Inner Child's Fear

My therapist is back from Hawaii, jet-lagged and weather-shocked, but present nonetheless. I had a session yesterday.

So, says she, how are you?

I told her that my chest felt like it was full of iron, tight, burning, pressing. What does it mean, T asks. I’m afraid. I think when we feel fear, T explains, we’re experiencing something that happened to us before. When we were little. I was afraid you wouldn’t come back, I say, tears silently starting to slide. That’s something that happened to you before, T asks rhetorically. And it happened with oldT, she adds. I bob my head, a little girl’s nod, and bite my lip.

We sit in silence – long pauses of reflection between us. I don’t have words, and T doesn’t seem to expect them from me. Sometimes, she has told me, we don’t have them. Sometimes the experiences first occurred when we were pre-verbal. Our bodies know, but it can be hard to express.

It didn’t happen this time, T says. I came back. There are a thousand reasons, I protest, that you would come back ONE time. One time means nothing. My heart is flailing and I feel the pressure in my chest increase. But I did come back, T says, and that’s different for you. It takes time. Then T tells me telepathically, but I understand.

We exchange more words, share more silences. The quiet is calm. I still have my angst; my chest is still tight. The space between me and T, though, is peaceful. My anxiety is not with her.

We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.  - Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life

I understand –