The Chameleon Kids: Reclaiming Our Story

The more that I talk about Love lately,
the more Trauma and pain
seem to be part of the conversation, too.
Something inside of me wants to hold space for both.

What I actually want is to hold the versions of us that we cleverly tuck away,
lovingly reclaiming them, giving them voice and helping them be seen,
reorienting them to who we are and who we are becoming
instead of stuffing them down out of sight.

Most days it feels like I have evolved so far past those versions of me.
And for some reason, right now I am realizing that in order to feel truly whole, and to expand into my fullest expression, I know I need to invite them back in. Gently. Intentionally. With so much gratitude and grace.
And maybe you’ve been feeling this way too…?

Maybe you feel like you are trying to lean into or listen deeply for your purpose or calling.
And it feels BIG and audacious, and scary but amazing. Or maybe you are just trying to figure out what that even is.
Either way, when I think about it, it’s like something keeps me looking in the rearview mirror.
And, at least for me, I think it’s time I turn around and face it head on, instead of just seeing the diluted reflections.

It’s on my heart, so we’re just gonna go there today.
And maybe just talking about it will give you permission to go there, too.
Knowing that someone over here sees you. All of you.

Let’s start by saying that it’s not that you can’t have love without pain.
But it occurred to me that experiencing one definitely increases our capacity to hold the other.

This is the duality of our human existence.

Sometimes I think that “opposing forces” offer an incredible mirror, or a way to recognize what we truly want when it sits side-by-side with something we don’t. It helps shift the pendulum back into harmony from the extremes.
It also triggers things like calling and purpose to rise within us.

As I think about my own calling, I’ve been wondering where it stemmed from.
Like, when did I actually realize I even had a calling on my heart…?
For me, it’s kindof always just been in there. 

It’s a deep knowing that I am created for something really big and impactful in the world.
And, if I’m being honest with myself, that feels like a big responsibility.
And that feeling of responsibility doesn’t feel good in my body.
It’s something I have to work at regulating almost daily.

These thoughts always bring me back to my own childhood, when responsibility wasn’t something I chose; it was something imposed. I don’t want to be in THAT energy anymore, where I don’t have a choice.

If you also experienced early childhood trauma (capital or lower case t), you might understand this feeling —this weird relationship with responsibility.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t spend a whole lot of time honoring the journey that created THIS version of me.
I am quite happy to stuff it down and focus on “look at me and who I am today, in spite of that’” not because of it.
And I am realizing that maybe avoiding it or labeling it healed and shoving it back in the basement again
is exactly the energy that keeps me small and at arm's reach from the big purpose work that I know I’m here for in this lifetime.

I think we all find it’s pretty easy sharing the shiny parts of ourselves (or at least the palatable ones). But letting our whole SELF in, requires allowing ALL of the versions of us to the table. In IFS we might call it “parts work” or integration work. And when we can invite in, get curious about, and honor those raw, hurt, tender parts of us, we actually shine brighter. We attract others who may have had a similar experience, and we give them a permission slip to honor and love themselves more wholly.
(or is it holy? Maybe it’s both.)

Truth is, we’re all grown up. We do have a choice now.
And that means we get to reclaim our stories.

The phrase “Chameleon Kid” dropped in for me last week.
It made me laugh because it was actually so perfect —the way they move delicately, deliberately. The way their eyes dart in a million different directions all at once, the way they change colors.
I know I was one of them. And because you are here reading this, maybe you are too…?

Chameleon Kids are the ones who had to grow up too fast.
The ones who learned to read the room before they learned to read a storybook.
They instinctively knew exactly where all of the exits were, and they could feel the emotional temperature shift in the room.
They moved like ninjas across eggshells. Learned intuitively to react quickly to extinguish chaos, even before it happened.
They are incredibly smart, intuitive, and able to adapt to any situation.

Ooof. Yeah. That.

We weren’t just code-switching. We literally felt and shifted the energy in the room.

That’s a really big responsibility for such a small person.
Yet, we were the ones who stepped up.
Partly because we had to. And partly because we knew we could.

Something in us was born strong.

And, with each experience, we built more and more capacity.

The capacity to feel intensity without immediately collapsing.
The capacity to sit in big emotions — ours and other people’s — and stay present. 
The capacity to stabilize a room long before we could understand our power.

And that also cost us.

It cost us play, ease, peace, and the unselfconscious joy of a child who doesn’t have to monitor the room or sit as sentinel guarding, watching, waiting. It cost us our childhood.

Many of us became adults in small bodies.
We carried responsibility that wasn’t ours.
We learned to regulate other people before we learned to love ourselves.
We became the strong ones, the overachievers, the “good girls.” We often amassed knowledge because we thought if just knew enough we’d be able to figure it all out. And we did. We learned to do everything ourselves because everyone assumed we could handle it. And today, we still do. And they continue to assume we are fine.

But here is the duality that I keep coming back to: What cost us something also built something in us.

And, maybe, that thing that’s been building is the way we uncover our magic and start living into that calling on our hearts. Our experiences were never anything anyone should have to carry, especially as a small child. 

And yet, here we are. 

Stronger. Wiser. More intuitive than we sometimes give ourselves credit for.

The Chameleon Kids didn’t just survive. We adapted. We learned how to move. We learned how to hold. We learned how to feel the undercurrent of a room and decide, often without thinking, how to shift it. Or how to leave it.

That ability doesn’t disappear just because we grow up.

It matures.

So…
  What if the early shapeshifting that once kept us safe has actually been refining our intuition this entire time?
  What if the constant scanning that once felt like hypervigilance became discernment in a regulated body?
  What if the emotional depth we developed in chaos became compassion that can sit with others without flinching?
What if our wiring was never random?

Afterall, navigating unpredictability, over and over again, taught our systems how to expand instead of shatter.

I keep coming back to the idea that so many of us have always felt called. Even when life didn’t make sense. Even when we were just trying to get through the day. There was a thread — subtle but steady — that whispered that we were here to create something meaningful in the world.

Sometimes that calling feels heavy. I know it does for me. It can feel like responsibility layered on top of responsibility, and that old pattern of bracing tries to come back online.

But what if the calling isn’t asking us to carry more?
What if it’s asking us to reclaim more of who we already are and rewrite our stories so we don’t have to carry the heaviness of them anymore?

  The capacity.
The intuition.
The emotional range.
The steadiness under pressure.

This is exactly what the world needs more of right now.
I know there is an imprint of chaos in the world right now. I very literally feel the anger, the sadness, the fear.
It feels familiar in my body. And my nervous system recognizes it.

But this time, we are grown-ass adults.
And maybe the very sensitivity that once required us to adapt may be the thing that allows us to lead differently. 

What if our superpower all along was about disrupting the pattern?

What if the reason this moment in history feels activating is because we recognize the terrain — and this time, you are equipped to walk it consciously?

What if THIS is what we’ve been training for all along?

What if this familiar feeling in our bodies is calling us forward as an invitation to step into our wisdom and earned authority?

What if we did step forward, and by doing so, we give others permission to do the same?