someone and that it will end. You haven't forgotten the past. But I want you to know that neither have I."

"Yet, while we couldn't rely on others in the past, I'm here for you now, right here in the present. Tell me all your fears. I'm here to listen."

"Because there is another person in our lives now that we have the opportunity to be close to. To make us feel loved, and to love back as well.

"I really want to embrace this, but for me to do this, I need you to embrace this too."

"We are in this together. So together, let's learn to let ourselves be loved again okay?"

Always here,

Hernping