My parents divorced when I was 3.
I split my time half and half, mom's and dad's.
This created a split in my family system, in my sense of safety.
I was protective & distrustful of my parents' new partners. Secretly I dreamt they would come back together one day, and we'd all be one happy family again, my parents, my brother, my sister, our cats, and I.
This was my heart's deepest longing as a little girl.
I felt very lonely growing up. The time away from my mom was hard, since she was my nurturing & loving presence. My time with my dad felt cold & empty. I know his heart was hurting too. And me, as a little girl, needed & yearned for that embrace.
I often felt ignored & unheard as a child. I would speak candidly, explore ideas, and want to share them with my father. Often times, he wouldn't acknowledge what I said.
I ended up developing this frozen, cold part of me inside... a part that froze her voice, froze her candid expression & began developing a deep feeling of rejection & shame.
This continued to happen with siblings & even friends, where I felt ignored, that I would share myself & my voice candidly and it would be met with a feeling of rejection.
This became my major wound: a feeling of insignificance. Of not being special. Worthy of being listened to. Important. Etc. This was my shade of shame (we all have one.)
I experienced phases of belonging with my peers growing up & phases of exclusion.
There were two separate times - one in 6th grade, and one in sophomore year - that I lost my entire friend group for reasons that were not communicated to me. It was like everybody turned on me and I never got to know why.
Again, loneliness, shame, "not good enough."
In high school I developed a real sense of insecurity, like everybody knew something I didn't know about how I wasn't good enough. I felt people's judgement of me, negative views of me...
and I proceeded to get smaller & smaller.
I just didn't feel that I belonged. I felt like the alien. Like there was something very wrong with me.
Of course these pain points showed up in my adult relationships. As we all do, I sought belonging within a relationship, and any moment in which I perceived that wasn't there -- whether in the form of feeling special, feeling chosen, feeling devoted to, feeling heard, feeling accepted, or feeling safe -- all my fears, shame, anxieties arose.
My journey, my growth, was in learning to re-mother these parts. To give them a home to land in. Give them a place to whisper their plea to me. Befriend them.
As I learned to do that more & more, I began to become conscious of the ways I was settling & attracting partners that were there to mirror back to me my own pain, vs. my healing.
(To be clear, even the most amazing partner will bring up old pain, however, they will also help you to heal in a beautiful way. There's a subtle distinction that only you can find.)
My work was in creating boundaries in what I would & would not sign up for within relationships anymore. I had to get real about what was helping me to heal & what was furthering my pain.
I learned that the more I mothered my own pain, the more I increased my self worth... the more deserving I felt of partners that would also be part of that healing.
I had a cosmic 'green light' to stop attracting partners that just mirrored back to me my shame story.
As I went through the alchemical process of all of this, I began to feel worthy of receiving a relationship that would reflect to me a different story, not one based on shame & unworthiness, but on the opposite.
This is what re-mothering yourself will do.
And it's not that the story ends here. No way.
With my current beloved Alexander, my pain shows up all the time. It asks me to love it, to know it, and to allow it to penetrate the walls in my heart.
My body shoots adrenaline through my veins when I perceive some sort of "threat" to the safety & belonging I feel with him. And this asks me to find it, once again, within myself.
This is what it looks like to be anxious & wounded within a relationship, but to choose the path that will lead to greater wholeness.
This is the path I stumble on, over & over again, but remains to be the only way forward.
To know that no matter what happens, no matter how anxious I feel about perceived distance, loss, abandonment, pain... I'll always have myself.
This is the path of resilience. Wholeness. Peace. Beauty. Wisdom.
It's hard, it's scary, and, my friends, it is the only way.
Wherever you're at, wherever that child within you is at, wherever you are in relation to your pain, I feel you. I see you.
And i'm here with you in the journey.
Sending my love,
Christina