Dear noname:

I know that I want to answer you more thoroughly Tuesday morning when I feel refreshed, but for now, I read your amazing post and I will answer you with whatever comes to my Monday afternoon tired brain:

“do you still grieve over your childhood? is it helpful to empathize with the wounded child in me?.. I am wondering if pain associated with my childhood should be ignored or felt”-

-yes, only yesterday I showed someone at the taproom I frequent in later afternoons one of the few photos I have (on my phone)  as a young child, a few years old. I looked at that young girl and felt sorry for her, wanting to tell her: I am sorry, you had no idea what was coming to you. Poor little girl..  she had no idea! Imagine.. you can imagine, I know, the imagination of a child, imagining the life to come to be Magical, Magnificent.. and when times are tough, then LATER, so it seems, later it will be Magnificent. She had no idea what was to come to her, what was already in the making. It’s heart breaking to think of a young child’s hopes and dreams being shattered, spending as I have .. eternity in loneliness and misery, before that loneliness and misery extended into adulthood.

I think that it is not only helpful to empathize with the wounded inner child in you, but it is necessary, of course it is necessary.. thing is, who is doing the empathizing: it is a part of you that is more mature than the child that needs to do the empathizing. I remember my mother going on and on, histrionically, about her misery- lots of empathy for herself,  but.. she did that from the position of mentally still being a young child. She sort of threw temper tantrums full of self-pity. Obviously, those tantrums didn’t get her to any better place, no healing.

Somehow, you have to empathize with your wounded child from a position that is stronger and wiser that the young child in you. The pain of your childhood needs to be felt, not ignored, but again: felt by a stronger part of you, one that can take the inner child in your arms. So, your arms have to be bigger than the child, so that the child can feel comforted in those arms. You have to be really strong, so that your inner child finds comfort in your empathy.

If you want to, let me know what you think about what I wrote here before I return to you Tues morning.

anita