Take Your Childhood Adversity Seriously and You Take a Stand for Your Inner Child
The healing journey asks that we take seriously the confronting truths of our childhood adversity, which is not easy. Owning the raw, uncompromised truth of what happened surfaces unexpected emotions and sensations, such as anger, sadness and pain — feelings we learned were not safe to feel, ones that most people in our disembodied culture have no interest in accommodating. These are the feelings we had to keep at bay to survive the harsh realities of our childhood. Suppress the feelings and you suppress the truth that mom was neglectful, dad was violent, your sibling was abusive, and no one stood up for you. No one protected you. Suppress the truth and a new story must arise, one that makes what occurred not so bad. […]
Banks of a Wild River
In play, children remain in a fluid, flexible state. Moment by moment they open to greater, more creative versions of themselves. They touch and bloom the seed of potential in their heart. Children, in their mischief, imagination and spontaneous explorations, don’t try to become someone. They are someone already. They know this without knowing it. They feel the larger instinct of life pulsating through their veins, calling them to reach and spiral into infinite potential. Be sure in educating and parenting our most precious little ones, you do not shape this natural unfolding into what it doesn’t want to be. Instead, give it space to breathe, to run freely. Let any rules and structures you use be like banks of a wild river, guiding children […]