Beginning, Middle and End

Everything has a cycle.

Waking in the morning, moving through the day and going to sleep.

Pouring a glass of water, drinking it and putting the glass away.

An experience begins, unfolds and eventually ends.

But what happens when the experience ends and something within us doesn't?

When “Wrong” Feels Like More Than Feedback

Imagine someone asks you a question.

You answer confidently.

They respond:

“No, that's wrong.”

The words may simply be information.

But for some people, something more happens.

The chest tightens.

The stomach drops.

The mind starts explaining, defending or withdrawing.

Now imagine the same situation and the response is:

“Yes, that's correct.”

Perhaps you feel relief.

Satisfaction.

Pride.

In both situations, you received feedback.

But the response can become about much more than the answer.

What if neither response actually defines you?

The answer either fits the question or it doesn't.

Like a round peg and a square hole, there is simply information:

This fits.

This doesn't.

Yet our experiences can teach us to attach meaning to being right or wrong — to acceptance, rejection, belonging, competence or worth.

When the Past Meets the Present

I experienced this myself.

When I was six years old, I was asked a question in class. I answered, was told I was wrong, and the response from my teacher left me feeling humiliated as the class laughed.

To an adult, it may have seemed like a brief moment.

To a six-year-old, it became something much bigger.

For decades afterwards, being questioned, corrected or put on the spot could create a reaction that seemed to belong to the present.

But it wasn't entirely about the present.

Something from that six-year-old experience was still being carried forward.

I had completed the event.

But I hadn't completed the emotional cycle.

Only recently have I been able to look at that experience without the same pain attached to it.

The event didn't change.

My relationship with the experience did.

I could finally see that the teacher's response wasn't a statement about my worth.

It was one moment in time where another person's experience intersected with mine.

I had carried the emotional meaning as though it belonged to me.

It didn't.

Completing the Cycle

This is what awareness can offer us.

Not the ability to rewrite the past.

But the opportunity to see what we may still be carrying from it.

When a present-day situation creates a reaction that feels bigger than the moment, pause and become curious:

What exactly has been triggered?

What does this remind me of?

What meaning have I attached to this?

Does that meaning still belong to me?

Sometimes, what feels like a reaction to the present is an invitation to understand something from the past that never quite found its ending.

And when we can see the experience rather than become the experience, something changes.

We have space.

And within that space, we have choice.

Life will continue to give us feedback.

Some of it will feel good.

Some of it won't.

We don't have to defend against every uncomfortable response or depend on every positive response to tell us who we are.

Sometimes feedback is simply information.

This fits.

This doesn't.

Neither defines you.

If you recognise yourself in this, perhaps there is a moment or pattern in your own life that still carries more emotional weight than the situation itself would suggest.

That may be worth exploring.

You don't have to relive the experience to understand what you are still carrying.

Sometimes, having the right space to observe it can reveal what has been there all along.

Seeing creates choice.

Choice creates freedom.