Category: inner child

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Confused: The (Beauty of a) Divergent Mind

Does anyone else get confused when someone asks, “How do you do?”, or “How are you?”, “How was your day?”

To an on looker, it would appear that I freeze for a moment, a moment too long. It’s why most would say I’m quiet, while I pause, debating if I should say what’s on my mind or how I’ve been trained to respond, with an “I’m good” or “fine.”

What I really want to say… 

No, maybe it’s too much…

But maybe not…

In my head I’m wondering…

Do I tell them about all the ideas running through my mind and about all the stories I want to write? Or maybe I should tell them about the white horse I watched running through the field from my window. And the cat! Oh, how I laughed, because it was not our field cat that I saw sneak out of the shed, not the one who’s food was inside. Maybe I say that? Or what about all the things I felt? The deep love I felt while watching Pacer nap. My delight in once again ending up at Brenda’s register at Natural Grocers and how, even though she can have a tough exterior, that I find so much joy in giving her the space to smile. Maybe how I felt it in my body when the sun moved behind the clouds? Or do I reveal the tears I cried watching Good Grief? …WhichI mainly viewed because I like Daniel Levy, and thinking that maybe because I knew the plot from the preview, I wouldn’t cry. Do I say how I teared up watching Alice in Wonderland too, because it made me understand myself and my purpose a little more? And the cows! How, as I rode my bike past, I wished my soulful friends a good day, pedaling away before they could sense the fear and sadness I felt about their futures. Is that too much? Ah! Maybe I talk about the snowflakes. How, in the reflection of the morning sun, I became mesmerized as I traversed up slopes of sparkles that took me Somewhere Else. Or the love… the love I felt, the love I released, and maybe the love I found. That reminds me of…can I say it? The guy I once dated, just a few precious times but felt our energies intertwine. How he told me I spoke too elusively, like I was keeping a secret, not understanding that ethereal is my native tongue? And maybe if he tried to, we wouldn’t have grown so far apart?

Or, maybe I talk about the fear I felt before I could catch the thought that caused it. Then I can describe, to help shift their energy as well as mine, how all my fears became forgotten, how they just melted away, like Frosty on a sunny day returning Home, while watching another sunset. How I once again got lost in the beauty of it all, and in the lostness was my expanse.  Or do I talk about the deer, who greeted me and Pacer soon after the sun said goodnight? How I know they are my spirit animals, always protecting me and turning me towards my own spiritual self. Maybe, maybe, I just say “It was a magical day.”

But by then, just a few seconds after processing this all, all I see is a shoulder and the back of head.
My time has passed. The stranger is still a stranger. I say a quick “I’m good”, as we both continue down our different paths.

Yet now, now at 35 and years of inner work, I still feel okay rather than overlooked. I’m grateful for my courage to diverge from the normal way. I know there are others like me, who crave depth and run from superficiality. At heart, I actually think that’s what we all want, the neurodivergent and those who are not. We aren’t meant to all be strangers. We are meant to connect. To see ourselves in one another, a soul behind a face. And no, it doesn’t mean I have to leave my solo nature and animal time behind. I can still be an introvert and wish for depth that can be shared, harmonizing the two.

I’m still a little awkward at it, being me. But I am freer than I ever was. 

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The Choice

In all the best movies about light and dark, be it Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Harry Potter, the protagonist always asks themselves the question: What if I am just like them?

What if I am just like Darth Vader? What if Im just like Lord Voldemort? What if Im just like Sauron?

The wise teacher usually replies with something like: Well, it’s your choice.

Do you want to believe in fear? Or do you want to believe in love?
Which is the same thing as saying, do you want to give your energy to the darkness?
Or do you want to give your energy to love?

Most of us, at some level, have already made that choice. We’ve chosen to, to the best of our conscious ability, to be good friends, good neighbors, good partners, and good community members. Some of us have taken another step and chosen to be good to the earth and all the animals that inhabit earth. Yet most of us have forgotten to look at how we treat ourselves.

In order to look at that piece, I believe the better question is: What if they, the villains, are just like me?

What if Darth Vader is actually just like me? What if he simply just chose to believe in fear, and in doing so, shut down to love? What if he killed his own innocence before trying kill everyone else’s? Because…he got so scared that he thought he had to dominate the planet in order to feel powerful, because he had actually lost his own true power when he left his innocence and creativity spirit behind?

In the end, we don’t have to fight the darkness. We just have to make a choice. Darkness is just forgetfulness, which invites in fear and we create these crazy stories in our head of not being enough and unworthy of love. When we shine the light of love and truth on darkness, when we choose to love ourselves even when we’ve made a mistake- a choice that wasn’t in alignment with love, darkness can’t survive. Darkness was never real in the first place, just made up. Instead, we can put our own light energy into the belief, the deep knowing, that we are all enough and all deserving of the highest form of love. 

The choice is yours: Will you believe in your own light?

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Armor

I started forming my shell long ago. 
A protection against the world.
My defense against a false love named fear.

It started pre-memory,
I’m sure. 
Yet innocense left room for possibility.
A possibility that turned into defeat.
There was no space for my tears.

In high school, on my dresser,
I hung up a poem,
about a mask. 

The mask I wore,
but no one could see.
They had mistaken it for me.

Eventually,
I believed it too.
I got lost in the identity of my mask,
and left myself behind.

Still, she called to me.
The little girl without a voice.
But I had forgotten how to listen,
my heart, boxed up and tucked away.

My shell turned into armor,
and I became untouchable.
Disconnected from myself,
and all of you, too.
No hug could pass through.

I wonder,
If someone knew…
If someone like me…
Would have seen…
Would have loved..
Would have said “you’re okay”…
“You are meant to be here”…
“You are meant to be a light in the dark.”

I wonder,
What life would be like,
if I had had me.
To love me.
To instruct me.
To give myself a voice.

Yet I know I am exactly where I am meant to be,
and the opportunity still exist. 
To love myself back to the beginning.
In the armor and beyond the shell.
In the pain and through the fear.
To find myself again,
and be exactly who I am,
innocent, wise, and whole.

******

The two poems on masks have been taped on that dresser for 20 years. TWENTY years!
But even before that, I tried to simultaneously mask up and numb out…below is my 7th grade basketball picture, not long before I ended up at Rainbow Babies & Children’s hospital to be treated for anorexia, just before Christmas. Did my smile hide the fading body that didn’t know how to be in this world?
It was recently brought to my attention through a podcast, reading, and experience, that empaths and highly sensitive people tend to protect themselves more with their masks than others who are not so sensitive, as it is a survival skill to live in an insensitive world. The painful part is that deep down, they know its a mask…

Reparenting comes in loving each wounded part. For me, because I have worn masks for so long, it took years and years and lots of, unconsciously, re-identifying with my masks, making the journey of letting go quite painful at times. It’s also a re-training. I’ve always felt either armored or weak in my sensitivities but have discovered the strengths of feeling so deeply. I have come to understand that if I tap into the energy inside myself and allow it to be expressed outward, I can both keep other’s energies out and help others feel there emotions while allowing them to de-mask. (Link to part 1 of my 2-part Sensitivities as Superpowers series: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0w0H6RPgd5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MjJkMmIyYzQxYw==.)

While I can’t physically go back in time and give my younger self “me” to love her, I can mentally and emotionally go back in time while also using my imagination to insert myself in challenging memories. I can still give her/me, what I needed, thereby healing old wounds. In healing, I no longer have to live from a wounded place, but from a place of wholeness.

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