Trauma Has a Way of Shaping Us

Imagine being excited about third-grade picture day. The night before, you have your dress laid out and ready to go. The only thing left is getting your hair done. Your mom tells you to grab the hair basket. You sit down, ready to be styled. But you’ve been outside all day playing, running, and having fun.

Your hair is tangled, matted, and every pull of the comb feels like a battle.

You’re squirming. Moving. Doing everything except sitting still.

Then it happens. One hard tug hits a nerve.

Your mother reaches for a pair of scissors and cuts all of your hair off.

 Tough, huh?

For years, I carried that moment with me. I convinced myself that my mother hated me. That she didn’t love me. One action became the lens through which I viewed our relationship.

As a child, I couldn’t see her struggles. I didn’t know what she had survived. I didn’t understand the weight she carried every day. All I knew was how that moment made me feel.

Then I became a mother.

Life introduced me to divorce, death, depression, disappointment, and survival. Suddenly, I understood something I couldn’t have understood as a little girl.

It wasn’t about me.

Before my mother passed away, we had an honest conversation about life, pain, and survival. I learned things about her journey that changed my perspective. The woman I thought was being cruel was often doing the best she could with what she had.

My mother taught me many lessons that I still carry with me today. But that traumatic moment shaped our relationship for years because I never stopped to question the story I created around it.

Trauma has a way of doing that.

It takes a moment and turns it into a belief.

A belief turns into a story.

And that story can follow us for decades.

So, what is your trauma?

What story are you still telling yourself?

What are you holding onto that you need to release so healing can begin?

Life has a funny way of showing us how deeply our wounds have shaped us. Sometimes healing starts when we look at our pain through a different lens.

Not to excuse what happened.

Not to pretend it didn’t hurt.

But to finally free ourselves from carrying it.

Healing! Growing! Becoming! 

Thank you for being here and growing with me 

4 My Kyds