Last update: 26 September, 2016
Looking into your past is never an easy task if you haven't been able to completely get over it, as is right. You will know that you have succeeded only when you look over your shoulder and laugh at something that once hurt you. That feeling of wholeness you feel when you are able to get out of a complicated situation and see it in a different light is called maturity..
When you go through a difficult time, perhaps the darkness will prevent you, in one way or another, from seeing the exit so that you can head in that direction. It is likely, therefore, that you would prefer to remain still, without opposing your fears and without facing all the imaginary creatures that arise as a great threat.
Nevertheless, if you remember other situations in which you have felt this way, even if the circumstances were not the same (after all, they never are, just as we don't cross the same river twice), you will understand that the difficulties that are in this moment they look huge, they have equally big weaknesses. The moment you can spot them, you will also be able to look back and smile with pride at your experience, at your fears.
Perhaps, reading this introduction, you will have come to mind the sentence it says “It does not mature with the years, but with the damage”. In a way it is just like that: suddenly, those wounds, which are now scars, no longer reopen and are the most damning proof that you have grown up and what you have learned.
"There is no other way to maturity but to endure the blows of life".
-William Shakespeare-
Laughing at what hurt us
The low blows will be part of you forever and, depending on how hard each of them was, you will have to show more or less resistance when you find them in front of you: they will accompany you wherever you allow them to follow you, you will not be able to escape and they will remain imprinted. about that book that is your life. There will be no exception, but you will be able to make them simple past pages, those that you have already read and that you will reread only if you want to.
Not only do you have the advantage of deciding whether to re-read them or not, but the most important thing is that the power to remember them in the right way, with the attitude you deem necessary, is only in your hands.
For this reason today we say that laughing at what once hurt you means maturing, because maturing also means learning from yourself and being sure of who you are. When you felt more lost, you found your inflection point and this is more than enough reason to smile: you got rid of a past that held you prisoner and now, by now, you know how to undo the knots that will present themselves in the future. .
Maturity is not reflected in making the right decisions, but in learning to live with the decisions made, even with the wrong ones ”.
-Anonymous-
Maturing also means seeing mistakes as opportunities to learn and as tools to live your life to the fullest. It is true that failure hurts, and sometimes a lot, but it is worse to feel bad for not having the courage to try something. Trying, failing and trying again is part of one's inner discovery.
Maturing means getting rid of those who made us cry
True, what made you cry is often the result of your actions, yet there is also the possibility that this is not the case and that something or someone external to you was hurting you. It is possible, for example, that you have found yourself in a toxic relationship that has been difficult for you to get out of and that has destabilized you emotionally.
Maybe you are in a moment of your life in which it is difficult for you to cut ties with the people you love and who have given you the best of them: under any circumstances, you must accept goodbyes and stop crying for what has been and is no longer.
Spanish writer and translator Elvira Sastre says that a life without courage is an endless way back: maturing is closely related to being courageous with every step you take, especially the most difficult ones, because you never lack the strength needed to face setbacks. In this way, you will only travel forward paths and memories, like small baggage of your essence that have grown over time.
"If you call your difficulties experiences and remember that every experience helps you mature, you will be able to grow strong and happy, no matter how adverse the circumstances seem."
-Henry Miller-
