Inner Child Work And Feeling Safe

It seems that I am doing some inner child work lately. As I talked about in recent articles, my inner child does not feel safe right now. The only reason that I can come up with is writing my book has opened her up to all kinds of fears. Fear of being exposed to the world, on a bigger scale, as an incest survivor; breaking the bonds of silence in a new, bigger way; being vulnerable to so many strangers; being open to recalling new memories. All of it feels overwhelming to her. I can feel her fear and see her shaking.  I wonder if her fear is what is causing my headaches, in an effort to get me to stop writing but I am not going to do that. I can acknowledge her fears but I won't give in to them. If I gave into fear, I would never have left home when I did at 19. I would have never broken the silence of incest. I would never had told my dad that he wasn't safe to be in my life or around my children. I would never have written the first blog article or talked on the first radio program several years ago.

I see how far I have come today and I am proud of the courage that I have. I will keep facing my fears as they come up and I will assure my inner child that she is safe. I will pay attention to what her feelings tell me. And I will continue to write.

I have decided that something that might help is to go back and reread the book Recovery of Your Inner Child: The highly acclaimed method for liberating your inner self written by Lucia Capacchione, Ph. D., Published by Simon & Schuster, New York, NY: 1991.  This book taught me the importance of writing with my non-dominant hand in order to give my inner child a voice. I haven't done any of that kind of writing in many years. Maybe that will give me some answers to what is going on right now rather than me just guessing.

One thing that I learned is that the inner child is the keeper of my creativity. I realized recently that it was her fear that was blocking me from writing. When I faced that fear, the words started to flow again.

Another book that helped me with inner child work is an affirmations book that I have recently shared from, here in my blog. The book is called Affirmations For The Inner Child written by Rokelle Lerner. This book takes you throughout the year with an affirmation to be read for each day of the year.  I wanted to share the affirmation with you from March 3 on Safety.

"It is safe for my inner child to emerge.

The child within runs and hides when someone wants to come close. He lets himself be seen only for a short time, then gets frightened and runs away to hide again. He wants so much to be loved, to play, to experience the goodness of life. But life is too scary. Indeed, life has never been safe for him.

It is time to make life safe for my inner child and I have the power to create a safe haven. Safety brings freedom not only to accept and love myself but also to love others.

As I concentrate on making a safe haven for my inner child, I will be aware of my friends, old and new. I will choose friends who are emotionally healthy or moving on the journey toward wholeness. It is within the loving bonds of friendship that my inner child can come out and learn to feel safe."

Another friend of mine who is working with inner child issues is Mary Graziano. I want to share the link to one of her blog posts called "Memories Still Do Hurt."
 
http://nippercats.blogspot.com/2014/03/inner-child-is-hurting.html

I hope that all of you are having a good week. Keep telling yourself that Spring is just around the corner. I think most of us are tired of old man Winter.
Patricia

 

Sharing Our Stories And Healing From Incest - Does It Get Easier?

I am going to start this blog post with a quote from one of my favorite authors/guest speakers today in the world of healing resources.

"When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else."
                           ----Iyanla Vanzant

A special online friend of mine, Debra Estep, shared this quote with me a few days ago with the words:

"Patricia ... To you, the one who stands out there sharing bringing 'healing' to others"

Debra's words brought such joy to my heart, as well as tears to my eyes, when I read them. Debra has been one of my supporters almost from the very beginning of my blog. She and I were introduced to each other through our mutual friend Slade Roberson who inspired me to start a blog in the first place. I appreciate the support of these two friends who have watched me struggle and grow comfortable here with sharing my story and reaching out to other survivors. Their encouragement is always appreciated. I love you both, my friends.

Someone asked me recently, "Does it get easier?"

Sharing our stories gets easier as you do it. Healing in itself gets easier with work and with time. And that said, each time a new issue comes up for me, I still feel some of the old pain but not with the intensity of in the beginning. An issue doesn't take the months to get through that it once did. Today an issue is usually worked through in a short amount of time. The new issue may take hours or even a few days to a week depending upon how much time and effort I put into working through it. The feelings around the issue and the issue itself don't take up my entire life like it did when I was just starting to heal.

Healing isn't about taking short cuts. I don't know of any easy ways to get rid of the pain. You have to go through the feelings, many of which were stuffed inside and numbed by this addiction or that one. Healing is the most painful thing you will probably ever do but you will find sunshine and a good life on the other side. Be patient and kind with yourself. Stop resisting your own pain. Quit resisting your own healing. You don't have to beat yourself up for not moving as fast as those inner voices say you have to. You can quiet those voices. Like your abusers, they are lying to you.

As you go through your day, look for the little things that you can be grateful for - the little wonders that pass through your day, the moments of silence when you can feel the presence of God in your life, the awesomeness of nature and how it helps to center you in the middle of some of the chaos that working on healing creates. Find the gift of a new awareness that you gained today as you let go of the lies. You will always find the gift at the end of the lesson if you take the time to look for them. Did you find a new piece of yourself today to add to the puzzle that is you? You won't see it if you move forward with your eyes closed. Be open to whatever experience comes your way today. You may see yourself as broken and you can always be mended. Mended is always stronger than the original.

In my experience, you have to go through the feelings in order to heal and that hurts most of the time. You have to feel the grief for all of the losses of the abused child that you were. You have the strength to get through it, just one day at a time. My anger was the first feeling that I became aware of. As I looked closer at the anger and rage, I found that they were both often just cover-ups for more hurt. The sadness that has been such a part of my being since I was a little girl was because of all of the hurt and the grief that she carried inside. As I learned to feel and learned to love myself, I was able to work through and then let go of much of that hurt and grief. The sadness lifted and joy returned. I say returned because children are naturally full of joy when they are born. If you don't believe me, just watch a baby laugh. See if you can touch that joy inside of yourself. It may be hidden beneath the hurt and sadness of the abuse. The joy is still there waiting for you to reach in and pull it out. Find something in your day to make you laugh. Think of something that you really like to do and do it.

Taking breaks from healing are absolutely necessary. The work of healing is hard. You can feel really overwhelmed at times. You can lose sight of the good things in your life. Start a hobby that you really like doing. Your inner child will love the opportunity to play. She/He will reward you with the joy that will come bubbling up unexpectedly when what you are doing connects with that well of creativity inside of you.

Sometimes you need to just sit and watch a child play. Watch a movie that you know will make you laugh and sometimes a movie that will make you cry, if that is what your heart needs at the moment. Tears are healing too. Go out for coffee with a friend. Take your pet for a walk. Get out in nature.

Then once you feel better, go back to the hard, but rewarding, work of healing you. Because you took a break, you will be better able to handle tomorrow and whatever issues the day brings to you. You are worth it. Some day, you won't hurt as much. You will get through today. One day at a time. Instead of looking at how much work you have left, look back at how far you have come. Be proud of yourself. Reward yourself for the small accomplishments you make. Take a moment to enjoy the sunshine in your life. The world isn't only clouds but you know what? Some of the most beautiful days I have ever seen were just full of clouds. Look at how the sun plays and creates such beauty out of the clouds. Clouds are much more interesting than just a clear, blue sky. So is your life.
Patricia

Boundaries, Detachment And Self-Worth

"I can be emotionally separate and still be caring.

I will not take on the anger, fear or moodiness of those around me today.

In my dysfunctional family, no one encouraged me to be a separate individual. When my parents were angry or depressed, I was made to feel it was my fault. I was expected to rescue them emotionally. Well, taking on the rescuer role didn't work in childhood and it hasn't worked in my adult life either. Because the source of others' unhappiness is inside them, nothing I can do will lift it from them. My detachment doesn't mean I don't care about their pain; it means that I know I cannot save them from their own moods.

I will honor my individuality today by refusing to take on the negative emotions of those around me."

From the book Affirmations For The Inner Child, written by Rokelle Lerner, Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, Florida: 1990, 2010, From the page February 28 - Boundaries.


I wanted to share this with you because it describes my childhood so well and one of my roles in my dysfunctional family. I was the protector of my mother's feelings from the age of three when I remember assigning myself that role.

Family caretaker for everyone was another of my roles. Some good things came out of my caretaker role. I am a responsible adult who cares about people in my family, friends and about society in general. One of the not so good things that came out of that role was that I became a people pleaser and lost myself in the deal. I was so busy taking care of everyone else that I often felt overly tired, overwhelmed and angry. I wasn't allowed to have a childhood. I was too busy taking care of my family and their needs.

I became bossy as the oldest child with two younger siblings who were my responsibility. If they got into trouble, it was my fault. I should have kept them out of trouble.When I learned about detachment, I was able to let go of what wasn't my responsibility. I didn't have all of the answers for my siblings.

I knew how to fix everything and everybody. That was the illusion I tried to convince myself and everyone else was true because I had to earn your love. If I did enough you would love me. And I had to do everything perfectly so that no one could criticize me like both of my parents did when I was struggling to be a child with too much responsibility.

I am a terrible housekeeper today, partly because my inner child is in open rebellion about all the housework that I did as a child with nobody teaching me how to do any of it. The only thing I can tell you my mother taught me how to do in all those childhood years was when I was 11 years old, she taught me how to make biscuits. From then on making biscuits became my job in the evenings during the week and two times a day on weekends and in the Summer months until I left home at age 19. Everything else I learned how to do by experimenting with trial and error. I was told to do a chore without anyone taking the time to show me how except what I learned to do in Home Economics in school in the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades.

I also realized again this week, that I still feel some shame in this area when it comes to inviting people into my home. I just don't know how to change this. I know it shouldn't matter what other people think and still in this area I am afraid of being criticized. My housework was never good enough for my dad when I was a child. I would get called stupid and be told I was as slow as grandma or as slow as Christmas and generally made to not feel good enough. This may seem small to some people but it is still a big issue for me.

Along with shame over being a bad housekeeper, I feel fearful of having others in my home right now. I recently told my husband that may be because of the writing that I am doing right now - going deeper into more layers with my issues. I just don't want anyone here but me and Daniel. I guess with this writing, I feel exposed which doesn't make a lot of sense because I have been writing for this blog for over six years now. I need my space to be safe. With Daniel and I, I do feel safe.

I feel bad because an online friend is visiting my town this weekend. He is a guest speaker at one of the area churches. I haven't extended an invitation for him to stay with Daniel and I. I am going to see him at the church on Sunday. This will be the first time that we will meet face to face. He is someone that I have enjoyed knowing for almost the entire time I have been a blogger. I am not afraid of him. The fear is from deep inside of me. The shame is still there inside my inner child. I am not sure how to convince her to let go of it, if she can let go of it at this stage in my life. I am not giving up. Knowing me, I will probably give him a copy of this post to read since it explains my feelings pretty good. This is my issue, not his. I am not done working though it yet. I don't know if I ever will finish with this one. I won't give up on my inner child or on me. Thanks for reading and having patience with me.
Patricia

Unresolved Anger And Low Self-Esteem

I know February 26 has already come and gone but I wanted to share this affirmation from that day with you. The information reminds me of how I used to be before realizing that I had to feel my anger in order to heal. What I didn't know until much later was that, as the affirmation below says, anger that we stuff, deny and don't express can harm us. We think we are burying the anger deep inside of us but the feelings refuse to stay buried. Mine came out as rage when someone said or did something to set me off. Let me know what this affirmation says to you.

"February 26
Unresolved anger is often the hidden source of low self-esteem.
                                                               ---Bill Bartlow

What we don't see, we can't understand. What we don't understand, we can't influence. And when that blind spot relates to the source of our self-esteem, the results can be devastating.

Hurt that has been denied, mislabeled, or unrecognized still exists, no matter how long ago we were wounded. In fact, such hurt---that is the hard core of all anger---is all the more potent for not being recognized or for being called something else. The trouble with burying something alive is that it will devour us from the inside. Buried does not necessarily mean dead.

At the core of much low self-esteem is just such a hard knot of anger. Anger over the way we were treated as children, rights that were denied, kindnesses that should have been there for us but were not. Love, encouragement, support, perhaps even the basic safety that everyone has a right to---none of these were to be had. Buried, that collection of hurts turned into anger and seeped out sideways. Sometimes the seeping turns into a flood. Often it becomes simply a prevailing state of being---we are just always angry, always hostile, always operating with a short fuse. That doesn't make us very attractive people. To say the least, we're not fun to be with. And so the anger over our long-ago hurt generates loneliness and rejection even today. Lest our tomorrows be affected as well, let us own up to our buried anger.

Hidden anger can kill me. I must recognize it and address it."

From the book Believing In Myself: Daily Meditations for Healing and Building Self-Esteem written by Earnie Larsen & Carol Hegarty, A Fireside Book Published by Simon & Schuster: New York, NY. 1991.

Healing From Incest Vs. Being Stuck In The Past

To often a person who is not a survivor of child sexual abuse looks at a struggling survivor and thinks she/he is stuck in the past. They may even voice their judgments to the survivor and tell them to just get over it or just let it be, it is in the past. Unknown to the person looking on, there is a difference between being a victim still stuck in the past with no apparent way to get out of the pain and a survivor who is revisiting the past in order to heal and work their way through the feelings of the past. In order to heal, especially if you were like me and still in denial that the past was affecting me, you do have to visit the past, look at it really hard and bring awareness that you still hurt because of the past. You still grieve because of the past. All childhood abuse can still hurt badly when you are an adult until you are ready to face it and work through it. Talking about your issues from the past in order to heal from it can look, to an outsider, like you are stuck in the past, especially when you break the silence of abuse and the words flow out of you like water from a broken dam. I had held in the words of abuse from at least age three until I was 38. That is 35 years of words and feelings that had to get out in order to heal.

Some things can be healed fast and you no longer need to talk about them. Incest isn't one of those things that heals fast. The only time I was stuck in the past was when I was still denying it was hurting me. As long as a survivor is taking steps forward, they are healing. It is only when we stand still and refuse to move forward, when we refuse to heal and feel, that we become victims again. Some people do wallow in the attention that they get and refuse to move forward. They could be said to be stuck in the past.

Most survivors are working hard to move forward. Please don't label a survivor as stuck in the past just because you hear them talking over and over again about their abuse. Stop and listen and see if they are moving forward or standing still. Do they just want sympathy or do they want your support and maybe some validation because they are learning to validate themselves. Do they need your love while they are learning to love themselves. I talked for 10 years in 12-Step meetings and I was also writing and looking inward and learning to feel the hurt so that I could release it. Don't judge a person as stuck when you haven't been through their hurt and you haven't walked down their path with them. You have no idea what it feels like to be a survivor of incest unless you too are an incest survivor.

Now I want to talk to the survivors who are reading this article. When you get really really tired of going through the pain of healing, it is okay to take small breaks in your day and do something else that makes you feel good about being you. Do something that makes you laugh out loud. Listen to yourself. Doesn't that feel good. Ask someone for a hug. Talk to someone that you know will really listen and validate what you are feeling. That isn't everyone. Not everyone can be trusted with your vulnerability. Sharing your feelings is always good, as long as the person you share with is a safe person.

 See the hurting little girl or little boy inside of you and sit with them in your mind and ask them if they would like a hug. If it is the first time you have talked with your inner child, don't feel rejected if she/he says no. It takes time to win the trust of your inner child. If you are like I was, for so many years, you totally ignored her and her pain. You may have even blamed her for the pain. Keep trying and over time she/he will come and climb into you lap for a hug. Love yourself and your inner child through the hurt. Forgive yourself for blaming your inner child and ask for her/his forgiveness.

Sit down with the quiet inside of you and talk to God. Ask for his help and guidance. Ask for a sign that you are going the right way. Close your eyes and imagine God and your personal angels hugging you tight. Ask God for the strength that you need to get through the hard times. Don't forget to thank God for the good times when they come. None of us is really alone. You just have to remember to talk to God. He is always there.

Now that you are feeling better, get back to work. One day there won't be as much work to do. One day you will see that you are moving from survivor to thriver. I know if I can do it, so can you, my friend. I love you all. Now please love yourself as well.
Patricia

Incest - From A Pain-filled Past To Thriving

"We cannot change a pain-filled past. What we can do is change how it affects us. The past has already been written, but we have the power to write the future based on self-support and respect. We can write a future full of strength, peace, wealth, and love. All we have to do is what is right now."     
                                                                                        ---Iyanla Vanzant

Some parts of my journey have been painful in the extreme. Sometimes the journey has been exciting, filled with tears and laughter, blessed with earth angels and friends who have guided me and given me a resting place when I got tired. My journey isn't over yet. When I get tired, I take a break and then move forward again after a brief stop. I have learned to play and to love myself and my life whatever comes into it, even the struggle which tests what I have learned and how I define myself in the present moment. I love the search for knowledge and the wisdom that comes from experience. I love myself. I love who I have become and who I will be tomorrow. I would not be the person I am today without the struggles and incest of past years and the healing path that I chose to go down.

Everyone has the ability to change what they don't like about themselves. But no one has the right or responsibility to try to change another person. You can only change yourself. Even in a relationship, the only person you can change is yourself. I have learned to focus on my part of the relationship and let my husband focus on his. The strange thing is that once you change yourself, the other person changes too or they leave. I have seen it happen over and over again. If another person's decisions affect you negatively, you can choose to stay or to leave. If you expect them to change just because you want them to, you are fooling yourself. Until they want to change, they will not, no matter how much you want them to. Relationships are mirrors for each of the partners. The mirror shows what is good and also what you want to change about yourself. What I have learned is that in my connection to you, I learn more about myself.

I see myself as moving beyond survivor to becoming a thriver. Thriver is a new word that my computer doesn't accept yet as a true word. I think survivors who are beginning to see joy and peace come back into their lives maybe for the first time have started to use the word thriver to destinquish between being a survivor which is the stage where you leave your victim role behind and you have a lot of healing still to do. Today I have love and laughter in my life and I also have peace and happiness coming into my heart and mind. Happiness doesn't depend upon my circumstances. It depends upon my attitude and how I look at my life. Today instead of struggles, I see challenges. Instead of hurt and sadness, I see opportunities for growth. I have many moments of laughter in my life and in my home. I am not so overly serious as I once was. There is light in my world, even on the darkest days. To me that is the definition of a thriver. And there is always room for more good in my world. What stage are you at in your journey?
Patricia

Birthdays And Valentine's Day

February 12 was the birthday of my mother and February 14 was the birthday of one of my abusers, in addition to being Valentine's Day. Most years those dates don't bring me any hurtful feelings to deal with. This year, on February 1, I was aware that both of those dates were coming up soon. The suspense was building all through the days up till then.

I have had dreams also. I wouldn't call them nightmares but I do remember the confusion and I remembered the details of each of them when I would wake up from them each morning of the week leading up to those two days. Without going into those details which are now fading from my memory, what I brought out of each of those dreams was a feeling of being lost and out of control of what was going on in the dreams. One of them even had my uncle in the dream sitting in a living room chair with a dead snake with an irridescent blue stripe down its back in front of him in a round hole in the floor as I was sitting on the floor beside his chair. I don't remember this uncle ever being in my dreams before. Sometimes my mother is in my dreams but she wasn't in this one. I know from a dream class that snake can represent sexuality and spirituality both, energy wise. I rarely see colors in my dream so I know that is important too but I don't know why unless blue is a healing color. I know that my uncle and my dad both damaged my sexuality with the rapes of incest which has lasting scars to this day. Also my trust in God was dented for awhile but that came back alive even stronger for me.

Dream books can only help so much with interpreting our dreams because symbols and their meaning belong to us individually. I would guess my uncle was in the dream and there were children in the dream with us because of the birthday date that was coming up. There was more to the dream but it doesn't pertain to this discussion of those two birthdays.

Only in the past year or two have I started to talk about my uncle as an abuser. I dealt with the abuse from my dad first because it was the most damaging and longer lasting. I guess I hoped by dealing with the abuse from my dad that the abuse from my uncle would be taken care of too. Most people assume that this uncle was a brother of my dad and he was not. He was one of my mother's brothers. All of the other brothers of my mother I loved but this one always scared me even at a young age. One of my earliest memories is of him walking me through the night from my grandmother's house to my parents' house one dark night. I was walking but not in school yet. I would guess from the image in my mind that I was around three or four years old. What I remember about that night was walking side by side and him getting upset with me because I wouldn't make up my mind if I wanted to go home or stay with my grandmother.

I loved my grandmother. She took me in at the age of two when I had whooping cough and the doctor said I couldn't stay at home because if my baby brother got it he would die. I believe that early time with my grandmother is why I never fit in that well with my family of origin and everyone always told me I was different. She gave me my sense of values.

Back to that night, I remember walking with my uncle down the dirt road and being in love with the beauty of the night. It was apparently Summer time because it was a warm, star filled night. The night time sky was awe inspiring, so unlike most three year olds, I was quiet and just enjoying the night. I felt safe in the night. Sometime not long after that I learned to fear the night. I am not sure exactly when my love of the night left me but it did.

With these two dates in February, this year, I felt some grief. I have felt the grief many times. I have learned to feel it, sit with it and then let it go. I used to live with the heaviness of grief as a background feeling that was always there, like the headaches that I have had most of my life. When I started healing and opened the doors to talking about incest and my issues, I could finally give the grief a name and acknowledge it for what it was. It stayed around for awhile until I worked through all of it. I cried at 12-Step meeting for a year once the feelings returned. Today, when an issues comes back up to be healed some more, I experience a day or two of grief and then it leaves. I feel it as the color gray and a heaviness that leaves my mind and body after about two days.

Back on February 5, I caught a brief glimpse of something else during the time that I was listening to a radio program hosted by my Advocate friend Patricia McKnight (Trish) on her Wednesday night program called Survivors World. This particular program was called "Survivors World - Its Teen Night w/ Justice K."  Justice is a teenaged friend of mine who is such a courageous young woman who shares her story of being sexually abused by one of her trusted teachers at the high school that she used to attend. He is now serving time in jail. Because of Justice's courage in turning him in, others are not being abused by him in his classroom. I will put the link to this radio program at the end of the page for anyone who wants to listen to this courageous 18-year-old tell her story.

At an early point during listening to Justice and Trish talking and also reading and responding to comments in the chat room of the program, for just an instant, something inside of me opened up in my mind's eye. All I could see was blackness with a feeling of a lot of hurt for what was done to me as a child. I felt hurt so intense that I had to shut it down. I had to leave the program because my headache just got so bad that I was feeling nauseous too. I went and took a pain pill and laid down for about three hours after that. I didn't actually go to sleep but I just had to be still and quiet. I don't know if this was old stuff coming back up or if it is possibly some of the memories that I don't have getting ready to present themselves. Just for a second, I also felt an anger and disgust for the people that hurt me and for those who didn't protect me. I felt deep sorry for the child that I was back then and also sorrow for the child that I would no longer become.  Except in one of my paintings on anger, I have not seen this blackness before. In my painting, the darkness is full of rage and hurt. The intensity of this blackness is not anything I have felt before. I will remain open to it coming back and letting me see and feel a little more. I hope this is making sense to you.

Before I close, I want to also share with you that I was one of the call-in-guests on Friday, February 14 on Valentine's Day to Butterfly Dreams Radio and Survivors World for Patricia McKnight's program called "Survivors World - Let's talk about LOVE." The link is also below under Related Links. I shared a little bit about what it has been like for my husband and me to live and love through the years of me healing from incest. I also had one ah-ha moment for myself during the show. I shared it with my husband after the program. It probably won't be obvious to you as you listen but it is more for me to process and think about and decide how I feel about it.
Patricia

Related Links:

Survivors World - Its Teen Night w/ Justice K. @
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2014/02/06/survivors-world--its-teen-night-w-justice-k

Survivors World - Let's talk about LOVE @
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2014/02/15/survivors-world--lets-talk-about-love