I was watching Outlander one night and began to sob during a love scene between Jaime and Claire. So, I paused the show. And I got quiet. And I asked myself why I always cry when I see strong couples. And for the first time in my life (I’m 52 years old), I realized I had never allowed myself to truly feel the loss of my father (who passed away when I was fifteen.) My family never talked about it. I never went to therapy. No one ever said to me, “I know this is hard, let me sit by you and hold you and let’s feel and experience grief together.” I just shoved it down and tried to survive. Sure, I cried, but I never truly experienced and felt and witnessed the intensity of the grief.
While pausing the show I realized that every time I felt sadness around seeing a strong couple, it was this suppressed and repressed grief that was needing to be felt. It was this young, 15-year-old part of me who needed to be seen and listened to and loved. She wanted so badly to be held and protected by a man—to feel safe.
So, I did something wild. I closed my eyes and I pictured 15-year-old me. I brought to mind an image of her (my) bedroom. And I told her, “I love you. I see you. I’m so sorry you were all alone though this.” I said to her, “If it’s okay with you, I would like to sit by you, side-by-side on the bed, and hold your hand, and let’s feel the grief.” And so, I did. I closed my eyes and I pictured sitting with her and I allowed her to just feel all the intense sadness she never got to safely feel. It took about 20 minutes. I cried a lot. But I felt free on the other end. I realized the intense, desperate craving I felt around the thought of having a man in my life was really an intense, desperate craving for this part of me to be seen and loved and healed.
I had a similar experience when I went on a surf trip this summer. I hadn’t surfed for three years (I used to surf daily), and from the moment I left my house to the moment I landed in Mexico, I had a headache—one that persisted for two days. By the middle of the second day, as I lay in my hotel bed trying to feel into the root of this massive, intense headache, I had an image of myself at eight years old. She said to me, “You have always wanted a man in your life to keep you safe, ever since Dad died, but you don’t keep me safe. You have made me surf huge waves all over the world, you have made me take off from peaks that are so incredibly dangerous . . . all so strangers would think you are cool.” This realization hit me like a freight train. She was right. I had hurt myself so many times surfing huge waves. I had gotten whiplash repeatedly from high-speed wipeouts. I had crashed and smashed myself into the rocks. I had almost drowned multiple times. All for what? When I was honest with myself, it was so the other surfers admired and respected me. So that they thought I was a badass. Strangers. This little-girl-part of me said she was tired of it. That’s why she was resisting this surf trip so much. She said surfing was supposed to be fun, not life-threatening. And she made me promise if I ever surfed again, it would be in small waves with nice people.
A similar thing happened in Argentina when I returned to tango dancing. I didn’t want to go. I hated it. I dreaded it. I didn’t want to speak Spanish. The perfectionism around doing both at an elite level came up big-time. A part inside of me said she was tired of having to be pretty and perfect. She was tired of having to speak Spanish like a native Argentine. Or dance tango like Geraldine Rojas. I spent time loving this part of me. Apologizing to her. Asking her to guide me when and where to dance. But, I still overrode her. I still forced myself to go dancing because I was in Argentina and tango dancing is what I do here. Then I twisted my ankle on the sidewalk. Badly. And I couldn’t dance. I could hardly walk. I was forced to spend my last week inside my Air B and B feeling and healing these old parts of myself. I realized that when my mother died when I was 29 years old, I didn’t allow myself to grieve. I flew straight to Argentina and forced myself to dance. This part of me didn’t want to dance. She didn’t want to run around seeing the sights of Buenos Aires. She wanted to stay safe and cozy and snuggled on the sofa crying and grieving and healing.
Then another part of me that agonizes over having comfortable, beautiful places to stay came up to be healed. This is the part of me that exhausts herself the first two days I’m in Argentina running around buying pretty home goods for the apartments I rent. She told me she never felt safe with my mother and the only time she ever felt safe was in her own room with her cozy pillows, stuffed animals, and furry blankets. My twisted ankle forced me to spend time loving this part of me and assuring her that we were safe now. That I would always listen to her and put her needs first. They were simple needs like rest and nourishing food and gentle exercise and not saying yes to social obligations that I knew were a no. Not forcing her to speak perfect Spanish or dance when she didn’t want to. All normal ways a good parent would treat a child—but all ways I had ignored in my effort to keep excelling and producing like everyone else. All ways I had betrayed myself to be liked.
So, if you are noticing that you feel a lot of sadness or anger or anxiety, it is because parts of you never got to feel them when you were a child. If you are noticing certain body ailments like headaches or illness, it is because something you are doing is making a unhealed part of you contract—blocking the flow of energy through your body. If you notice repeated “bad behavior” on your part, it is a pattern you developed in childhood to keep you safe—but is no longer needed now that you are an adult. Most of our worst behavior stems from learning at a young age it kept us safe or helped us get attention. But when we do it in adulthood, it has the opposite effect—it pushes people away.
Now (until February 20th) is a time for massive purging, healing, letting go—so that we are ready to start a brand new life this Spring. We cannot bring the old into the new, or we will suffer. So, as we go through the darkest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the perfect time to notice when we get triggered and to allow that to remind us there is an unhealed part of us that needs love. Feel the trigger, find the part that needs love, and then allow that part to feel.
