Embracing Your Past Self and Integrating into Wholeness

Self-integration is one of those messy, raw, beautiful journeys that no one can fully prepare you for. It’s about pulling all the threads of who you were, are, and are becoming into a cohesive, loving whole. It’s about learning to accept and even love all those versions of yourself that you may have once tried to hide, push away, or deny. As someone who has been on this adventure for years, I can tell you that this process is anything but linear. 

For me, accepting myself—my birth name, “Eva,” my past mistakes, and my choices—has been a wild, winding journey, full of unexpected turns and deep moments of reflection. But it’s also been necessary. I couldn’t step into who I am now without first turning around and fully embracing who I was then. 

There’s something powerful about looking in the mirror and feeling a sense of genuine love for the person staring back at you. This hasn’t always been the case for me. There was a time when I couldn’t fully see or appreciate myself without attaching judgment to the choices I had made or the personas I had adopted to navigate certain phases of my life.

I spent 13 years identifying as “Alice.” That name became more than just a nickname—it was an identity, a way for me to move through the world when I didn’t feel fully connected to who I was. It stemmed from a high school friend and lover who saw my love for Alice in Wonderland, particularly the darker, grittier version in American McGee’s Alice and its riveting sequel, Alice: Madness Returns. I saw myself in a similar world, where reality bends, and chaos reigns, and where transformation feels both terrifying and inevitable. 

Being Alice served me for a long time. She was bold, edgy, curious, and complex—things I needed to feel at a time when I was learning to navigate relationships, heartbreak, and the labyrinth of young adulthood. She was a guide for me when I needed to be seen differently. And even now, while I no longer go by that nickname, I can look back with appreciation for who Alice was and what she represented for me.

But I’m also in a space now where I love Eva, my birth name, and the woman who has emerged after years of growth, self-discovery, and healing. Eva is breaking molds, shattering old beliefs, and stepping into new vibrations. She’s not bound by the mistakes of the past or by the limiting beliefs that once held her back. And yet, there’s still a piece of Alice inside—still a flicker of that fierce curiosity, that desire to dig deeper, and that love for worlds beyond our own.

What I’ve learned on this journey of self-integration is that we don’t have to reject who we were to fully embrace who we are becoming. We can be both. We can hold all of these identities, all of these experiences, with love. There is no need to draw hard lines between past and present selves when we can recognize that they all contribute to the wholeness of who we are. 

For a long time, I thought I had to erase parts of myself to move forward. I thought certain chapters of my life had to be closed off completely so I could grow. But the truth is, healing isn’t about erasure, denial, or disgust for our old self. It’s about integration. It’s about accepting all the layers of who we are—our mistakes, our victories, our scars, and our triumphs—and allowing them to coexist without judgment.

As I’ve continued down this path of self-forgiveness, I’ve learned that it’s not just about forgiving others for the ways they’ve hurt us. It’s about forgiving ourselves for the ways we hurt ourselves. It’s about letting go of the shame attached to our old patterns and decisions and recognizing that those experiences were necessary for our growth. Every version of ourselves had a purpose, and those past selves deserve as much love and appreciation as the person we are today.

So, if you’re on a similar journey—if you’re working through the layers of who you’ve been and trying to understand who you’re becoming—know this: you are worthy of love, all of you. The past, present, and future versions of yourself are all part of a larger whole. They don’t need to be at odds with each other. Instead, they can weave together to create a rich, multidimensional being—one who is constantly learning, evolving, and growing.

I am both Eva and Alice. I am both past and present. And I love every version of myself that has helped me become who I am today. I hope you can find that same sense of love and acceptance for yourself, too.

Embrace your whole self. Your past doesn’t define you, but it does contribute to the beautiful complexity of who you are. And that’s worth celebrating.