You’re Safe Now, Little One

I’ve often commented that my trauma, my stress response, or my adrenaline response is to freeze. I don’t fight. I don’t run. I freeze. During a moment of internal reflection and meditation last night, I think I have a better understanding of what is happening when I freeze. At least, I’ve figured out a description that makes it make sense. And now that it makes sense, I can continue the work to become the best possible version of myself.

When I hear a raised voice, when I am struck, when someone tells me to do something or not to do something with a specific tone… my inner child hides.

My inner child is the part of me that possesses the qualities required to live, to enjoy life. She holds onto the playfulness, the bravery, the outspokenness. She’s inquisitive, she feels deeply, and she’s unafraid to show compassion and affection. My inner child is me uninhibited. She’s creative and thoughtful. She wants to know everything about everything. She’s who I am in times of safety and comfort. She’s who I am before the trauma, before defense mechanisms, before… before the world told me who I was allowed to be.

She gets scared, and she hides. What I’m left with are the parts of me that learned to be quiet. I’m left with the parts that learned to divert my eyes downward, not to speak back, and make myself as small as possible. If I don’t make noise and don’t move, if I don’t draw attention to myself, I’ll “get out alive”. It sure was a convenient defense mechanism when I depended on my parents to literally keep me alive, but it’s not doing me any favors now.

How do I keep my inner child present? How do I keep her carefree, open, and loving energy out for the world to see? Not for the world, necessarily, but for myself. How do I actively comfort her in my times of stress and let her know that she’s ok? Dissociating, reverting, or hiding is a hinderance to the life she and I want to live. We are self-sabotaging and self-destructing.

Oh, sweet child. There’s nothing left to fear. We don’t fear pain. We don’t fear loneliness. Having this arbitrary sense of fear for any of these triggers or any of these unknowns are no longer serving us. Making decisions based on fear is not how we want to live. We want to base our decisions on love – love for ourselves and love for others. That was the purpose, right Little One? The purpose of life is to live and experience and evolve. We want to connect with others and expand our horizons with journeys and adventures. I need you front and center. There’s no point in doing it without you.