Meeting the Self You Left Behind
An Invitation
There is a particular kind of discomfort that arises when we encounter who we used to be. It is not quite embarrassment. It is not quite shame. It is the tight, hot, contracting sensation we often call cringe. The moment we see an old photo, hear our younger voice, or remember how openly we once loved, and something in us wants to turn away.
Most of us assume this feeling means we were wrong back then. That we were naive, exposed, or trying too hard. This is an exploration of what it might mean instead.
Sometimes I watch an old video of myself. I am teaching yoga. I am speaking about energy. I am looking into the camera with a softness that now feels both familiar and far away.
My body responds before my thoughts can organize. My chest tightens. My breath shortens. My shoulders pull slightly forward, as if preparing for a blow that never comes. Nothing is happening in the room around me, yet everything inside me reacts.
I am not embarrassed by her.
I am remembering how unsafe it once felt to be that open.
When I look at her, part of me wants to turn away. Not because she was wrong, but because I remember how unguarded she was. How much she hoped to be met with kindness. How little protection she had if she was not.
If you pause for a moment, you may recognize this too. Imagine seeing yourself years ago, speaking from sincerity before you learned how to contain it. Notice what your body does. The tightening in your throat. The subtle urge to look away. The small contraction that arrives before you can name it.
That sensation is not judgment. It is memory.
The nervous system does not measure time the way the mind does. When we witness our own vulnerability, the body returns to the moment when being seen carried risk. Muscles contract. Breath becomes careful. The heart pulls inward, not to punish, but to protect. This is not shame. It is a body remembering what it once had to do to survive exposure.
Beneath that contraction, something else is present. A quiet recognition. The soul remembers its own becoming. The discomfort is the meeting of who we were and who we are now. It is not rejection. It is contact.
As you read this, notice your body. Perhaps your jaw releases slightly. Perhaps your belly softens. You are not only taking in words. You are meeting a part of yourself that has been waiting to be acknowledged.
Radical self acceptance does not mean liking every version of who we have been. It means refusing to exile any of them. It means no part of us has to earn the right to belong. The awkward one. The tender one. The one who tried too hard. The one who did not yet know how to protect themselves. They all get to stay.
This is what healing actually is. Not improvement, but reunion.
For a long time, I believed the inner critic was something to overcome. Practice taught me something quieter. That voice formed during a time when visibility did not feel safe. It learned to tighten the body and sharpen awareness to prevent harm. It was not trying to punish. It was trying to keep me intact.
Nothing in you formed out of malice. Every part of you formed in response to love, even when it learned love through fear.
Now, when I watch those old videos, I imagine sitting beside that younger version of myself. I imagine placing a hand on her back, right where the tension once lived. I imagine telling her what no one could say at the time.
You are not too much.
You are not foolish for being open.
You were brave in a world that did not always know how to hold you.
As you read this, notice what happens inside. Maybe something loosens. Maybe your eyes soften. Maybe a memory surfaces that you usually keep at a distance. That is not coincidence. That is your nervous system recognizing a truth it has been waiting to hear.
This is integration. This is how the grip begins to release. This is how the parts of us that learned to go quiet in order to survive begin to return.
When we stop pushing experience away, life itself becomes practice. We notice sensation. We notice thought. We notice emotion. And instead of turning from any of it, we allow it to move.
Every moment of awareness gives the body permission to soften. Every moment of acceptance gives the soul more room to breathe.
Your past self was not a mistake.
Your awkwardness was not a flaw.
Your vulnerability was not a weakness.
It was consciousness learning how to live inside a human nervous system.
So when that familiar cringe arises, pause. Feel your feet. Feel your breath. Feel the quiet rhythm of your heart. You are not back there anymore. You are here, and you are capable of holding what once felt like too much.
This is radical self acceptance. Not cutting off what was, but letting it belong. Not fighting your shadow, but allowing it into the circle of who you are.
Presence meeting what once overwhelmed it, and discovering it can finally be held.
#RadicalSelfAcceptance, #NervousSystemHealing,#EmbodiedAwareness