Inner Child Healing By The Creek

Taylor and I went to the creek today, a little spot about 10 minutes from our home. The plan was to spend a few hours hiking and connecting with nature and each other. The leaves are in their full autumn glory now, copper and yellow against the deep reddish orange of the rock formations.

As we were getting ready to leave our home, Taylor came up to me with two little teeny tiny dried mushrooms and asked me if I wanted one before we left. I tuned into my own inner knowing and said, “Sure.”

Microdosing psilocybin is something I haven’t done in many years (though I have macro-dosed, to read about that, click here) and I wasn’t sure if I would be open to that since I view mushrooms as sacred medicine to be consumed with intention and in a ceremonial way…. I was actually a bit surprised I felt such a solid “yes” from my body but hey.. down to go with the flow. And I would see later on our hike just why the universe was aligning in this way and just how the medicine would help facilitate a profound healing experience for me, even though it was such a tiny amount (on a full stomach, to boot!).

We hopped into Taylor’s truck and listened to a couple of songs as we drove the short distance to the creek spot Taylor was taking me to. I realized when I started feeling giggly that the medicine was beginning to affect me :). It’s nice to be able to just giggle and laugh at the mundane parts of life every once in a while, and microdosing definitely helped me go there.

When we got to Taylor’s secret creek spot parking, I hopped out of the truck fully ready to just immerse myself in nature and also tag along for what I was imagining was really a trip for Taylor. He was the one to suggest this special creek spot and he has had some amazing solo experiences there, and for some reason I could take or leave creek adventures, to be honest lol :)

I don’t particularly love going into the creek unless the weather is super hot (lucky for me I live in the desert and that is the case for a large portion of the year), but for Taylor the creek is his medicine no matter what temperature the air or the water is. And right now, it’s COLD !

So I had this idea in my mind of just following Taylor around his special place and holding space for his nature experience, more so than my own.

Damn… was I mistaken haha :)

We hiked down from the main road to the creek and then Taylor said we would cross the creek in order to go to the trail on the other side. He asked me, “Are you ok with getting a little wet?” “Umm, ideally, I would NOT get a little wet, or wet at all.”

I think you can probably tell where this is going. :)

We hiked a bit further to find a crossing with more boulders so I could try to just step on the rocks to cross the creek instead of actually wading into the water. I ended up stepping into the creek at one point when the rocks were too far apart for me to step on top of, and PHEW it was SO COLD but I thought, “Ok, this is actually ok and not too bad.” My next step was a misstep and I slipped on a rock in the bottom of the shallow creek that was covered in slimy algae and fell over into the cold rushing creek water.

I immediately looked up at Taylor expecting him to start laughing at me, but he just looked at me with a deep look of divine masculine love and tenderness, knowing that what had just happened was what I had hoped would NOT. My eyes started to well up with tears but I rather staunchly pushed my emotions back down and brushed it off as “no big deal.. just water!”

I quickly got up out of the water but the right half of my chunky cardigan was soaked and heavy with cold creek water, as were my cotton (which I knew were NOT going to dry out quickly at all) yoga pants and part of my t-shirt. Brrrr..

I made my way out of the creek and onto the far shore, pulled off my cardigan and laid it on a rock to dry, and asked Taylor for his hoodie. “I knew there was a reason I brought this thing with me.” I sent a prayer of thanks to the universe for this simple comfort :)

We got our shoes back on and headed up the trail, into a dry creek bed that ran between two tall walls of red stone. No sun to be found, and my inner dialogue started up real quick, about how I would now be miserable the rest of our hike and how I was so cold and clammy and I would just follow Taylor around HIS happy place, shivering the whole time, and blah blah blah. I really started to martyr myself ! All the while, Taylor was talking about how amazing this place is and how lucky we are to be surrounded by such nature, which had my wounded inner teenager rolling her eyes. I made a mental note to just acknowledge my feelings and tell myself that it was ok that I was miserable and I didn’t need to try to think my way out of this one.

We turned a bit of a corner on the trail and Taylor walked up to a tree to connect to it and touch its bark and I rolled my eyes even harder and stomped off on my own, seeking sunlight with laser like focus. I spied a giant rock bathed in a sun beam and made a beeline over to it as fast as my little moccasin boots would take me.

Once I climbed onto the boulder and sat my cold wet butt on the rock, I turned my face toward the sun with my eyes closed and surprisingly (to me) started silently bawling.

Something clicked within me, and I realized and literally felt in my heart space all the times in my life I had silenced my true emotion and discomfort in order to just go along with what someone else wanted. From a childhood of never feeling seen or validated in my emotions, even silenced most of the time I displayed any sort of emotion, to scenes of pushing myself out of my comfort zone sexually for a partner and never saying a word about it… every single instance of me suppressing my emotions, my discomfort, and my truth to support someone else’s narrative or reality flashed before my eyes and through my heart space.

I felt within myself the paradox of being the divine feminine adult energy AND the wounded inner child energy. I showered that wounded and sad and frustrated inner child with unconditional love and the feeling of safety. Yes, it IS ok to express your discomfort. Yes, it IS ok to feel emotions without judging them or trying to think your way out of them. Yes, you are beautifully perfect no matter what you are saying, doing, or feeling. And it doesn’t matter what someone else says or does about what you say or do, it’s all perfect.

I cried and cried and cried. Meanwhile, I heard Taylor come up next to my rock and just stand there, and I felt his solid space holding of safety and warmth permeating from his rooted body and his open heart.

I realized as I looked back and started to meta-analyze my own emotional experience (because, yes, I am starting to allow myself to actually FEEL my emotions and not just analyze them and put them away inside myself in a thought-box, AND still keep my ability to see the bigger picture of the WHY for it all at the same time, somehow), that I never could have had this experience until that very moment, because I had never felt so SAFE in my own self until now.

My inner child KNEW that she could express herself freely and that my adult self would NOT ridicule, judge, or shame her for her emotional experience. I have been working SO hard lately to release the inner judger and inner critic and inner shamer who all have had permanent residency inside my mind, and to truly EMBODY the characteristics that I value about the divine feminine archetype: loving acceptance, compassion, empathy, and unconditional love. For myself, first and foremost, but also for everyone around me. And I could see right away that this breakthrough of profound inner child healing was because she - my inner child - felt safe, FINALLY, to express herself and be heard and supported in that way.

I also have never felt as safe in my relationship with Taylor as I do now. The amount of work we have done as individuals and as a couple, in order to truly relate to each other in a safe and grounded way, to hold space for each other’s humanness without judgement and with compassion, has really amplified not only our ability to connect deeply and intimately with each other, but our ability to show up for ourselves as individuals too.

Thank you, Taylor. The more safe I feel with you, the more safe I am able to feel with myself, the more these inner wounds are able to come up to the surface to be examined, felt, and integrated.

Back in that dry creek bed, sitting atop that boulder in the sun, when I was ready, I asked Taylor to come next to me and hold me. I told him about my experience and what had happened, the change and healing that had been alchemized within myself, triggered by falling in the creek (and, the tiny micro mushroom I had eaten, I’m sure).

After I expressed my process and felt super held and loved by him through it all, we got up and brushed ourselves off to walk back toward the creek to head back home.

Just the act of brushing my wet pants off triggered another super vivid memory for me, of being 3 or 4 years old and at a babysitter’s or friend’s house (can’t quite remember for sure which), and I had peed my pants there. That experience made me feel at the time, and echoed throughout all these years since, that I didn’t matter, my needs or comfort didn’t matter. No one noticed I peed my pants, I went about playing with wet pants on. And I distinctly remember feeling both sad and ashamed because no one cared about me and also I had peed my pants and I shouldn’t have.

This memory went along, obviously, with the theme of not feeling like my comfort, emotions, or my Self mattered to anyone else, so why should it matter to me, either? Why NOT sublimate my own feelings and desires, especially in the face of other stronger people whose needs, wants, desires, and emotions we more valid and important than my own.

Needless to say, after all of that, both experiencing it and then expressing it to Taylor, I was exhausted. And yet, still had to build potency within myself to get myself back across that cold creek water and into the truck to go home and get myself warm, dry and comfortable again.

I did get wet in the creek again, on purpose this time, and it wasn’t too bad actually. And we were witnessed in our creek crossing by a fly fisherman wearing waist-high waders, which made me supremely jealous and also somewhat triumphant-feeling. :)

And when we finally got back home and I was in the steaming hot shower, I felt back into my heart space and double-checked that my tender and sensitive inner child was still there, feeling safe and seen and warm and cozy now, held by my inner divine mother so lovingly. There she was, right there, as she had been my whole life, only now feeling actually safe to be seen, heard, and loved how she has always wanted to be.

I realized all the walls I had put up between my Self, my true essence, and the world around me, in order to try to protect my sensitive self from being hurt. And of course I had had the mental awareness of this for a long time up to this point in my life, but I could never go as deeply as I needed to in order to heal and break down some of these walls, because my body, my nervous system, my essence, didn’t feel SAFE enough to do so.

Safety has been the key element for me, and I know this is true for many of us. There is no way our nervous systems will ever release their control and weaken their protective mechanisms like walls, blockages, basically anything that is keeping us from living the life we truly desire and keeping us from aligning completely with our capital T Truth, if they don’t perceive the environment as safe.

And safety isn’t only external, we have to show ourselves that we can have self-compassion and self-love, non-judgment and ultimate warmth with ourselves, first and foremost, before our tender and timid inner children who have been wounded, will risk coming out into the light of day to be seen and heard and integrated.

Our coping mechanisms and protective measures, that once served a real purpose and kept us safe, eventually become outdated and start keeping us from living our Truths.

At least, I know this is true for me from my own personal experience.

I needed to come out of that shell and start valuing my own feelings, emotions, desires, and joy in order to take the next step in my life toward aligning my existence with my Truth.

And I guess I needed a dip in a cold creek and a little baby mushroom and a feeling of safety in my relationship with Taylor and with myself… in order to go there.

This whole year has been a massive dismantling for me, of coming out of survival mode (that I didn’t even really realize I was in, truly) and taking steps to align with my Truth, to show my true essence to the world, not caring whether anyone accepts it or not, but just for my own self to be in joy, happiness, pleasure, abundance, love, and compassion.

I will write more details about that journey at some point, but for now I am happy to share that I am working on making myself a safe space, for myself, my family, my husband, my community, and anyone who is looking for a safe space to start exploring their own life experience.

We all deserve to live in joy, abundance and love.

Not feeling safe in this world, in our bodies, in our relationships keeps us from that.

Having a space in order to align our frequency with safety for ourselves, helps us to heal, and to truly heal with lasting effects. Because our nervous systems can repattern themselves, releasing old patterns of protection, and embracing new behaviors and patterns of love, compassion, joy, abundance, and anything else we are trying to manifest for ourselves or attract into our lives.

I am not perfect, I am a human still with my own layers and layers of wounding and patterns, but I am doing the work, trying to become more safe for myself and for my community.

If you’re interested in learning more about this type of stuff, please book a free intro healing session with me :) I’m looking forward to evolving and growing together!