The journey to healing is an interesting one. I started on my path a few years ago, and as I make my way through this ongoing process, I often find myself thinking about everything that has brought me to this point.
I was stuck for a long time. Stuck in some kind of limbo between living and existing. I was trying to live, but the barriers of my past kept me from reaching my full potential. I was going through my days in a fog, feigning enthusiasm for things that no longer interested me, investing everything in my children and their activities. I would tell myself that I was a parent now and my main focus was to give my children everything they needed. And I will never, ever regret that because they were my only source of joy for a very long time. But by focusing on what they needed, I didn’t have to pay any attention to what I needed. I was making my way numbingly through each and every day…work, feed the family, take the kids to baseball, evening chores, watch TV and go to bed…day after day after day.
When I look back on that time with the ‘healed perspective’ that I have now, I realize that the numbness I was feeling had a lot to do with the fact that I had spent my entire life in fight or flight mode. I do not remember a time when I ever truly felt safe. No wonder I wasn’t feeling anything. I was trapped in what you might call a ‘pain loop’; not healing, but not knowing how to move forward. And the pain that I was feeling was the pain of my inner child. She had been through so much, but I had never acknowledged her grief. I needed to reach that point where I could stop and admit that I needed to unlearn everything I had learned in my childhood. I needed to be able to tell myself that its ok to have feelings, its ok to talk about problems and its ok to ask for help. I had to review what I had learned about relationships. I had to learn that its ok to be a strong woman; that I didn’t have to be submissive to my male counterpart, and sex is not a bad thing. I wouldn’t be able to feel the grief of my inner child until I was able to recognize that a lot of the things that she had experienced did not have to be accepted as ‘just a part of life.’
So how did I do that? Well…first I learned was that learning new lessons is NOT the difficult part; its UNlearning the old lessons that kicks you in the ass. I had to be willing to go deep. I had to be willing to open up and recognize that the things that happened to me were not ‘normal.’ I had to admit to yourself that maybe the significant people in my life were not always right and didn’t always do the right things for me. That was hard because these were people I loved and respected. But I had to remind myself that realizing that they made mistakes is not disrespecting them; rather, it was giving me the chance to finally respect myself.
I also had to be prepared to be truly honest with myself and look at my life through someone else’s eyes. Journalling was a huge thing for me. I just randomly wrote down everything that came to mind. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t judge it, I just wrote it down. I filled pages and pages with memories from my childhood. My seemingly ‘normal’ childhood. And then I sat down and read them all. But when I read them, I tried to read them as if I were reading my best friend’s journal. How would I feel about these stories if they weren’t about me? What emotions would come through for me if my best friend were telling me about these things that had happened to her? And when I was able to see it from another perspective, I had a ‘holy shit!’ moment. This person I was reading about had been through a lot of pain and unfairness in her life…and for the first time it hit me that this person was me.
The next step to me was to learn to feel. I had to feel the pain of my inner child. I had to cry every tear she never shed; and I had to speak every word she wanted to say but didn’t. I had to feel the anger, and the fear and the loneliness that she buried because she deserved the chance to feel all of it and know that it was real. Just recently I spent almost an entire Breathwork session sobbing because I felt such profound sadness for this little girl. I had to show her the compassion that she had never been shown so that I could let her go. It’s almost like I had to see that damaged inner child as a separate person and allow her to pass on to a better place. She’s been through enough. I mourned her loss as if I were mourning for my closest friend. But at the same time, I felt such a huge sense of relief as I knew it was finally time for her to rest.
The most amazing thing about my inner child though: she is like a Phoenix. She rises from the flames and is reborn as a stronger, fiercer version of her previous self. This version is filled with hope. There is a better, more joyful way to live life and she wants it. She wears the pain and lessons of her previous self like badges of honour; knowing that they are the gifts that have made her the amazing woman that she is today. She is grateful for each and every step she has taken on this journey; and the further down the path she walks the more her vision of a brighter future expands. And she…is me.
Much Love,
Sandy