I’m starting to understand why some children learn to stop expressing themselves to those around them, feeling the need to hide their big ideas as well as their deepest feelings.

“I’m too busy right now,” “You’re interrupting,” “You’re too sensitive,” “That’s not realistic,” “What are you talking about?”

All the while, those thoughts and feelings don’t go away. They just become suppressed, pushed down deeper because they feel like they don’t have a place out in the world, or that they don’t belong.

Even worse, they could get judged or criticized or belittled by those closest to them, or cause a negative reaction for those who were meant to be the most supportive and understanding. Not to shame or demonize anyone because I’m incredibly guilty of this, unable to sit in my own feelings of discomfort or overwhelm in order to allow another to rest in my presence. But rather to recognize that our society isn’t conducive to slowing down enough to learn this, or to even understand what it means to truly listen and the affect it might have. Listening without needing to fix or solve, but to simply be present for what is happening. To listen without ears.

I’ve worked hard to get better at this (at least for myself), but I’m opening up more to the importance of becoming a safe, grounded presence as I grow older. A place where people can express these thoughts and feelings, so that they can work through them, or at least air them out into the world. Children can think and feel things much too big to hold within their little bodies, and then these children grow up into adults who haven’t learned to express themselves properly, or with ideas about themselves that aren’t actually true. And the cycle continues.

I’m also learning the importance of instilling a more solid, kind, compassionate and caring voice within myself. Call it what you like, but I’ve been healing my relationship to “God”, or that highest voice that wants the best for me. Someone I can always turn to for support even if I don’t feel like I have it externally. For most of my life, I’ve felt alone, misunderstood and unable to express myself fully. Not to say I haven’t had amazing people around me because I’m so grateful for what I’ve been given, but there are some things that are too vulnerable or difficult to translate for another. I’ve had a very critical, judgmental, and impatient voice in my head that I’ve worked very hard to curb. It’s made me hate myself, it’s sabotaged good things in my life, it’s made me doubt and question myself, as well as other people in my life. I’ve also dissociated from my deeper feelings by escaping into my own mind. But as the saying goes, we can only love others as deeply as we love ourselves. And by learning about myself, I’ve also become more aware of many other people’s internal voices, which come out when they are hard on themselves, or criticize themselves, or keep pushing because they’re ashamed of not measuring up somehow. All the while, that little child within gets buried deeper and deeper, perhaps coming out as anger, intense emotional outbursts, feelings of isolation, or chronic illness/disease.

So then how we do we heal this part within ourselves? How do we learn to come back to and repair our own damaged innocence?

At least in my experience, very slowly and patiently. Gently. Unless we slow down enough to listen to our self within, that quiet voice who’s been with us all along, we’ll always search for something externally. And as much as we try, we cannot find it there. We can only find mirror reflections that can then help us to understand ourselves more deeply if we learn to turn what we see inward. To ask questions and patiently wait for a different voice to answer, one that believes in us, is patient with us, is forgiving and honest with us. We must repair our mind/heart connection. And I think the more we’re able to do this for ourselves, we’ll naturally start to do that for others. But how can we embody something we haven’t experienced? How can we believe in God if we aren’t shown examples of how He expresses Himself? And if we have a resistance to this, how can we challenge ourselves to believe in a higher Good, and have faith that Life is actually a good thing? That WE are a good thing, even if we might not fully believe it right now.

I’m realizing that this is a highly personal experience, without a real path to get there other than a curiously open mind that is willing to explore these questions. Along with the courage to feel the feelings that arise with them. Essentially we need to become the Mother and Father of our own internal world, so that we can rewire the voices and ideas that have been loaded into us.

To finish, I just have a few last questions that come to mind, which I feel compelled to ask (including to myself), which are:

When objectively looking at the words you speak out loud to yourself or the thoughts you think in your head, how would they sound if you said them to the younger, child-version of yourself?

What would their reaction be, and what beliefs would they then carry with them because of it?

And lastly, as compassionately as you can, what words do you think they would need to hear instead?

What I’m listening to:
Josh Garrels – Born Again