Love & Tenderness Heal the Fractured Self

How are you feeling as we come out of the pandemic?  There seems to be mixed feelings amongst my clients. Many are quietly admitting that they liked being based at home and not having to travel long distances each day to work.  Others, like a former client of mine, are really struggling with their mental health to the extent that they are considering taking medication to help them through this period. When we add the societal context – statistics show that stress is on the rise in society particularly among children from the age of five – it would suggest that very little has changed as a result of the pandemic.  Here I share my take.

We get some clues from the wording in the introduction to Raffi’s, a well-known children’s singer and author, covenant for honouring children.  He states that all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty, and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream, and belong to a loving “village.” 

Ask yourself do you know your own song? When you feel stuck often it is a piece of unhealed trauma coming up for release.  I used to think that trauma was akin to PTSD or caused by physical and emotional abuse.  What I realise now is that trauma can be much more subtle, and can be caused by unmet needs.  For example, babies’ only form of connection comes through attachment to others and they express that through crying. They want to be held.  Many medical professionals in the West still advocate controlled crying where you leave the baby in their cot to cry themselves to sleep.

In these and other ways the fractured self is created and then we can spend a lifetime finding all the pieces we have lost.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.  If you have a fear of abandonment and it sits deep within you, you may be unconsciously recreating situations where you are abandoned.  Or you may make the decision to abandon those that love you before they abandon you.  Or spend your life helping others so as to avoid facing abandonment, not realising that this action leads to you abandoning yourself.

Societal lens

The pain can lead you to disconnect from your feelings and we see many examples of this at the macrocosmic level. Fracking is one example of the many ways we ravage the planet. This is only possible because of the level of disconnection in society. The fracture is further intensified by the old paradigm view that life is tough which encourages greater separation and isolation.  There is some truth in that when we look at our legal system and other societal mechanisms which tend to be punitive rather than show compassion.

So how do we deal with such levels of disconnection?

The first step is to press pause and check in with your body.  How do you feel? We are each born with a core wound and our life is about coming back to wholeness.  In my experience that can come through reclaiming those aspects of self that have been denied over time.

Right now I believe that we are being called to come together collectively to experience tenderness and reconnect with intimacy.  Being with others helps us to realise that we are not alone; that we are both Divine and human; and the energetic charge that is created can bring a real sense of lasting peace and connection. It’s time to write a new story which is only possible when we tend to our fractured self.