Hello dear one,

As we’ve been looking at the idea of imprints, or the patterns in the nervous system that repeat throughout our lives, maybe you’ve been sitting with a question that many of us have had:

Is it too late to heal?

Maybe you’re a parent, thinking about your child’s experience of coming into the world. Maybe it was rough, but it’s over now and everyone said not to worry about it.

Maybe you’re wondering about the things that you do over and over again that might somehow be connected to your early life, but thinking that the pattern is probably set now.

Or maybe you’re working with adults or children and thinking about past or present clients and wondering if you could help them in a different way with this information, but don’t know where to begin.

Over the past few weeks here, we have been sitting with the idea of imprints together. What they are, how they can be seen in the small transition moments as well as the bigger changes in life, and how what we see on the surface is rarely the thing that's actually happening. That there’s a story underneath the story we’ve been telling about a behavior, both ours and someone else’s.

If you have been reading along, you may have started to recognize the stories you tell about yourself or a loved one. And maybe you’re holding some questions about the story underneath the story and how that’s showing up in your life and the people you care about.

So is it too late?

Well, we can’t go back in time and change what happened. That is true. But we can learn to befriend our stories and see what we can do differently once we see the story in the body.

An imprint pattern is something that wants to be seen. It formed in relationship, before you had words, in a body that was doing exactly what it needed to do to get you through. And what forms in relationship can shift and heal in relationship. It isn’t going to erase what happened. But something can loosen. Something that has been repeated over and over again for a very long time can begin to shift when it’s held with curiosity.

The body and nervous system that learned the imprint pattern can also learn new ways of relating to those patterns. And we can learn to tell a different story about it, about ourselves, and our loved ones.

It was never a flaw, even if that’s the story that was told about you or that you tell yourself or your child. It was a very young body, doing its best work with what it had. The patterns have simply been on repeat.

And here is the part I would want you to take with you if you take nothing else.

You do not have to go back and fix the beginning to change what happens next.

So when the thought comes bubbling up for you next, in whatever form it may come, you may consider asking yourself a different question. What might be possible if it wasn’t too late to heal?

What would it mean for you?

Only you know what that question opens.

There's one more thing. I've made something for you, and it's coming Monday. It's a short video about where all of this actually begins, and there's a way in for whoever you are, whether you're raising children, walking alongside them in your work, or simply carrying a story of your own.

Watch for it.

Be curious. Be kind. Start with yourself.

Warmly,

Rebecca