Our past shapes who we are and what we do

It’s a pretty weird thing sitting in a room with practically a stranger and divulging all our past. As I pondered writing about my childhood in depth, which is what I shared in my initial consultation with my therapist, I had a huge ‘Ah ha moment.’ As the cogs of my brain started to slowly turn, I began to connect the dots on something it’s taken me twenty eight years to realise. 

It was earlier in the day that I had been meeting with the branding agency I’m working with to do a complete Authentic Alex branding overhaul. This was the meeting where they’d show me their initial concepts to give me a flavour of all the directions they’d taken my brief in. I was both excited and nervous. I glanced at one after another “yes, no, looks like an Inca symbol, looks like a bank, yes, looks like a puzzle, maybe, no” and then, bang. I felt a visceral reaction in my gut and I just knew that was the one! I didn’t need to see anything else, internally my mind and body had decided for me, for a reason I’d come to realise later on in the evening.

It was by no coincidence that out of thirty concepts they shared with me, the one with an arrow like symbol was the chosen one. Now to some an arrow may not mean a lot but I realised yesterday evening that there was much more to this arrow than meets the eye. That to me it wasn’t just an arrow it was so much more. You see forward thinking, vision and strategy is something I’ve been developing since I was a child. Yes, I repeat I’ve been developing strategy, vision and forward thinking since I was a child and although it sounds really weird I’m going to explain how and why these skills have transcended from my childhood into my working life, or life full stop. 

You see my childhood was a hard one, I mean really really hard. It involved a shedload of childhood trauma, numerous counts of abandonment from literally every key figure in my life, psychological abuse to name a few. I knew this, this is in fact my second time in therapy but I think I had a bit of a shock to my system regardless when my therapist said “you’ve experienced trauma more than the average person”. Whilst I know that I don’t think I still even realise how much shit I went through and how much that shit has affected me, pardon my French. In a nutshell, I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in survival mode.

I was constantly navigating through my fight, flight, freeze response and there was one thing that got me through it, thinking about the future. The future meant knowing I could get to the next day, the future meant there was a better life at some point, the future meant hope. At the time it was almost just a habit but with time I became obsessed, refining and perfecting my visioning, strategizing, planning and forward thinking. 

“Direction was my hope and getting up again was my lifeline“ 

Even after I fell over, over and over again, I had to learn to get up on my own and keep getting up after every fall. I didn’t do anything more in my life than get back up and move forward. That’s why it underpins everything I do whether talking about mental health, branding or career development, it's about getting back up and moving forward.

In a conversation this week with my partner who was reflecting back to me, “that’s what you’re really good at, it’s showing people where they can get to and how. It’s looking into their future even when they can’t see that” and I’d add “believing they can get there even if they don't”. That conversation had been off the back of a conversation I was having with our flat mate about long term relationships and the length of converting clients, the long game. I perfected the art of the long run because I didn’t have a choice, my short runs were arduous, it involved constant blood, sweat and tears but if I just continued looking into the horizon everything would be okay. 

Our society favours the short runs, the quick wins, the easy work. We’ve lost the capacity of seeing into the horizon. Whilst I never intended to mention what I do for a living in these blogs, it is inevitable. Whether we have thought about it or not, what we do will have something tied into your childhood. Whilst this may sound a bit like the story of my new branding it is in fact a reflection of my past. Everything is tied in, everything has a link, everything is connected and the arrow puts a bow on it all because our past however hard it is, is a gift. 

With love and care,

Authentic Alex x

I would love to know what skill you cultivated as a child whether in a good or bad environment and how you use it today?  

If you like what you read please subscribe to continue being notified of my online weekly journal. If you have any questions please feel free to drop them in the comments and if you think this might be helpful for someone that you know please do share. The more we talk about mental health, the less of a stigma it has.

About Me: Hi I’m Alex, also known as #AuthenticAlex on LinkedIn. In February 2017 I shared my quarter life crisis and subsequent early retirement from the corporate underworld. Over the space of a few months I started to share my mental health experiences and adversities and in 2017 & 2018 I was named LinkedIn Top Voice UK. 

When I’m not trying to disrupt our social norms by destigmatising issues in society like depression, social mobility, miscarriage to name a few, I’m usually on stage talking about all things Mental Health and Adversity, coaching people on sharing their story and building their Thought Leadership on LinkedIn. You can follow more of my musings and antics on Instagram @imauthenticalex.