Meeting with My Inner Child

Trigger warning: Childhood trauma referenced in this post.

This morning I was guided through a meditation on meeting my inner child. In this meditation, I was guided to a hallway full of doors, one for every year of my life. Prompted to walk down the hallway to find the door I was called to open, I knew before I took my first step, I would be visiting door #8. I could hear my foot steps echo down the long corridor as I passed doors 45, 35, 25, 18, 16, 12 ... arriving at door #8. For me, this was the year everything changed. I took on burdens beyond my years. I began to feel the weight of the world, unprotected, unsafe, and overexposed, all entangled among play, curiosity, and attention. This was the year I told my first BIG lie to my family and deep inside, we all knew it. Connections were severed. Deep conditioning and programming ensued.

I opened door #8 and walked into a space that I found completely dark. I took a few steps before I just sat down on the cold, bare floor because there was simply nowhere to go. When I sat down, I heard a click and a spotlight illuminated from above forming a circle of light around me. After a moment, a child appeared at the edge of the circle, lingering in the shadow. We had similar features. We recognized each other as the same. I slowly outstretched my arms and the little girl came into the light and curled up in my lap the way I used to curl up in my Pop's lap. She wore a pale colored gown, one I recall wearing in some dreadful moments of my past. I held this little girl in my arms and stroked her silky hair with care. Slowly, the darkness faded and we found ourselves in my childhood living room on a thick, dark blue carpet I remember so well. We stood up together and walked from this room, through the kitchen, and out the back door, hand in hand. In the back yard where I used to spend a lot of time exploring and playing, I knelt down, became eye level with my younger self, and assured this inner child, that I love her, I accept her, and that I am no longer trying to change her. I am always with her, and she is with me. We embraced in a big hug. She then strolled away to the nearby playset, next to a rose bush with miniature pink blossoms in full bloom, emanating a sweet fragrance I remember as though it were yesterday. As my inner child began climbing and playing, I returned to our home's back door and opened it. This door brought me back to the hallway where I began this journey today. I returned through the door of my current age and became acutely aware of my present state. In my present, from the moment my inner child appeared before me in the shadows, tears had streamed slowly down my face.

I was overtaken with emotions in this moment. I felt relief, remorse, reverence, and every feeling I have felt in my life. THIS was a pivotal visit in my healing journey.

A special thanks to Jana Stern (@janasternhealer on Twitter) for the weeks of self reflection and real shadow work I have been doing prompted from the "Ignite Your Light" sessions and the space she has held for me. For anyone reading this, if you have energies you want to shift or past traumas you need to revisit to move forward in your life or to tap into your pure potential, seek out Jana's counsel. Jana is a gifted & ethical psychic, astrologer, and energy healer. Check out her offered services and book a session with her at janastern.com.

**This poem is a 1/1 NFT owned by my friend, Lori Grace (@lorigraceaz on Twitter), who shined a light on me a year ago when I found the NFT community during one of my potentially darkest phases. I wrote this poem in my teenage years, along with hundreds of others. At the age of 37 and at the end of my second marriage, I burned all of my written work in an attempt to let go of my past and begin anew. This poem was the only one that survived deep within my memory and resurfaced when I began writing again several years later. This was the first NFT I ever minted, on 06 November 2021.