By Dyan Diemer LMT, SEP, BCPP
You are a multifaceted, multilayered being. There is no way around it. Memories and feelings from past happiness and hurt influence how you engage and feel today. For the body and the unconscious it’s all happening now even if something happened then that wasn’t healed, repaired or acknowledged.
I often hear clients or people considering therapy hesitate because “I just don’t want to revisit my childhood. “ Maybe they’ve been in years of therapy only to feel the same way: anxious, easily triggered and unable to move beyond blocks that are hard to define or describe.
I read a quote today that struck me as relevant, "It doesn’t take trust to get from point A to point B, it takes trust to leave point A." Point A is everything up til now, point A has contained within it all the failure, doubt, fear, anxiety and freeze. It represents the experiences of the child and how, if unknown and unhealed, keep you sitting at point A, longing for but never reaching point B. Frustrated, angry, hurt, jealous, blaming....
Even with good enough parents we all missed something and that something hurt. Maybe it was attunement, time, undivided attention. When children feel neglected in some way, they cannot imagine that it has nothing to do with them. In the child’s mind it has everything to do with them. It is their fault. Maybe my caregiver dosen't find me entertaining enough to pay attention to, the TV is more entertaining. I decide to do things that will get their undivided attention. Or maybe I decide to retreat, to stop trying because I just don’t feel good about myself and no one is telling me differently. There are countless scenarios and circumstances that range from emotional neglect to physical abuses, medical and emotional trauma.
Identifying the source of any feeling is going to lead you back in time and it can be done from the safety of the present day. Separating, identifying feelings that remind you of then, building skills and capacity to be in the now allows you to move through blocks, what the trauma therapy world calls freeze. When freeze begins to melt slowly, the vast amounts of energy that have been held in the freeze releases. It is in this release that your body can let go of the experience it has been holding for so long. It doesn't negate the truth of what happened but it releases its hold on you. You can begin to use that energy to move into your present day life and make it much better than it ever was.
The good news is that not all therapy has to go into the stories of your childhood. Somatic or body based therapies can help you feel the feelings of childhood within the context of your adult, resourced self. This is how you learn to 'parent' yourself. You are the only one who knows what happened to you and going back and retrieving that lost hurt little one and giving them the love and support they deserve is the most kind and loving thing you can do.
I'd like to share with you Nancy Napier's website as a resource for all adult's hurt as children. What you struggle with doesn't have to remain.
www.nancynapier.com
For individualized zoom or in-person sessions working with the inner child contact Niseema through her website: www.niseema.com