Grief and Inner Child Work

More advanced healing practices usually include learning how to grieve.

This post offers a couple KEYS TO enhancing EMOTIONAL CONNECTION, with yourself, through the practice of grieving.

Denial—Flipping That Grief Response

To begin the grief process, start by telling the truth

(At the end of this post I link a you tube video of some of the realizations that I’ve had since I started telling the truth.)

Truth goes back to feeling. It’s a way to put words behind how you really feel.

So why is telling the truth a key? It essentially is addressing one of the first steps of the grieving process.

A beginning steps to grieving is DENIAL.

I wrote more about a specific memory that I had, as a child, that disconnected me from others in this blog post. It gave me a more fierce-independent vibe, of “I’ve got this—get out of my way!” throughout my life.

But what I was really needing, what I was really calling for was CONNECTION.

Kids are the best at telling the truth, but sometimes the truth comes out in the form of TANTRUMS and crying fits of RAGE. These examples of behavior are great for releasing pent up emotions, but when this natural response is done alone…this can turn into a traumatic experience.

With someone by are side, listening to us, giving a hug, and validating what is being said, it can help complete the cycle that the physical body needs so the event is not “traumatic”.

This is a powerful quote from the book, Tao of Fully Feeling, by Pete Walker. I connected with it because understanding that I wasn’t listened to as a child, during my yelling fits. A result of not being heard put me in a brain space of “my voice isn’t valued, heard or valid”. I am just a inconvenient burden.

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“Many of us arrive in adulthood unconscious of the simmering furnaces of anger that lie buried inside us. Denied a direct and full release, this stored anger often smolders just below awareness causing us to chronically stew in resentful words and actions. Many survivors don’t believe they have repressed anger, even when they have a molten core. Few of us remember the volcano that sometimes erupted out of us as infants and toddlers.

“Alice Miller elaborates on how that volcano became dormant:

“If the patient had been able as a child to express his disappointment with his mother—to experience his rage and anger—he could have stayed alive. But that would have led to the loss of his mother’s love, and that, for a child, is the same as death. So he killed his anger and with it a part of himself…” ¹

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(Alice Miller 1923 – 2010, a Polish-Swiss phycologist known for researching and teaching about trauma that occurred in childhood.)

So interesting, the last part of the quote. “SO he killed his anger and with it a part of himself.”

I have been locked up, unable to move fully for over nine years. It feels if though part of my body has died, inabling me from living life and fully expressing.

Instead of living this way, I now choose to first of all, tell the truth that lies within my story. (This is why I keep unraveling MY story.) I would like to live in the body that I believe I emotionally suppressed so long ago. I desire to live fully in my body, the way I did when I was a young child.

In order to unenvelope that small child I am starting to tap into things that I one loved doing.

If getting back to your original way of being, one that you remember from so long ago, I invite you to join me with this link and utilize some of the resources that I have been uncovering.

One of the ways that I have allowed my child to be seen, is to cry and get angry again. I no longer see these as weaknesses, but I see these ways of emoting as strengths.

Anger

Angering is an active verb that I learned from Pete Walkers book. It basically means getting your anger out without being hurtful to anyone.

Feeling anger is the second way of grieving that I would like to address in this post.

Instead of feeling bad for my partner when I cry, we now welcome a good cry! My husband and I remind each other that good things always happen with my internal health, after a good cry!

When anger comes, I do my best not to release my anger on my family. Instead, I shout the words that I am hearing in my mind. Alone in a car is a good place to start shouting!

When I feel the rage inside of my body, I often grab my pillow and hit it on my bed, as I yell that “I have the right to be heard”!

What Have Been My Side Effects From Grieving?

I’m no longer denying my voice!

This has been a most powerful act of self love!

I often been miss that my parents didn’t do their job. Sitting, listening, validating, making me feel seen heard or known. This is what I talk about with my story-work coach and it is what I yell about as I hit my bed.

I’ve found a lot of comfort in healing music. If you are recovering from your own childhood wounds, I would recommend listening to Celine Dion’s song (written by Pink) Recovering.

I am recovering, the faith of a child
By a part of my heart, I was reckless and wild
I am recovering, the hope that I lost
The part of my soul, that paid the cost

Little by little, day by day
One step at a time
Shake off the devil
Take back my piece of mind

Hold me as I fall apart, baby
Hold me, here in the dark
Cause the old me
Run just as far as I could from my heart
Well, I’m going back to the start

Little by little, day by day
One step at a time
Take back my piece of mind ²

I recorded the following video in the midsts of me trying to recover my voice. If you look at my body language and listen to my voice there is still tension and a scared self hidden in my body. My jaw is very tight on one side, a literal side effect of me holding onto what I need to say. My body language is someone closed, and hunched over…but it’s an attempt, proof that I’m trying!!!

If you have been going through anything like I went through physically, I invite you to start recording your story. Invite what needs to be said to come out, in order to open your heart.

What truths need to be shared with someone that holds your trust?

To start sharing (even if it’s scary) is my invitation to you,

Take Aways

If any of this post resonated with you, a first step I would take is look up the stages of grief online. There are many resources to pull from.

In this post I talked about two stages of grief

1. Denial, then acceptance (telling the truth)
2. Being angry (letting emotion out that may be stuck inside)

I have found, as I recognize my behavior as stages of grief, I am more patient with my self and let the natural process of grieving unravel.

1. Walker, Pete. The Tao of Fully Feeling: Harvesting forgiveness out of blame. Azure Coyote, 1995. Pg 85[↩]
2. adapted from song written by Alecia Moore, Allen Shamblin, Tom Douglas, Artist: Celine Dion, Columbia Records, 2016[↩]