I like to be done. My whole life it seems I have been seeking a state of doneness. It took me a long time to figure out that no such state exists. At least not anywhere in the realm of relativity. Really I have to admit to being a bit slow in this department. Not that the realization has immediately stopped me from seeking it. Old habits die hard. So it’s an almost daily practice to remind myself not to seek for something that I can never have. We all get that to do so is a painful experience. But stopping ourselves from hopeless seeking is one of the great challenges of being human, so a little forgiveness of our stubbornness is in order as well.
Let me give you an example to make this real. An easy one is, say, how I (and most architects) practice architecture. As an architect my job is to create buildings and places. I have to conceive it, develop it, work out every detail (or at least try to), manage a whole lot of other people who have to design parts and pieces to make the building work, and then see it through to completion as it was intended to be. Completion is the operative word in all of that. The whole object is to be done. Doneness in this case means that a building has been manifested into reality. My job requires me to be done. I don’t get paid if I don’t get done. Then there’s that. In today’s world we have to move much faster than we should. The pressure to deliver in ungodly timeframes is high. Based on all of this I am quite forgiving of myself for being so done-oriented.
But the sucky thing about all of it is that, you know what, minus all of that pressure I actually really love the process. The pressure, however, tends to cloud my joy. It’s a mind-blowing thing to manifest something as big as a building. I’m not going to lie. It’s a complete head trip. But standing there in awe looking at a completed building that started as nothing more than a tiny little seed in your head only lasts for all of five seconds. O.K. that might be a slight exaggeration, but it truly is a minuscule amount of time relative to the amount of time that was put into it. We are talking a day, a week, a month maybe relative to years. Years of your life that you can’t get back. Trust me, there are a lot of days in there that you just really want to be done. It’s tedious work. If we aren’t careful, these days can easily overshadow the joyful ones. Ah, you are with me now. We can all relate. We all just want to be done. Done with the dishes. Done with cooking dinner. Done with the laundry. Done with the cleaning. Done with paying the bills. Done with each and every chore. Done, done, DONE! Just let me be done!
Another way of saying that I am done-oriented is to say that I am goal-oriented. Sorry. That’s completely counter-achiever, I know. Again, I’m so sorry to have to break that to you. Our whole lives we have been trained to set goals- particularly if you are an athlete. I mean what in the hell are we supposed to do if we don’t have goals??? We would all be lost and directionless. Right? I’ve had some big goals throughout my life and I’ve accomplished a whole lot of them. Who would I be if I hadn’t??? Yikes. And that’s the thing. Setting and chasing goals can very easily be a fear-based strategy concocted to minimize uncertainty and shield us from nothingness. As I’ve said before, it has been my security blanket. As I’ve also said, I am finally secure enough in my being to let go of that blanket. And you know what, it doesn’t feel that scary after all.
But just because I am taking this step doesn’t mean that all of those old habits are just going to drop off the face of the earth. No simple snap of the fingers is going to do this trick. This is going to take some practice with a whole lot of attention and mindfulness. With it has to be the recognition that it is related to every other survival strategy that I have employed over the course of my life. And all of them originate in one single place- in my inner wounded child. I’ve made mention of her quite a bit, but today I’d like to give you a bit of an inner look at my internal work surrounding this. I hope that it proves helpful to you.
Let me start by saying that there are endless modalities to assist us with acknowledging and healing our inner wounded child. Um, yes, you have one. We all do. It’s inescapable. If you aren’t aware of this as of yet, I would like to as gently as I can say something that might not be comfortable news to hear: she/he is running your life. Wait. Forget gentleness. I’m talking to your adult, you can handle this. A child is running your life! A child!!! And you know what really stinks, she does not want to be running your life. She’s just a kid! She is in no way equipped to handle your adult responsibilities. Yet it is 100% guaranteed that if you haven’t taken the time and energy to heal her, that is exactly what is happening. And this is exactly why our culture is so immature. Now before you go off feeling shamed…. stop. This is a cultural problem. It’s not your fault. We are all in this together. I’ve placed my attention squarely on it, and I’m calling our attention to it, because I believe that it is absolutely critical to our survival as a species. That is to say that I believe that at this moment in time the most important thing that we each need to do is to heal our inner child. No matter what else is on your to do list to save the world, if this one isn’t at the top of your list we are highly likely to miss our mark.
So if you are game, there are a million and one ways to do this work: psychotherapy, wisdom traditions, spiritual practice, self help, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), twelve step programs, shamanistic soul retrieval, sound therapy, reiki… there are way too many to list with multiple varieties within each. Try any or all of them if necessary. Just please remember that whatever you do, it’s your job to heal your inner child. It’s nobody else’s- not your therapist, not your spiritual guru, not your self help expert, not your shaman, not any master, not your friends, not your family, and certainly not your life partner if you have one. Nope. It’s up to you.
I personally was introduced to this work first through psychotherapy. That is where it was first brought to my attention that I have an inner wounded child. That was about seven years ago. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of my own story, it’s more that I wasn’t aware of the fact that there was a breaking point at which my inner child shut and locked everyone out of her room. This is to say that there was a moment of separation between my innocent self and the one who was presented to the world thereafter. And guess who was deciding who this person was who interacted with the world at large. Yes, that hurt child was commanding the whole show from the safety of her bedroom. A regular old armchair warrior!
And war is the correct framing here. Survival is inherently a war-based mentality. To think that we need to survive is to think that the world is out to destroy us. Now I can hardly blame myself for believing that this was the case. I was conceived into a “war” between my blood and my mother’s blood. That means that for me I will ultimately have to go all the way back into the womb to heal my wounded child. I’m not quite there yet, but what I notice is that over the course of my adult life I have been slowly walking myself back there, dealing with wounds from adulthood, then early adulthood, back to high school, then early teens, then late childhood, etc. Healing of some life stages have taken longer than others. And of course they are all also interconnected, such that the process is inherently iterative (repetitive). Patience is key. We must be gentle with ourselves and trust the process.
These days I am utilizing a combination of healing practices that come from an overlap of wisdom, spiritual, and self-help realms. Specifically, Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Reconciliation, Healing the Inner Child is helpful including the mindfulness practices that he offers. I am also working through a course on DailyOM called “Re-Parent Your Inner Child.” The photo above is my journal where I do this work through that course, where I bridge between my adult self and my five year old self. Just to give a sample of the work, on a daily basis I visit with my wounded inner five year old. On one day I’ll ask, “What do you love?” The next I’ll ask, “What are you afraid of?” I’m just there to listen. On the things that bring her joy, I can relate and we smile and bask in it together. On the things that she is afraid of, I let her know that she is safe now because I’ve got it. To repeat, the adult in the room has got it. The adult in the room no longer leaves it up to that child to handle life’s challenges.
Let me end by giving you a clear example. Yesterday Shannon and I had a full day planned that included going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get our Vermont licenses and register our car. Having to go to the DMV is enough to give any of us nightmares, right??? This has been on our to do list since we arrived in Vermont. Yes, I just said “to do list”. Now you might imagine that I don’t like things lingering on my to do list for very long. I don’t! Just get done already!!! But we hadn’t managed to get this one done yet. We were both tired, so we didn’t wake up when our alarm went off. We have been starting our day by going running. Two hours later we decided to go running anyway. In that decision I wasn’t really thinking about the timing of the rest of the day. Then, right as we were about to walk out the door Shannon says, “You do realize that we are choosing to go running and that may mean that we might not be able to check the DMV off of our list?” Screeeeeeeeeeeeeech! WHAT???? This realization stopped me dead in my tracks. Deer. In. Headlights. This is what we call being “triggered.” And boy was I! What it means is that our inner wounded child has just taken the wheel. She’s scared, and she is not about to let you go put her in any kind of danger.
Now because I have been working on this, I recognized that I was being presented with an opportunity to really do this work in the present moment. That doesn’t relieve the uncomfortableness of it, but it does open the door. And I knew if I didn’t walk through that door my child was about to usurp my whole day from me. I was therefore able to reluctantly walk out the door to go running anyway, recognizing that that was the healthy choice for me. That doesn’t mean that I wasn’t panicking the entire ride over to the park where we run. I was. How can I be o.k. with not getting this item done?! There was no easy answer.
Yet by the time we got to the park, I had done a few important things. First of all, I acknowledged the presence of my inner child. “Good morning, Love. How are you doing? Ah, not well I see. Well that’s o.k. It’s o.k. for you to feel that way.” The next thing that I did was acknowledge the presence of the emotion. “Good morning, Anxiety. You are welcome here.” And then I invited one more person into the room. I invited my Self (witness consciousness, mindfulness, soul, not to be confused with the relative self who was doing all of the inviting). “Good morning, Self. We would like you to come sit with us. Scratch that. Let’s all go running together.” They all agreed.
As I ran through the forest, the meadow, and looked to the mountains beyond, we all said good morning to them, presented ourselves, and asked for their insights. Forest’s insight was “we are all in this together.” Meadow’s insight was “I just give in to whatever is. Some days it’s rain, some shine, some snow. Whatever needs to get done always seems to get done in its own good time.” Mountain’s insight was “I’ve been here for a very, very, very long time. I came to realize a long time ago that I’ll never be done. You can’t perceive my movement, but in fact I am in a constant state of change that will never finish.” I just listened and held space for all of them. It was a lovely and loving conversation.
As we were heading home after the run I asked my five year old, “Is there something in your experience that you felt had to get done or you wouldn’t survive?” There is no easy answer because I am now reaching back into a time in which our self consciousness is very weak. This is to say it’s hard to remember. It will therefore be an ongoing conversation that will require modes of communication other than language. My child was able to tell me immediately that she was concerned about not being able to speak correctly. If learning to speak correctly didn’t get “done,” then survival was questionable. I acknowledged her fear, assured her that it all worked out, and that I am quite capable of speaking up for us. There is more there, I know. But this is where the patience comes in. Relationships take time to build the trust that enables us to be vulnerable with one another. This immediately led me to realize that if I can’t do this with myself, if I can’t embrace these wounded parts of myself and tough emotions without judgement, then there is no way in heck that I can do that for another human being. Hence, I do the work.
By the way, we did manage to make it to the DMV. We filled out the forms and waited our turn. Then in five seconds flat the DMV lady- you know the one, the one who always seems to have the bad news- tells us that we are missing documents that we need to do any of the things that we needed to do. That’s right… it didn’t get done! But you know what? It didn’t ruin my day. That isn’t to say that Shannon and I both weren’t irritated…o.k., angry… as all get out for a good hour or so. But we were able to acknowledge it, express it, embrace it, and then.. let it go.
