Loss of Innocence

 Let me start by saying, I in no way blame, shame or guilt my Parents for doing their best. I have come to inner-stand that if they knew better, they would have done better.

Besides we had many talks about their adult lives, what direction life took them in, how this led to that, and accountability and responsibility. Basically if they knew now what they knew then, they would have done many many things differently. So many things they did do very right, lovingly, with patience and it seems whatever positive role models they had growing up, they remembered and passed that down to their daughters, well, I can only speak for myself. The positives my Parents passed down to me, I see clearly, has impacted the gentle and playful way I approach children that I work with and who are under my care. What I am most grateful for, is my Parents willingness to evolve, in all the micro-cosmic ways that are beyond my limited understanding, but I feel it.

Now all that said, my childhood was bad to non-existent. I made sure I played, with my imagination and outdoors and with friends. It was as if part of me knew I needed those things, even though no one came around to really facilitate that directly and consistently. Allow me to preface this with my unique current perspective. More importantly my inner child's past perspective. I did experience abuse trauma from people outside of my family, so that's already too much for a 6 yr old. I guess they're calling that "complex trauma" now. After many years of one-on-one counselling, reading and working with self-help books, and group counselling what struck me is my experiences were objectively mild in comparison to most people. Not to down play in any way the injustices. I fully accept it was never my fault and it should never of happened. At the same time, when I heard other people bravely talk about their horrific experiences, everything within began to shift in a major way for me. 

I'll give a mild example. A woman I knew disclosed to me she grew up in a war zone, a real war zone, with bombs going off near by and everything. Right away things clicked, like Oh that's why she behaves this way and that way. After some time, compassionately putting myself in her child-like shoes, imagining what it may have been like for her, our entire dynamic changed. It was far from prefect (which I don't think exists in this world), but it was definitely much smoother and cooperative. Especially for my internal perspective, I understood more and allowed for more space and compassion, while also standing my ground on some issues that mean a lot to me. Yaa so, if that's mild, what other women and some men have shared with me, is the stuff of pure nightmares. 

What I'm getting to here is, the way I took it, any bit of neglect, of immature authority figures, of lack of frim boundaries and healthy discipline. I took it hard! My child self felt like it was the end of the world, every single god damn day! Yeah my inner reality back then was rough. On the outside I seemed pretty happy-go-lucky but we see this over and over, in different ways. When there's complex trauma, the system kicks in to protect and something gets fractured and splits. A great visual is that show, "Kevin Can F*** Himself." (show for adults only, in my opinion.)

Now as we all gather at some point or another, there are 2 sides to a coin, a light & a dark. Multi-dimensionally, there are many perspectives from which to view 1 thing. Like a rubic's cube. You pick up, look at it, play around, put it down, look at it again from another perspective, put it down, go do something else and so on. 

When I started to question why I was so intensely affected? Oh I also grew up with a Mum with special needs, so there's that social anxiety piece, it really was like the perfect storm or all the right ingredients lined up for complex trauma to occur. So yaa, as I tapped into Why I took it the way I took it,. As I spent more time with my inner-child, it was as if I came in to this ...realm, on some level, knowing that I have rights. I have the right to play and to march to the beat of my own drum. I have the right to explore and the right to learn what I'm actually interested in. (I gathered all this from stories my Parents told me from 0 - 5yrs old. Yes 0, because apparently even when I was born, I was nodding my head yes or no, before my Parents even finished their question & apparently it made sense with what they were asking?) I have so many cool stories from them, I'm very blessed that they remember so clearly and can fill in the gaps for me because I have basically no memories until I was 6. So basically on the outside I was a royal brat, spoiled rotten with too much love (what a handful!). But I was also fiercely independent, at like 1 yrs old, 2 yrs old, basically until my wings were really clipped at 6. For better or for worse, it was like night & day for my inner child. I won't go into the details of all the many environmental factors that changed, I'll simply talk about the result for me, was a complete loss of innocence. Loss of my childhood. 

When one taps into such a deep level of abandonment, of unworthiness, of rage, of confusion, all of which I had no words for & had to do tons of work to learn how to put words to my feelings, how to release this toxic energy in healthy ways, how to communicate in healthy ways, always a work in progress. But now, feels like many many lifetimes ago. What I uncovered was the sanctity of childhood. Well, it sort of crept up on me and surprised me naturally. I was 18 and just hanging out with my 2 young cousins, and we were just playing. It felt like maybe 30mins or some small amount of time had passed for me but I was shocked when the "adults" said, hey time for dinner. I said "no way!" We were not even playing for that long, and the 2 little ones also seemed like hardly any time had past too, we were in our own zone of mini-scientists and explorers and just be-ing. Plus the other adults were also surprised with me. They said " how do you have so much patience? Playing with them for so long? Kids are exhausting, I don't know how you did it?" As if it was some big accomplishment? I was really trippin out, then I went on with life and stored that experience away. 

Life again steered me towards early child care, when a job posting came to me, out of the blue, to do Respite work for an Infant with global delays. I did that for almost 2 years, in my 20s and it was the best job ever! Right away I knew, Early Childhood Education, was for me. My family was also surprised by my behavior, like what is this C-/D+ student doing, staying up all night working on College assignments and man, she cares way too much about an industry that pays very little lol. They didn't get it, at the time. Needless to say, I was the 2nd best in my class lol, Graduated with honors. When you love something, when you tap into why it's meaningful to you, when you are blessed to stumble upon your true purpose at such a young age, everything shifts! 

So that's what led me to over 20 years of working with children, parents and families. The loss of innocence, though clearly not fair, led me to my greatest buried treasures!

My 20s & 30s were no picnic, in my personal life, but I now see those times more as a dojo. A practice and training ground to let go, release, hone in on my natural skills, figure out what's truly important to me. That involved a lot of missteps, falling down, failing miserably. Also involved great teachers, guides, support and lessons that I was starving for.

I'll end this post by sharing two ways my wounded inner child began to heal. I was given the exercise of gathering photos of myself from each year and putting it into a small handheld album. Sounds simple right? It wasn't! It was a cathartic experience which helped me heal greatly. There was much more involved in that exercise, of course, with the help of my counsellor at the time. The other idea came to me organically, in my 30s. I had an "inner-child" birthday party. I kinda kept it to myself the ins & outs and just mostly put out there, with my energy, that it's safe for all our inner-children to come out and play! I thought about my favorite things, and asked my inner-child what she loves? Plus my adult self loves saving money, so I kept that in mind lol. We had a backyard party, with water balloons, which were just for playing catch! No aggression, throw it at a tree if you want to "hit" something lol. We had water guns, like tiny gentle ones, that were actually cooling and refreshing. We played Pictionary, which was hilarious, because some family surprised me with how well they could draw and we all laughed and laughed when no one could guess from my very strange drawings! Plus great eats, I made Sangria with and without alcohol back when I used to drink. And this one surprised me, when my inner child said, I want a big cake! lol. I had big cakes before but it was usually home made by my slightly older big sister, it was tasty, but she was a kid too, it wasn't like wow-looking. Well I got my big cake, I enjoyed it but I don't really need that experience anymore. A mini cake works just fine, plus I'm not that big on sweets anymore either, just little here and there.