I had a client come in, who want to work on the fact that he couldn’t stop obsessing over certain parts of his life. Someone in the martial arts world told him that I help people “unfuck themselves.” He has tried therapy- but knew there was something deeper for him than just talking about it. He wanted to get down to the bottom of it and find some healing.

He was an intellect- brilliantly smart, and very much a left brain thinker. He couldn’t get these feelings and thoughts out of his head. I sensed quickly that he hadn’t taken care of his younger self…

From a young age, he had to figure things out on his own. Because of this, he wasn’t rooted. Or grounded. None of this was his fault, of course, he just had past trauma as a child that was still lingering. As well as lot of built up resentment towards his mom that kept churning in his head, heart, and soul.. So in our session, we discussed this and how to heal it. Below is my recount of our session.

Healing Our Younger Selves…

After talking about how to take care of our younger selves- and about the concepts and theories of healing, my client said, “Yeah, I tried that, but I don’t think I did it 'right.'”

He said he was tired of being angry. He was confused as to why he was so happy and grateful in other parts of his life, but why he was obsessed with this part of his life-- about being angry at his mother, not being able to get over it.

It seemed to me that he could intellectualize so many things in and out of being-- and he could couple these things with pure effort, will and determination. And he definitely appeared to have good intent and a solid understanding of the laws of the universe, such as karma, good thoughts, etc.

So why couldn’t he “fix” this part of himself?

He had come to me for exactly one session previously. I had explained many things in a philosophical way-- which he said changed things immensely. He was trying to apply these understandings in order to heal. But he was doing it with his brain and then his mind.

But he didn’t know his body. I could tell he didn’t have a lot of grounding energy and that he lived mostly in his head.

He was studying advanced martial arts, tai chi, and qi gong. I asked him if they talked about grounding. Did he feel energy coming up from the earth to support him???

He told me his teacher talked about bringing energy down through the head... I explained to him the concept of all that energy having to literally get through the mind and then the thoughts, the throat and then the heart. The energy probably changed a lot by then, yes?

So I taught him how to ground.

I had him sit- and bring his energy up through his feet. And I, again, explained to him the concepts of the present day self, the younger self and our higher self. This time, I asked him to feel it in his body.

When he felt the feeling about his mother, where did he feel it in his body? As you do so, make sure to stay safe and grounded, and not push it or make it go away. Can you ask it what it needed?

I talked about the fact that whatever you are triggered about today isn’t necessarily about that root cause. The trigger was already set up beforehand. So though you can try and try to “get over” a specific experience, it’s not really about that at all. This situation is just here to show you your trigger. A mirror, if you will, to give you insight of what is wounded within you.

As I had him connect to himself to see what he needed, tears rolled down his face.

Like so many people who are so smart, analytical, and open- they can allow the experience, while having emotions and awe about the experience, simultaneously explaining it and making sense with the cognitive mind. He told me his experience as the observer, while not making it stop. It was brilliant.

He explained that he was holding a baby. I saw the image, too, and nodded in agreement.

I said quietly, “I know. It’s you. You are the baby.”

He nodded.

"You get to hold you, you get to take care of you as a baby. That’s when all of this began, right?" He agreed. And decided to hold himself as the baby. He cried and allowed this re-connection to happen.

He stayed there for a few seconds and then slowly came out. We took a minute to let him breathe- and to just let things settle.

He looked at me, paused and said, “Wow, that was crazy," as he wiped his tears.

"You know the weird thing? I don’t like babies. They scare me. I have never wanted to hold babies because I am always afraid that they are going to slip out of my hands.”

Amazing. He couldn’t connect to babies, because he couldn’t connect to the wounded part of himself that was still this baby.

Yep, this is how it works. The system is so incredible.

The symbolism was pretty on pointe. He couldn’t ever hold onto this part of himself, because he didn’t know how to handle the baby. He felt like he would slip and get hurt. And no one had ever shown him how to take care of himself. How to hold himself, how to love himself. Then in one instant, one flash, he saw himself. His younger, wounded self. His baby. And his higher self gave him the image that he could now handle. Now that he was grounded, supported and safe- he understood what was happening and what was necessary for his healing and how it worked, his higher self showed him these key parts of himself.

I told him his homework was to get to know this part of himself that had been disconnected from for so long. This vulnerability would bring him more peace and clarity. And my sense is that he won’t have to work so hard to intellectualize so much of it-- that it will just come to him when he integrates this baby part of him.

His brain and brilliance would have never become so highly developed without this wounded part of himself. When your infant doesn’t feel safe or held, then it’s normal to try and “figure things out” all the time. Now he gets to keep these superpower traits and heal the damage that forced him to learn them. It all happens the way its supposed to. And then…it heals.

May we all keep the lessons, and dump the trauma. Let us love our younger selves and heal all the shit. <3