After nearly a year of doing inner child work and shadow work, there are some issues that can feel like hooks that I struggle to change. Shadow-work and inner child work aren’t some new age concept where you do a quick look in a meditation and then pop out again or where you find a hurting child and you just say a few nice words to them, hug them, and leave. Real shadow work and inner child work takes really, really doing the work. It’s no walk in the park, and it’s not some super fluffy experience where you do the work and after you are skipping around the house with all weights off your shoulders.
My inner child work has involved nearly vomiting, crying to the point where my arms shake, the body doing the actual manerisms of the child that is hurting, and from there, finding ways to understand the child, understand the opposing parts in shadow work, and find a way to validate the child, validate the opposing parts, and allow change to happen within.
On Saturday, I attended a flamenco music and dance evening. Something in me had been nudging me to go for some time. I kept seeing the ad pop up on Facebook, and I knew it was going to be good for me. So I booked it up and went with a friend. After a year and a half of grieving double losses, I hadn’t felt joy in my heart for a long time. The singing and music struck deep into me, and my heart was flung open by the music and especially the voices of the singers singing their passionate Spanish songs. The power cascaded across the auditorium; both me and my friend felt it deep in our hearts. The power. It felt like the strength of their voices was ‘I am here, this is me!’ and it touched a part of me that wanted so much to feel ‘I am here, this is me!’.
I had that high you have after a really good experience, from deep grief to deep joy, but I knew that as so much light had been shone on my heart, the next morning I would feel a release of some sort, for the light shining brings the heavier, dense parts of us to the surface or reveals whatever we have inside that has been hidden in the shadows.
It began with a massive panic-terror tidal wave. I was so frightened and worried about the future that I started to see all the things that were uncertain in my life, and it was really heartbreakingly painful. I felt the inner child crying hard, scared for her safety and for what she perceived would come. After a little while, a wiser me stepped in and started to gently talk to me about how I have always been taken care of. Nothing in my past ever amounted to the things I was fearing; the divine always had my back.
This seemed to lighten my energy to the point where I started singing a song as I wiped the condensation from my cold winter windows. I’m sure there’s a message there that the song was happening as I cleared the water away. Water is a symbol of emotions. And there was a lot of water that day. The song was simple.
May money flow so I may grow.
I knew this wasn’t an ego song in the sense of thinking I couldn’t grow without money, because plenty of people do. You can be in a prison cell yet know peace and freedom; this was more a money flow, meaning I could make choices to leave the isolation I had become stuck in since Michael had passed away. Choices to socialise more, choices to join groups and activities that brought me joy and connections. We live in a place where we need exchanges to do things, and as money is the route we have right now, that is essential when making certain changes in life.
After cleaning my windows, I sat down with my blind spot cards. These are new cards I got a short while ago. They are challenging cards; they say what your blind spot is in any area or challenge you may be having. It could be a blind spot to abundance or a blind spot in relationships—anywhere we are not able to clearly see what we are missing.
What Do We Fear About Who We Are?
I picked two cards this morning: the first one I had already had previously, which was FEAR, and the second card, which was TRAUMA.
Teal Swan (the creator of the cards) shared some words in the book that really triggered me. One was that many people either run from fear or live life with fear. And while it may sound great that people choose to live life with fear, she made the point that many people live without understanding what the fear is trying to tell them; they miss the messages held within the fear.
One thing she said that was like a lightbulb going off was, ‘Who is the you inside that you are so scared of?’ along with needing to love the part of us that is scared.
My go-to answer to this would have gone straight to the negative due to past programming. I would be scared of the part that is resistant or not wanting to be accountable or responsible, but my life has involved spending a lot of time looking at what is wrong with me. I was so resistant to knowing what ‘me’ inside I was so scared of that I asked for further clarity, and so did my usual inner child ‘knock, knock’ session. This is where I sit, and when I imagine a knock at the door happening, through the door comes the person or feeling that is arising at the time. Normally, the key is to observe this feeling—what it looks like, how it moves, what colour it is, etc.—and then move through it so you can see the inner child. This is because the feeling or issue is often hiding the real, deeper issue beneath. This wasn’t necessary this time because all I wanted to know was: Who in me am I scared of?
As I knocked, I saw the image I had seen in a development circle I was part of. We spent a session looking at our higher self. We looked to see how she or he felt, what they looked like, and how we felt in relation to that higher, wiser self. I remember looking up at my higher self in awe. She was giant, wearing all white; she was so tall that I had to arch my head and back to see where she ended. I just remember thinking, ‘Wow?! Is that me? Really? Are you sure?’
So as I sat today and saw her appear, I realised that I was scared of who I really am. I was scared of my greatness, as the well-known quote goes.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson
And even though I saw her appear, I didn’t believe it. I tried to make sense of it; it must be something in me that is struggling or resistant. I couldn’t be afraid of this glorious me, could I?
What’s Right About Me?
While sending a voice note to a friend about all of this, I asked the question, What is right about me? And as it reverberated through my whole body, I knew the knock-knock visitor was my beauty, my talents, my skills, my heart, my strength, and beyond.
As many of you who have been reading my blog for years now may know, my negative mantra programme I was given from childhood was ‘There’s something wrong with you, Kelly’. It was so powerful that I’ve spent most of my life trying to find out what is wrong with me. Many life events set up experiences that reinforced this wrongness, from being pushed away, rejection, not being seen, being invisible, hidden, and more.
So many of us live our lives trying to both prove there’s nothing wrong with us (but by doing so, resisting the wisdom being shown through this false view) and/or living our lives reinforcing this view through the relationships we form, the lives we lead, and our relationship with ourselves.
What is right with me is going to be one heck of a journey for me—to embrace the glorious me instead of the small, insecure me. The me that has my back, and that is so powerful and beautiful.
Wanting What We Want
If we’ve spent most of our lives being small and viewing ourselves as something that is wrong, even if we hide this belief by superficially filling our lives with avoidance strategies (drugs, alcohol, spiritual masks, food, sex, etc.), we may find that as we start to look for what is right with us, our wants change.
We may realise that we can have more authentic wants. You may want money to just come in without doing anything at all. You may want someone to care for you for a change, but if we don’t become really honest about our wants too, they are pushed beneath the surface and come out in often manipulative ways. We may not feel worthy of our true wants or feel they are ‘bad’ in some way, so they manifest as other issues. I remember Michael telling me his mum would get sick a lot; he had to care for her from the age of 5, and he would be on a step washing the dishes or cooking. Now, thinking about this more deeply, she was wanting to be cared for. Her husband Michael’s father musn’t have been meeting that need, so she transferred that need in a manipulative way onto the empathic and super sensitive child Michael, my dearly departed best friend. What hidden needs do you have lurking inside you? What if you started to look at what is right about you right now? Could this open a door to really honestly looking at your true needs right now?
What’s right about me?
- I have the most beautiful, loving heart.
- I love deeply. To those who are open, I give my all in love.
- I write to learn; writing is a vehicle to understand life and myself.
- I have a great capacity for joy.
- I have a safe, calming presence, and people often feel soothed when with me.
- I care about others.
- I have deep feelings that are so beautiful and have so much wisdom in them.
- I have a lot of passion.
The rest?
I need to keep looking.
Many have said I am incredibly strong for getting through the trauma I have experienced, maybe I am, it can be hard to feel sometimes it is a good thing when you are feeling vulnerable and still adjusting to change.
What about you?
What’s right about you?
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Kelly Martin, author of ‘When Everyone Shines But You’ is a dedicated writer and blogger who fearlessly explores life’s deepest questions. Faced with a decade of profound anxiety and grief following the loss of her father and her best friend Michael, Kelly embarked on a transformative journey guided by mindfulness, and she hasn’t looked back since. Through her insightful writing, engaging podcasts, and inspiring You Tube channel Kelly empowers others to unearth the hidden treasures within their pain, embracing the profound truth that they are ‘enough’ exactly as they are.
