You’re about to read Chapter 15. Want to start this story from the beginning? Go here.
Nope. Nope nope nope. No. Thank. You!
That was my immediate response to reading the chapter title of Lesson 15, “Early Childhood Woundings.”
Seriously, I can’t think of anything I’d rather consider less.
(Except for maybe whether or not Paul has started seeing someone else.) (Yeah, now that you mention it, looking at childhood wounds sounds stellar.)
And apparently I’m not alone in my reaction, because Katherine included a warning at the beginning of the section for Week Three:
“These next few days will be the most challenging and provocative ones that we will encounter,” she wrote. “They represent that part of the race where endurance, courage, and persistence are very much needed in order to secure a safe and successful passage to the next level.”
Noted. And also, challenge accepted. Because I am all about the leveling up.
And so onward I went into the pages of Lesson 15.
“I assure you that the task of healing core woundedness is always, always worth its weight in gold”
Okay, okay, Katherine, I hear you. You want me to understand that this work is worth the fight.
And the truth is, I already know she’s right.
That’s because even before my summer of self-help seven years ago, I’d already started unearthing core childhood wounds—with the help of a qualified professional, I might add. That neighborhood was not a place I was able to explore alone.
But explore I did, and consequently, I learned a lot of what Lesson 15 gives us the opportunity to uncover, or, in my case, review.
This is important work, because it’s true: you either have the wound, or the wound has you.
It all comes back to trust
Do you trust your parents?
Lesson 15 purports to be about early childhood experiences, but at its heart, the focus is on the first year of life.
“Psychologically, the first year of life has but one primary task: we must learn to trust.”—CITO, p.97
If our caretakers were able to respond to our (poorly expressed) needs in a way that made us feel safe and loved, great. We will see the world as a safe and loving place.
If, however, our caretakers failed to perfectly appease and comfort us—in other words, if they were human—well, we probably have some emotional work to do.
This premise reminds me of how, in the chakra system, the root chakra is at the base of the spine and the foundation for all other energies.
If the root chakra—which represents stability, security, and abundance—is out of alignment, good luck with everything else.
Fortunately, chakras can be realigned and beliefs about the world can be restored. Even if your parents weren’t perfect.
Lesson 15 in practice
When we react instinctively on the basis of old patterns, we are not making choices.
So the point of this mucking around in the past is not to get caught up in what hurt us, or even in the healing, but rather to attain clarity and restore choice.
Or, as Katherine puts it:
“We are seeking to make the connections between what we’ve been through and who we are today, as a means of opening up and restoring the possibility of choice in our lives.”
It’s not so different from the way 12-step programs approach the process of taking inventory: You simply need to see what’s there so you can learn and take informed actions in the future.
Embracing this perspective allowed me to drop my dread of the Lesson 15 homework, which was basically a collection of sentence stems:
“The caregiving I received as an infant was ___”
“How my mother felt about being my mother was ___”
“How my father felt about being my father was ___”
“In response I felt ___”
Ugh, yikes, FEELINGS MUCH?!
Don’t get me wrong; I love feelings. They are so informative! But it was uncomfortable to observe answers I didn’t like.
For example, I FELT like the caregiving I received as an infant was “adequate” and that my parents felt “responsible” and in response I felt “guilty” or “hesitant” to express my needs.
Those are not the feelings I would have preferred to notice. I would have rather intuitively supplied words like “loving” and “enthusiastic” and “encouraged.”
BUT. None of these feelings are facts.
I have no idea what kind of care I received as an infant. I was an infant! And I certainly have no idea how my parents felt about being my parents.
So there is no cause or space for blame.
And yet, my feelings clearly inform my beliefs.
If I FEEL that my parents were doing their jobs but not necessarily into doting on my every experience, it makes perfect sense that I would go on to believe that the only person I can truly count on for adoration and attention is…
…some mysterious guy who will show up and give me everything I’ve ever missed!
(Just kidding. The answer is actually God-slash-myself. But I sure have made the mistake of hoping otherwise!)
My last romantic partner was in no way like my initial caregiver
It also makes sense that people commonly find partners who mirror the behaviors of their initial caregivers.
This concept was covered in Lesson 14, but as a refresher: “because we grow attached to that which is familiar, we often develop strong bonds with the patterns that were acted out by one or both of our parents when we were growing up.”
So it figures that one of the Lesson 15 homework prompts was:
“My last romantic partnership was like my initial caregiver(s) in _____”
…and I had nothing to write.
For me, this was a beautiful blank space.
It’s true that, similar to when I was a child, in my relationships today I am still hesitant to ask for anything and I’m not always confident my needs will be met.
But I ask ANYWAY. And with Paul, I never felt like a burden.
He made it clear that I deserved the best.
And I do believe the best is yet to come.
Love > fear,
Christina
Want to know what happens next? Proceed to Chapter 16.
Missed what happened before? Go back to Chapter 14, or start from the beginning.
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