Conversations with my inner child

Notes from ceremonial integration - - - 

I went this past weekend to do some healing. Deep inner work that brings light to those parts of my being that need my care, attention, and love. If you have started reading this, please promise me you will finish. Even if you don’t completely understand. Even if it brings more questions than answers. Promise me that you will read it mindfully and take in every word. Each word is in such need of being seen and taken in, its all part of the healing process. Not just for me but for those who also identify with it all and haven’t found their voice in putting it down. That is why I must write it. Even though it feels impossibly vulnerable; it’s about me and not about me all at once…so, I have committed to birthing it to be taken in. If you cannot make that promise, please just put it down. Carefully, if you can, please. Gracefully walk away and know that it just wasn’t for you. That I harbor no ill-will if you cannot take it all in and that I love you just the same if you need to take your exit. It’s ok. It’s all perfect. 

I went into this healing weekend with my own agenda. I didn’t even realize I had one with me. I swore I checked all my pockets and left all agendas behind. However, one was tucked safely away, even from my awareness. One that I crafted without consulting my whole being. Without asking what we were ready for or capable of doing. My inner body was tired. So tired. Yet, when I made my decision on how I was going to go into this experience - - - DEEP DIVE - - - yup, let’s go into the deep, deep dark AGAIN and clean up that which *needs* our attention. That’s the story I told myself…that a deep excavation was necessary. 

My inner child made an “inconvenient” appearance at this point. Nudging me to please – PLEASE – not take her on that deep a dive tonight. To please table it for another time when she felt more rested and more capable. *deaf ears* - - - I attempted first to just ignore her voice. Pretending I couldn’t hear it. Pretending I was simply doing the “right thing” and she was just coming from a place of fear. 

Her voice became louder. “PLEASE – why are you acting like you can’t hear me? PLEASE, I just need to rest. Why won’t you let me just rest.” I became very aware of my irritation with her and my own perception that she was just trying to “avoid” the work that just MUST be done. It must. Why is she not cooperating and just being fuckin grateful and quiet? Why must she be so fucking LOUD and LAZY?!? 

We came to the part of the night where we get to decide if we are going to go in even deeper than we had already gone. “Yup, that’s out cue. Let’s get ready to jump head-long into this. Deep, deep dark…here we come!!” That’s when my inner child (IC) took over and let the adult me (AM) know exactly where she was and exactly what she was willing and unwilling to do. It was a hard conversation. One that is still processing through every cell in my body. One I needed to hear AND one that I did not WANT to hear, that is for certain. I literally watched as she pulled out of my physical adult being. The tearing was painful. Like birthing a child through your stomach. She tore out of my being and stood in front of me; angry, sad, eyes tired, jaw clenched and trembling:

IC – WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME?!?

AM – What do you mean? I am right here!

IC – Then STOP!! Just fucking stop already. I will NOT do this again today. I can’t…I need to rest. 

AM - You need to heal? I need to help heal you. Why don’t you understand that I am doing this FOR you?

IC – No you aren’t! Stop telling me that fucking lie like I am just supposed to digest it! It’s not mine. It’s YOURS. You aren’t doing this FOR me - - - you are doing this BECAUSE of me.

AM – Now hold on… (I was not given the opportunity to finish that sentence)

IC – If you were doing this FOR me, you would have the fucking grace to ASK me what I was capable of going and BELIVEING me when I told you what I needed. I need rest. I need you to stop being so afraid of my pain and just sit with me. Hold me. Comfort me. Believe me when I express to you what I need AND what I want. NO! Instead, because you think you know better, you drag me under the water to make me quiet when my pain gets too loud to be comfortable for you to sit with. 

AM – I don’t know what to say…

IC – It’s not time for you to talk. It’s time for you to LISTEN. I am not going on your dive today. It wasn’t too long ago that you took me on a deep dive. I showed up. I helped clean up and heal that which was hurting us both. It took a LOT of energy and all I got was a “look what I did” and the start of a plan to do it all again. No celebration. No rest. Not even enough time to catch my fucking breath before you want to bring me below water again. You frame it out so beautifully in the perception of good intention but you don’t realize that if you don’t let me breathe, all you are doing is drowning me as a way to not have to just sit with me and love me. Diving with my exhausted shell so that you can wave me around and make yourself feel better about all the “healing” you are doing “for” me. Just fucking LOVE me. The way that I love you. For all that you are and for all that you have ever been. Just LOVE me.

AM – I DO love you. How can you think I don’t.

IC – See, already with the blame. How can I think that you don’t?!? HA! Because your actions are making it clear that my voice is unwelcomed. SHOW ME you love me. Show me that you love me ALL THE WAY.

AM - *deep breath. Teary eyes* How?

IC – Just sit with me and allow me to rest. Sit with me and allow me to feel and express without trying to “fix” me. Accept me for all that I am and all that I have ever been and bring ALL of your love with you without making this about you. Just sit with me, Kendra…just sit and allow me to be.  

I am not sure how much time passed from that conversation and my surrender to just being with my inner child. Holding space. Hearing the voices. Feeling all of the emotions that I had allowed to become white noise and pain in my physical body. I had to sit through the barrage of what my adult self, dressed in ego, felt that I “should” be doing. I had to listen to the criticism of the story I wrote around what it “looks like” to heal and what “it means” to do my work, while being still and holding space for this exhausted and dehydrated inner child who just wanted to find her breath again. 

And then something happened. I allowed myself to surrender to all of it. To wrap myself around her. To hold her and rock her. To pull her close and assure her that whatever she needed, I was there to be with her and not ask her to just be with me. She, we, I melted. The tears that came were from such a deep part of my soul that all they could do upon exit is cleanse that part of her that had her holding her breath. I allowed her to howl and release and melt her pain into the ground below us both. No judgement. No holding back. No time limits imposed by my desire to put a time table on the healing. Just real and raw release in the embrace of love that can only come from inside of me, to me, for me and with me. After she was done, we sat up and inhaled joy and love. A lightness filled us up and for the first time in much longer than is even comfortable to admit, I found her again….I found me. We found us and we celebrated that reconnection with a breath that felt like inhaling all that is, ever has been, ever will be and coated in unconditional love. We embraced and danced and smiled and laughed and played and connected with it all. With the glory and grace of being gifted this human experience. We became one again and birthed and rebirthed each other from a place of knowing that it is ALL perfect. 

There is so much more that was experienced but some things are best held in sacred space. Held close to the heart with a knowing that it doesn’t all have to be shared to be real. No validation is required. I was reminded this past weekend that “the work” doesn’t always have to be so hard or active or urgent. That sometimes the work is just leaning into being with ALL of it from a place of love and compassion, without the need to “fix” a damn thing. Nothing is broken…it just IS. 

Rest dear ones. Rest when it is necessary. Sometimes the deepest dives come from a place of being willing to just float with it all. I love me so much. I love you so much. I love.