Superb question.
My adult life has been spent slowly unraveling the tight knots tied in me by my parents and their awful church.
There is a saying that we carry baggage. I had more. I had an entire freight train.
Through years of therapy, I slowly emptied many freight cars of their contents. I unraveled many knots and repaired my rope.
I have a large knot that doesn’t want to come undone. When I face a problem, my first reaction is to blame myself, and in so doing, I use very abusive language to myself. It’s really awful. I’m slowly getting better at combating that old voice, and I’m working diligently in therapy to learn strategies to counter it. I also use medication that helps. Some days, it’s necessary to take medicine and then try again.
I fully believe that our highest calling is to heal ourselves.