The Eight-Year-Old and The Dancer

Journal, 10-19-11

I’m unsure where to start, what to ask. Start with feelings… I feel
Worried
Sad but also optimistic – two separate parts, two separate feelings
A kind of wanting, longing… for
Connection
Purpose
Love

Purpose is an interesting one. Where does that come from?
A feeling of failure, as if I’m not making the most of my time, my life – that’s pervasive, constantly there, and nothing new.
A feeling that completing some of the things I once thought were so important is really just a way to prove to myself that I have worth.
So, then, what do I want to do?
It’s hard to get started on anything. It feels impossible to do anything well enough to bother with starting… and this is not something new. I’ve always been this way and I recognize it as a sign of perfectionism. It isn’t helpful.
So I do nothing, waste so much time, because it feels futile to do anything which can’t be done perfectly.
I’m in a holding pattern, and have been for some time. I can make the excuse that I’ve been doing all this work on myself (is it an excuse?) and I could use that for a long time to come. Look how long it takes some people to get through this kind of work… I could ease the pressure and allow myself to slide along in this in-between place for a good while, longer. The defeatist in me thinks it doesn’t much matter, but there is still that piece inside that wants to push forward, to be “done”, to feel well enough and whole enough to move into the real work – whatever that is. I feel impatient. What is the purpose, the reason I’ve needed to get from where I was to where I’m heading in such a hurry? I worry that there is no grand plan for me, that it’s an illusion, that I really have no greater purpose than to be who I am right now –

And who is that? When I thought of it, just now – who I am right now – it did not feel like this was enough. I still don’t feel as if I’m enough, the way I am. I feel like I need to do something important in order to be worthy of my life… is that true? It isn’t our accomplishments that define us, and some of the important things I’m doing fall outside of what I could easily check off a list. The things I’ve been able to say to two friends, recently, I know were important. They were exactly what was needed, and it felt good to have that come through me. It feels good when I can be that voice, and it’s good that I can know it isn’t really me, but something that comes through me. Maybe that’s all I need to be. Maybe if I can listen to and express that Inner Voice, as my cards tell me, that’s enough.

And so, the other things – the longing for connection and love – what about that? I can’t demand perfection from myself, even in that part of my life. I am learning, coming to understand, what it would be like to be intimate with someone beyond simply a physical connection. I’m starting to see how that can be true even of my relationship with myself. Through the Tantra video, I can understand a different way of looking at sex, and my body. I need to drop the shame, however. Just because I can’t be in that frame of mind every time I think of sex, does not mean I can’t ever be there. It feels like a pure way of being – to always be in that frame of mind – but I can’t always be there. Sometimes other things get triggered and I may still react to them and I have to just accept that about myself. I wish I could drop the shame. I wish I didn’t judge myself so harshly for the kinds of things that still set me off. I want the kind of connection and love I now believe is possible – I want it even with just myself, to feel as if I’m worthwhile and to find that kind of self-love. I just can’t expect that it will always be there, I guess. Sometimes I’m still going to give in.
So, that is on top. That’s the first layer of stuff wrapped around this giant ball of longing for love and connection – the sense that I let myself down, at times; that I am not as loving with myself as I could be, and that I judge myself harshly for my own thoughts and reactions, even when they don’t affect anyone but me, even when I am not really hurting anyone (am I even hurting myself? I don’t’ know).

But, under that, the 8yr old…
And who is she, really?
She is the combination of all the child parts who’ve come forward, into my conscious mind, but have not joined into the part of me that feels like me. She is not just eight – she is the ring-leader, the speaker, and in her resides the Rag Doll, still so silent, and the faerie outside my window and the six-year-old with missing teeth and the two-year-old who slept all night in a tiny cabinet to feel safe. They all feel safer with her than with me – or with any adult with the possible exception of “The Dancer.” I try to see the 8yr old as if she was the little girl in the video, dancing, twirling, accepted, loved, her hair carefully braided and pulled back on top to keep it neat and make her feel beautiful, her dress loose and flowing and lovely. I want to give her the flowing confidence I see in the movement of her little body with no thought that anything she does will be looked at with anything less than love and acceptance.

Instead, I see the haunted look in her eyes. She still doesn’t trust me, and really, why should she? If anyone is standing between her and the Resources, it’s me. It’s so hard to let the scarred and broken pieces of my past join me completely. It’s a shameful thought, but still there – that their presence will somehow tarnish the beauty of the Resources, that they really are so broken that they can’t be fixed and have no place here, with me. I don’t want to know that, in my mind, but it’s still there. It isn’t the Resources who think it… how could it be? They are the highest part of me and the connection to things higher than that… they don’t hold grudges, or judge. That’s just me, and then am I really worthy of their attention, their love, their protection? I judge myself so harshly – whether it’s “me” or that 8yr old, who embodies all the pain of the past.

I don’t want to know what she wants and I don’t want to express it to C and I don’t want to have to have it there in my head anymore. I want to turn my back on her and then I hate myself for wanting that.

So
How do I undo that?
I need to open the door. I need to let the 8yr old through, and stand back, get out of the way, so she can talk to the part of me that has some idea how to move forward without all this crap, without judgment, without distrust.

I need to stop punishing myself – because the 8yr old is me, even when I don’t want to admit it – and let her through.

Okay
Do you feel the Resources here, little one? Do you see them? They want me to let you in. I don’t know how to do that except to step back. Go ahead. I won’t stop you. Tell them what you want.

8yr old: you said it before, but i never did. you don’t want me to say it, but i need to say it. i need to. i need to see her face, then i’ll know. then i’ll know.

Me: What will you know?

8yr old: i’ll know if it makes me ugly. you think it does.

Me: I try hard not to believe that. I don’t want to believe it. I wish I could tell you I didn’t. The Resources do not believe it. They believe in you, in your innocence. They love you.

8yr old: but i need to believe it. and so do you.

Me: There are no rules, here. There’s nothing that says we have to say that, out loud. There’s no reason for it. She already knows. It is so ugly, and it was a long time ago. Why can’t you just let it go?

And here, I realize, I’m standing in between, again. I can’t help it. I don’t like this at all. I just can’t seem to pull myself out from in front of her, from between her and the Resources. I know
Well, I think you think I am the Resources, and in a way I am, but they are so much more perfect than I can ever be. They are the ideal, the perfect me, but not the one that can live here, in this world. I’m just human and there’s only so much I can do. I can’t help who I am.

And it all feels like an excuse, like another way to push that child away and never have to say the ugly words out loud. It’s what I want. I don’t want any part of that. I want to let it go, and I have let it go, so why can’t she?