Those of us who grew up in what could be defined as toxic environments know how damaging neglectful or abusive childhoods can be as we grow up. Instead of being a kid and enjoying our younger years, we were forced to become ‘adults’ far too quickly.
The child inside of us was taken away far too soon and not allowed to be the free fun-loving youngster that he or she hoped to be. For me, that little girl that I once was died far sooner than I ever will and the loss that came with her leaving was more than I ever really allowed myself to come to terms with. She was a very hopeful, kind, and caring person but after she left for a long time I was not.
While in recent times I have regained the parts of myself that I had been locking away and am currently working to bring them into my life as a whole, the loss of the young girl I once was and didn’t get to embrace still seemingly haunts me as I am sure your inner child does you as well if you were neglected or abused in your earlier years. Only through grieving properly do I feel that moving on and finding the rest of who I am will be possible. Through the years I have learned that there is nothing wrong with giving yourself time to grieve.
Whether you’re grieving a part of yourself you didn’t know existed until recently or you’ve actually lost a person in your world who was important to you, grieving is not something anyone should make you feel bad about. We all deal with things in our own ways.
It is important to grieve who we were before we went through any kind of trauma and understanding that will allow you to move forward in more ways than you could ever imagine. By denying this process or pushing it under the rug we are only making things worse for ourselves. We need to feel in order to move on, period.
We should all work to own our grief so that we can move on from it. If you want to remain stuck then fine, do that but if you want to change and let go of the past, grieving is crucial. Through doing this we are being true to ourselves and tuning into things that we otherwise would not be capable of.
In regards to grieving HeaingYourInnerChild.com wrote as follows:
Grieving is a great relief. Releasing repressed, pressurized emotional energy that we have been denying and avoiding for years is the path to freedom from the past so that we can see the present with more clarity. Getting emotionally honest with ourselves is the key to clearing our inner channel to Truth. It is necessary for us to be willing to heal our emotional wounds in order to open up to Love – to tune into the higher vibrational energy of Love and Joy.
As with everything else in life, there are different levels of grieving – and different stages of grief.
The deep grieving of sobbing and crying and snot clogging up our nose is an incredibly powerful part of the healing process – that can bring wondrous relief, and physical exhaustion in its aftermath. Normally after a session of deep grieving a person will feel lighter – sometimes immediately, sometimes the next day – because some energy they have been carrying has been released.
The explosive release of this deep grief when done in a healing framework – that is when we accept and own it as opposed to shaming ourselves and apologizing for it – is a very powerful part of the healing process. It is terrifying to our ego because it feels like a complete loss of control. Our ego programming is to stop it, to stuff it.
When our deep grief issues are triggered and we are at the point where our voice starts breaking, we automatically shut down – we close our throat and stop breathing, or go to very shallow breathing. This is the point where it is so important to learn to breathe directly into the energy so that we can start releasing it. When we take deep breaths into the grief energy, it starts breaking up and little balls of energy are released. That is what sobs are – little balls of energy.
The more we have integrated a Loving Spiritual belief system into our relationship with life and with our own emotions, the easier it becomes to align with healing through grieving instead of aligning with the false beliefs that it is weak to cry, that it is shameful to lose control.
Your inner child is not someone you have to cling to. If you feel your inner child is no more, let them go. Mourn the loss that comes with and embrace your adulthood as it is. Admitting that you feel this way is not a weakness, it is a sign of understanding and reveals that you are finally coming to terms with your past and the traumas you have faced.
When you lose your inner child you are losing your innocence and only through being aware of this can you come to terms with the things you’ve gone through. Your past does not define you and you can still become who you have always wanted to be in this world. Life is not as set in stone as we might make it out to be. Through this understanding and this understanding alone, we can come to release the anger we’ve held onto for so long.
Sources:
https://healyourinnerchild.com/grieve/
http://bradhambrick.com/learning-to-grieve-losses-not-caused-by-death/