There is Healing Yet to be Done

It’s time to heal those old wounds at a deeper level

I have been having memories and feelings from my past and from my entire life come up more as I continue my path of aging. I finally stopped and began to listen, rather than judging myself for ruminating and dwelling too much on things gone by.

Maybe, I thought, there are good reasons that all this seems to be coming up so intensely right now. 

It’s so easy to get caught up in the self-judgments about not wasting time worrying about things long gone, about needing to let go, about moving on, about not obsessing. Judgments and negative critical inner voices abound. They always have lived in my head. 

So, maybe it’s time to get curious with them, to ask them to talk with me. 

I have had losses lately, as we all do. They come more frequently as we age. I wrote about one major loss for me lately, the loss of my elephant friend. 

I wanted to explore within myself and go a little deeper with the pure pain of this loss, the loss that seemed to hit in a different way and depth than human loss. What was this, I wondered.

I came to realize, as I lay awake at 3am one morning, that this was a relationship where I felt totally accepted without judgment, seen without comment, observed and felt without advice, and included in breathing together at that moment in time.

I do not go into the past to assign blame, but rather gather up my younger self and hold her, embrace her, understand her, and love her. As an adult, and now especially as an elder, I think it’s time to give her what she has needed from me all along, to finally let her know that I am here, that I hear her, that I acknowledge the pain and hurt that she felt, that I feel her aloneness and can now step in to fill some of that empty space inside of her that has been with her for so long. 

The empty space is one that I learned to look outside of myself to try and fill, which never worked. That emptiness cannot be filled from outside or from others, but must be filled from within, from self and from whatever that spiritual connection is for each of us, both inside ourselves and with the Universe. For me, it can be filled with things like connection with the trees in the forest that can bring me to tears, or the connection with animals that makes my heart smile and their tails wag or their internal motors purr.

Some of my background

I was an only child of immigrant parents who were trying their best to do what they could to give me a better life than they had. And they did. But they had their own deep wounds, and those are passed on through the generations as each layer tries to heal a bit more.

I came from the time when children were to be molded, to be seen and not heard, to be told who they were and what they were supposed to do. And as a girl, I was taught to look to a man for definition of self, to look forward to embracing motherhood and all the roles. 

Except that this didn’t fit for me. And that was not ok in my family. My mother never forgave me for abandoning her to go away to college. The truth is that I felt like I was suffocating at home and fought tooth and nail to get out of the house, and ended up, in my sophomore year at college, having to support myself. And I did. I knew that my very life, my core, was at stake. I had to save myself. 

I learned to look for other relationships to try and get love. I looked for a career where I could earn my right to exist on this planet. I tried to be what I thought was a good person. I tried to fit in. But I didn’t.

I had no children. I am ok with this decision. I doubted my ability to parent and thought that I would once again become part of the enmeshment with my family of origin and then forever lose my separate identity. 

I chose partners who were sometimes familiar with the pattern of not really hearing or listening to me. It was what I was used to, what I was trying to heal, trying to get things from someone who might not have been able to give that to me. This was in no way their fault. These were just choices made from our mutual wounds that are often destined to fail. 

The pain is still there and asking for my attention

And now I lay in bed sometimes and feel that little girl within me. At this age, I can feel embarrassed about this, but it’s real, and she is there, asking to be heard, seen, protected, and held.

I have been isolated quite a bit since retiring and have been curious about that. Now I see that it has taken that long for that child part of me to trust and to come back out from deep inside me to tell me her story, my story. 

My story is one of feeling alone, not heard, not seen, not accepted. And the painful part is that I learned to continue those judgments toward myself, to see myself as not good enough, as wrong and defective somehow, as needing to justify my existence, and as needing to try and shape, bend, and twist myself to try and meet other’s expectations, causing me to abandon myself. 

Enough. I would say to that inner little girl still so very much inside of me…I am here, and I will hear you and listen. We can be alone and quiet for as long as you need. I will keep you safe. If I make a mistake, I will catch it as soon as I can. I see and remember and feel your pain and deep loneliness. You have been lonely for me. I am here, finally. 

I can’t change the past, but I can learn from it. I can now learn how to give myself what I need. And this can help me be better able to be with others. As I feel nourished, I can give more authentically. 

Becoming my own grandmother

I think that maybe I need to be the grandmother to myself, the elder, the one with wisdom of an even older generation, without the mother-daughter dynamics getting in the way. The elder wise crone can perhaps give more of what the child within needed then and what I need now…an elder, a wise woman, a soft place to be comforted and loved without anything getting in the way of that pure love. 

 I can now love myself into safety and wholeness, finally, heal the layers of grief, and begin to take care of all the unfinished business. There is healing yet to be done, while there is still time.