The Art of Growing Up
On what it means to own our reality
“Perspective", an old illustration from 2020 when I first started doing digital art
Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time together with children. Since June of last year, we’ve been going down to Boon Lay to do community mural painting with the kids of the neighborhood. It’s interesting to be around kids - they say what they think without second guessing it, they play with unrestrained joy, and they have not yet been tainted by the “real world” and the very sobering limitations of money, power, etc. They also do not hesitate to add a couple of smiley faces onto walls not meant to be painted when I’m not looking, or flick small bits of paint onto the ceiling. But at the end of the day, I wouldn’t trade those memories of pure chaos for anything, even if it meant that the end result of the painting looked more “human” than I had initially planned.
Spending time with kids, has got me thinking a lot about the notion of child-like innocence and joy, and what it means to “return” to that state. After a rather turbulent first 6 months of the year, including dropping out of school, being let go from a job, breaking my bond, accidentally joining a cult (yes, that happened. Long story), and going back to Taiwan for a while, I was ready to spend the second half of the year going on a (more peaceful) journey of self-discovery. Trying to figure out who I was before the world told me who I should be. And that inevitably led me back to non-culty therapy (Phew!) and borrowing psychology books from the library in order to reflect on my own childhood.
The first step in healing, is to examine the shit - the unattended losses and heartbreaks that have occurred from our childhood up until the present day. The thing was though, I had revisited these heartbreaks and losses countless times over the last few weeks, trying to find answers for what happened, and why. The brain fog had been cleared, the carpet removed, the shit revealed, and accepted.
But then, what do I do with it? How do I prevent myself from being hurt again, especially when I know that that’s a part of life? I can’t change the people and the systems around me so I’ll never be mistreated or traumatized again. That’s just not realistic, and certainly guaranteed (even if it’s true that they should change). Am I just going to be angry at the climate crisis and capitalism for the rest of my life? Feeling betrayed by those I thought were on my side? Blaming other people for how I turned out and the mistakes I eventually made?
I still felt like I was stuck in the past somehow. Because part of me knew that those were valid reasons to feel angry and betrayed - so…what’s there to resolve? So I dug further. And, as I was learnt from therapy, everyone comes with a wounded child and a wise adult.
The wounded child’s feelings are valid. Because when these heartbreaks and losses happened, the child was not necessarily taught the coping mechanisms in order to deal with those fresh negative emotions healthily. We may have been taught to suppress them instead, or perhaps we learnt to express them in unhealthy ways by observing the people around us. I know that I avoided anger for years, because I saw how dangerous it could be, only for it to simmer and bubble up in other places. Some people turn to drugs, alcohol, social media, busyness, social status, fame, food. Or even develop an insatiable need to solve everyone else’s problems in order avoid their own, the list goes on. The wounded child is helpless, and passive to the things that are happening to them.
But as we grow up, we also gain responsibility, and with that, power. We are no longer in the same situation that we were in when we were young. And yet, if we don’t address the wounds that we incurred over the years, that part of ourselves will be frozen in that mental age, and react aggressively whenever those wounds brush up against similar situations that caused them in the first place (a.k.a., triggers).
The key to healing, is to start taking responsibility. Which was, not the answer I was expecting to find. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
When responsibility lies outside of ourselves - let’s say, our parents, our significant other, our friends, the government, the system, etc. - power also lies outside of ourselves. This can lead to us feeling more and more hopeless, like we’re sitting with a pile of problems that can’t be solved. I’ve been there, a lot. For a long time I felt like I was a problem that couldn’t be solved. Heck, there were a few times when I started to wonder if God was in His right mind to create a messed up world like this. Which is an extremely, extremely dangerous and scary place to be.
But when we start sitting with issues long enough for them to be solved, we start gaining confidence in ourselves. As I learnt lately, the problems that we don’t solve will always be there until we solve them. If I have a habit of comparing myself to others, then let’s start by replacing mindless scrolling on social media with another equally stimulating but healthy activities. Making sure we switch our mobile plan so we’re not bursting our data every month and paying extra. Looking at different ways we can build a better relationship with our parents. Making sure we’re catching ourselves in our spirals so we’re not relying on other people to catch it for us. Speaking up about our needs and not waiting for other people to hopefully realise what they are. Asking for clarification instead of waiting on other people to further explain. Setting boundaries so we don’t become unjustifiably angry later on when they are unintentionally crossed.
This by no means means that we need to become this super self-reliant, self-cleansing machine, because that’s not possible. But trying our best everyday to own our choices means that power returns back to us. It teaches us that we’re capable of learning from mistakes, and creating the life that we want. The wounded child understands that these wounds are not forever, and becomes more emotionally resilient when other triggers occur. The wise adult actively seeks healthier coping mechanisms for when similar situations occur. Slowly, the wounded child and the wise adult, become more and more connected to each other, as each heartbreak is solved and becomes a portal into a more authentic layer of ourselves.
I used to think healing was an act of returning to the innocence and joy that we had as a child. But I think that’s not quite right. We will never be shiny, new and untainted by the world ever again. But what we have now is an innocence and joy that is even more precious than before, because we’ve had to fight for it. It was not handed to us on the day we were born. We’ve had to line up all the broken pieces, see where everything fits, and solder them together with lines of powdered gold. We may not be new ever again, but we now have a beautiful story to tell.
When we get into a fight with our friends, and manage to solve that conflict, we end up achieving a harmony that’s higher than before. We understand each other more, and gain information about how to manage the next conflict. Similarly, when we develop conflicts within ourselves, and then break through them, we achieve higher harmonies within ourselves. Heartbreak, loss, trauma, conflict, these inevitable things are what underpins the world that we are in, no matter when or where we are born. These are all the things that make us universally human, but also, opportunities for growth.
Growing up is not the number of years we’ve lived on this planet. It’s not 16, 18 or 21. Growing up takes work. Lots of hard, messy, gentle, compassionate work. It’s learning never to place my peace in things that are out of my control. It’s learning that I have always been enough, and to walk in step with the present. It’s learning that I have a lot more power to shape my reality than I thought I had.
And the best lesson of all, learning that there is no reason why that innocence and unrestrained joy, should only remain in childhood. And that we have every right, and all the power, to reclaim that light that was inside us all along.