Finding More Parts of Myself

  I was certain that after all these years of doing inner-child work—and teaching it—I knew myself pretty well.

But apparently, I don’t.

Today I discovered another very young part of me.

A part who likes to create negative stories.

She expects the worst.

She looks for what could go wrong.

She imagines the bad things that might happen before they ever do.

I think I’m going to call her the Sabotager.

I remember knowing she was there early in my recovery. I worked with her. I thought I understood her.

And yet, somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that she was gone.

She’s not. She lives in my nervous system.

She still expects bad things to happen because that was her experience as a child.

Bad things did happen.

And when you’re a little girl, you don’t have the ability to understand why.

You just learn to expect them.

So she learned to watch.

To anticipate.

To imagine the worst.

Maybe what I’ve called sabotage was actually her attempt to protect me.

If she could warn me first, maybe I wouldn’t be caught off guard.

But there was a cost.

Those experiences crushed her little spirit.

They stole some of her joy.

And perhaps she has been carrying that expectation of danger all these years.

I’m not angry with her.

I’m beginning to understand her.

She isn’t my enemy.

She’s a very young part of me who learned that the world could hurt her.

And now that I’ve found her again, maybe I can teach her something new:

We don’t have to expect the worst anymore.

We can make room for something else.

Maybe even joy.

Finally Reaching a Bottom

 I remember having thoughts of hurting myself as a child and even as an adult, prior to recovery.

The emotional pain I carried from childhood was so loud that I didn’t know how to escape it.

I tried relationships with men.

I tried drugs and alcohol.

I tried everything I could think of to make the pain go away.

But the pain only got worse.

Eventually, I reached a place where I had to admit something I had never really been willing to admit before:

That my choices to relieve the pain only cost me more pain.

And for the first time, I genuinely asked God for help.

I had prayed before.

I would ask God for help, and then the next day I would go right back to doing what I had always done.

But this time was different.

When I hit my knees, something inside me surrendered.

I didn’t know what was going to happen.

I didn’t know how much my life was about to change.

But somewhere deep inside, I knew it was different this time.

I had finally stopped trying to save myself.

And I believe God threw me a lifeline that day.

I just had to be willing to reach for it.

And I did.

When Punishment Becomes Familiar

 Was punishment used as a way to control you as a child?

It definitely was in our home.

Threats were used to make us behave, even though I didn’t have behavior problems.

And unfortunately, when pain and punishment are familiar, we are likely to grow up and  learn how to use them against ourselves.

That’s what I did as an adult.

I was hard on myself.

I criticized myself.

I expected myself to get things right.

Somehow, I carried the voice of punishment inside me long after I had left childhood behind.

It wasn’t until recovery that my life began to take a different direction.

I began to learn something completely new.

Compassion.

Self-love.

Forgiveness.

I began to understand that I didn’t have to punish myself into becoming a better person.

I could love myself into becoming more whole.

What a different way to live.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts recovery has given me:

Learning that I don’t have to hurt myself to grow.

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Choosing Safe People

 It has taken me many years to begin to understand what a safe relationship actually looks like.

Because when you grow up with fear, uncertainty, or emotional instability, you can become accustomed to it.

You learn to read people.

To anticipate.

To adjust.

To work harder.

And sometimes you choose people who feel familiar rather than people who feel safe.

I chose some of the wrong people because, in a strange way, they were what I knew.

I didn’t have a clear understanding of what safety in a relationship felt like.

Through lots of painful, now I know..

Safe doesn’t mean perfect.

It means I can be myself.

I can speak honestly.

I don’t have to walk on eggshells.

Choosing safe people today is part of healing the nervous system.

Today I can discern who is healthy and who is not. 

I feel protective of myself and my little girl.

Where Does My Little Girl Still Live?

 Where does my little girl still live?

To my surprise, I’ve learned that she still lives in my nervous system.

What about you?

Have you ever stopped to wonder where your little girl might still live inside you?

Inner-child work has been amazing for me. It has helped me heal so many things—the shame, the unworthiness, the guilt, and the beliefs I carried about myself for so many years.

But does that mean my little girl is gone?

No.

She’s still here.

She’s the part of me that learned to control things in an attempt to feel safe.

She still has fears that haven’t been completely resolved.

She still watches and worries.

She still wants to know that everything is going to be okay.

And I’m discovering that healing isn’t necessarily about getting rid of her.

Maybe it’s about understanding her more deeply.

Listening to her.

Learning where the fear still lives.

And teaching her, little by little, that she doesn’t have to run my life anymore.

I’m still working on those deep fears.

And perhaps that’s another part of the journey—not fixing my little girl, but helping her discover that she is finally safe enough to let go.