You remember the past from the far side of it. That gives the adult version of you an advantage the child never had: you know what survived.
Start with who you are now
Pick a trait that feels deeply built into you now.
Now pick the event you usually blame or credit
Which event gets blamed or credited for making you this way?
Reverse the arrow
Now question the story that this one event created the trait.
What if the event did not create the trait from nothing? What if it strengthened something that was already possible in you?
The spiral
Has life put the same shape in front of you again?
What does that trait give you now?
What does the trait produce now?
Now let the future change the meaning
Ten years later, the same trait becomes one reason your life works.
What happens to the old event then?
The same life, read in two directions
Read forward
Read backward
Born backwards
Once you see the editing, the old event loses its monopoly on the explanation.
The past happened forward. Its story was written later. The child lived the event without knowing who they would become. The adult looks back and gives it causes, lessons and meaning.
Keep one distinction.
Later meaning can change the place an event occupies in your life without proving the event had to happen.