And very soulfully she sunk into her chair
Thoughts entered her mind but not like before
For this was a different kind of night
Grace was in the air
Peace drowned her being
She never saw such clarity before
For this was a very different kind of night
Nothing like ever before
She was syncing with her soul
For she was coming home
She loved herself forevermore
There were no more demons left to run from
The universe answered her prayers
For she was finally whole
My inner existence used to be a jigsaw puzzle with jagged edges, twisted and isolated pieces that didn't fit together. That was self-hate. I used to know it very well, we were close for many many years. Now, because of my spiritual awakening, I have no idea what that would feel like. But I knew it so very well. The most delightful of goodbyes during my human experience was precisely this inevitable farewell.
And the day arrived when she began to look in the mirror without perturbation. There were no more flaws. Her soul work had paid off. Love arose and everything changed.
Your scars are merely just beautiful bruises, they don't circulate the blood in your veins. Do not allow them to shape your behavior nor consume your being. Beneath those scars lies a light. Keep digging and let it shine.
Sincerely,
Your Kind Heart
There is no more suppressing, avoiding or denying your existence. I am scavenging for you. I am forming craters in my heart as I gently scrape you out. One by one, I will find you. I will dissect you piece by piece as I drain your core. I will draw you out and expose you to the brightest of light. I will excavate you from my being. You've held my heart and soul captive for far too long and I demand them back. Today, I evict you from this heart by looking in.
There is something very powerful and profoundly liberating in seeking your inner child and validating her feelings. During my Oprah & Deepak meditation, Oprah speaks of John Bradshaw, author of Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child. While on Oprah's show, he instructed the audience to conduct an exercise. He told everyone to close their eyes and envision their childhood home, look into the window of that house and find themselves inside the home. He then asked them to reflect on the following questions:
What do you see?
What do you feel?
What is going on with you and your relationships with everyone in the house?
What gift did you possess that others may have overlooked?
What burdens were you made to carry?
What brought you hope?
What made you sad?
In, Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, Bradshaw dives deep into the process of healing your wounded inner child which involves these six steps (paraphrased from Bradshaw as noted on psychcentral.com)
For your wounded inner child to come out of hiding, she must be able to trust that you will be there for her. Your inner child also needs a supportive, non-shaming ally to validate his abandonment, neglect, abuse, and enmeshment. Those are the first essential elements in original pain work.
If you’re still inclined to minimize and/or rationalize the ways in which you were shamed, ignored, or used to nurture your parents, you need now to accept the fact that these things truly wounded your soul. Your parents weren’t bad, they were just wounded kids themselves.
If this is all shocking to you, that’s great, because shock is the beginning of grief.
It’s okay to be angry, even if what was done to you was unintentional. In fact, you have to be angry if you want to heal your wounded inner child. I don’t mean you need to scream and holler (although you might). It’s just okay to be mad about a dirty deal.
I know [my parents] did the best that two wounded adult children could do. But I’m also aware that I was deeply wounded spiritually and that it’s had life-damaging consequences for me. What that means is that I hold us all responsible to stop what we’re doing to ourselves and to others.
After anger comes hurt and sadness. If we were victimized, we must grieve that betrayal. We must also grieve what might’ve been–our dreams and aspirations. We must grieve our unfulfilled developmental needs.
When we grieve for someone who’s died, remorse is sometimes more relevant; for instance, perhaps we wish we’d spent more time with the deceased person. But in grieving childhood abandonment, you must help your wounded inner child see that there was nothing she could’ve done differently. Her pain is about what happened to her; it’s about her.
The deepest core feelings of grief are toxic shame and loneliness. We were shamed by [our parents] abandoning us. We feel we are bad, as if we’re contaminated, and that shame leads to loneliness. Since our inner child feels flawed and defective, she has to cover up her true self with her adapted, false self. She then comes to identify herself by her false self. Her true self remains alone and isolated.
Staying with this last layer of painful feelings is the hardest part of the grief process. “The only way out is through,” we say in therapy. It’s hard to stay at that level of shame and loneliness; but as we embrace these feelings, we come out the other side. We encounter the self that’s been in hiding. You see, because we hid it from others, we hid it from ourselves. In embracing our shame and loneliness, we begin to touch our truest self.
Partial forgiveness is not enough. Your heart is the gatekeeper to happiness and knows if there is partial pain or anguish present. You need to fully forgive if you want to cultivate genuine love in your heart towards yourself and others. If you cannot find this mercy, you haven't forgiven yourself nor made peace with the past. Choose to fully love yourself and practice empathy because you deserve happiness and a life of abundant love. Those who hurt you deserve love, compassion and are worthy of empathy. We know not what they have been through or what their story is, nor the emotional battles they face. Keep in mind that everyone interprets information based on their own experiences. Therefore, we empathize with that reality within our own consciousness when facing situations. With this revelation, we do not devalue the situation itself, but we can choose to uproot and release the anger, pain and shame the situation inflicted upon us. Holding on to the negative and oppressive emotions will only create a blockage in our quest for self-love, inner peace, and transparent self-awareness. Whatever is plaguing your heart, you have to let it go. Reinforce the behavior of forgiveness with compassion as you approach every situation. The situations that you greet with empathy and compassion, whether from the past or present, will assist in manifesting inward gratitude. You are not the victim of your past experiences, this mindset will only deflect you from your personal growth. Rather, you are the product of the collective lessons that have contributed to your spiritual growth and the love and compassion you choose to inject into your scars. The more we practice this system of awareness, the more positive energy we secrete and more light and gratitude will be radiated into the world and ourselves.