I just watched this video and the first part as well (this is part 2) and its really excellent. I think I have a lot of work to do with my inner child. I am very visual, so I was able to see clearly. John, the guy in the above video, said to picture your child walking toward you. Immediately I was in a cool, mossy forest. I have always loved forests and felt most at peace there. I saw a little girl, about nine years old, slim and petite and a little elfin looking, with shoulder-length light brown hair and big hazel eyes. She was walking through the forest as I used to love to do... Leaving the path frequently to climb trees or balance as she walked on logs, pausing to check out mossy hollow trees and other interesting things. Eventually she reached my adult self, and she pulled out a picture to show me, a snapshot of a traumatic or hurtful event. At first I wasn't sure which event to choose for this, but eventually settled on one during my last year of school before my parents started homeschooling me, which was fourth grade, when I was nine. It was the first time I had a severe hypoglycemic episode. The child me and the adult me stepped into the photo and started reliving the memory.
I started feeling sick and weak on the playground during noon recess, so I walked all alone, all the way to the school office. None of my friends took me seriously or would go with me, no adults noticed, no one seemed to care. I felt sicker and sicker, in kind of a daze, and the office seemed to be so far away. When I finally got there, I don't remember what I said, because I fainted. When I came to, everything was confusion, teachers and office people were fluttering around all worried. My mother was there, I think she was holding me, but her focus was not on me other than to try to get me to eat an apple (I was so weak and nauseous still I didn't feel like eating anything) but mostly she was trying to explain to the other adults that I must have hypoglycemia, like she herself had, and that this was just a low blood sugar episode, nothing too serious, but she would be taking me to a doctor... Etc. I felt invisible. No one really talked to me or addressed my feelings or how terrifying the whole episode had been to me. I don't remember if I went home with her and skipped the rest of the day of school, or if I just rested in the office and ate and then went back to the playground. But I remember the very next time I saw my two closest friends, either that same day or the next day, they looked at me with suspicion and disgust in their eyes. It was obvious they had been talking about me behind my back, because they said "We think you were faking being sick, just to get attention". I remember feeling so shocked, hurt, betrayed... I was staggered that my closest friends would think that of me. I think I cried and said that wasn't true, that I really had been sick with hypoglycemia (which probably sounded like a made-up word to them) and my Mom was taking me to a doctor and all. They finally, grudgingly, said ok, they believed me and they were sorry. But I could see in their eyes that they were still suspicious.
I think this incident is at the root of my deep sense of shame about my health problems, plus the idea I've always had that everyone around me thinks I fake my symptoms. Especially as more and more health problems cropped up and i was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia, asthma, multiple food and environmental allergies, and epilepsy. It didn't help that in several incidents in later years, my parents did accuse me of faking or exaggerating my symptoms because I was "lazy, and just trying to get out of work". But I've always felt ashamed of being sick, and also like I am all alone. Like no one else really cares how I feel. No one was there to comfort me when I was nine and had this terrifying situation, I was alone in the fear and sickness.
After reliving that memory with my inner child, who I have nicknamed Baby Bird, my adult self stepped into the memory to comfort her. I picked her up and held her in my arms and validated her feelings, saying it was very scary what happened, and letting her cry about it. I told her it was ok, it was ok to have health problems, lots of people do, and that she would grow up strong and healthy in spite of having some health challenges. I told her it was wrong for her friends to act that way, that they should have trusted her and been kind and understanding and supportive. I held her and hugged her and told her that I loved her and would always be there for her and believe in her, no matter what, that I was her Fairy Godmother and loved her and would take care of her.
This felt really amazing and healing, and that painful memory has a little less bite to it now. :-)
