People Tell Their Stories:
Family and Relationship Issues

Remembering the Little One Inside  Robyn L. Posin
 
At 42, washed up on the far shore of an intense, profound seven year relationship that reawakened every part of my still unhealed childhood woundings, I found myself totally lost from any connection to the deep knowing places within me. Much of that disconnectedness came from so many years of my contradicting their messages and cutting myself off from their truths as I talked myself out of recognizing the damage I was doing to myself in that relationship. (Damage that, from this distance of time and growing, was an absolutely necessary prelude to the process of healing my life.) Before that relationship, I had never "lost myself" nor known either the depth or the source of the self-hatred that surfaced twice yearly in my otherwise self-accepting and self-valuing life.

During these periodic descents into the black pit of despair, the "hatchet lady" inside me slashed away and struck down anything about myself that I ordinarily treasured or valued. Each time I would, for some time, be left in profound depression, convinced that all my generally good opinion of myself was based on lies, shams and distorted vision. At 42, there was no "periodic-ness" about it. I was dwelling completely in the middle of the deepest, darkest pit. I was immersed as well in more intense grief than I could have imagined possible: grieving the end of what had been, for both my partner and myself a profound love that had become a siamese-twin symbiosis that was killing both of us.

For a year we struggled, separately and together, to extricate ourselves from that enmeshment; to let go of the relationship that, born in the deepest loving either of us had ever known, had become a prison and torment to both of us. Except for those hours that I worked (as a therapist helping other women in their journeys of self-healing), I spent my time in anguish: crying endlessly, feeling totally devastated, finding no hand holds with which to begin the climb up out of the black hole in which I found myself.

Permission to Love and Cherish Myself

The magic that had always been an integral part of my life had disappeared beyond any hope of reconnecting with it. Yet, somewhere along the way of that transition year, a glimmer of the old magic brought me to a very special, gifted woman who used the creative arts a way of helping people heal themselves. In her I found, for the first time in my life, someone who could be "Robyn" to me: someone who could provide me with the safe space in which I could have, at last, the permission I gave so easily to others - permission to love and cherish myself just as I was at any moment, just for being.

In her workspace we played for two hours every week. I dreamed to music, drew, painted and sculpted the images from those dreams; I moved and sounded, spontaneously creating the movements and sounds my being needed for healing. We created music together on all kinds of percussion instruments. That music gave an outlet to the intense, inchoate grief, rage and yearning that word therapy couldn't then (or in all the years before) touch or release.

I began spending most of my time, even when not in her studio, drawing, painting, creating sounds with my own voice and my own growing collection of percussion instruments. The images and sounds were helping me feel my way through the bleak underworld in which I was living.

In what became the most empowering experience in my work with her, I journeyed back in fantasy to the time before the child in me began to be traumatized and damaged by the world she inhabited. In the drawings from that session, a wonderfully exuberant, radiant, naked, joyous little creature leaped and bounded through great fields and forests of green, growing things. She danced through skies, clouds, oceans and through fields of pure energy. I felt her aliveness so completely. My heart was filled to bursting with love and connection to this erupting, joyful creature.

Becoming an Advocate for the "Little One"

The "little one's" emergence was a turning point of enormous proportions in my healing. I found myself devoting myself to her totally as I had always before devoted myself to the hidden little ones in others. I listened for and to her every moment of my days and nights. She had so much to tell me, with and without words. She knew, immediately and with her very being, where it was okay and not okay for us to be; which people, situations and interactions were damaging or dangerous to our well being. She had always been there, wailing from her prison beyond layers of soundproofing. Yet, I had never listened like this before. I'd never acted so singlemindedly to advocate for and protect her in her vulnerability. She'd won my heart so completely, so immediately there was no way I would allow anything or anyone (even the "hatchet lady") to bring even the slightest harm to her.

I couldn't imagine not adoring and protecting her. I did nothing that wasn't safe and nourishing for her. My commitment to loving her (even when she was being whiny, mean or angry) and to making the world safe for her began to heal my life. I never expected of her the things that were beyond her capacity, never demanded that she "get over" her fears, never demanded that she "stop crying before I give you something to cry about," never demanded that she stop "complaining," never forced her to stop having a tantrum or to "be nice" when she wasn't feeling "nice."

It became unassailably clear as we went along that if I could make a safe space (away from my own past and anyone else's current judgments, away from situations in which she might hurt herself or someone else), she could be fully in the middle of her feelings. Being allowed to fully feel and vent her feelings, she would at some point come through to the other side of them, even the most rageful or most sorrowful or most terrified ones. It had always to be okay for her to feel however she felt. We had an alliance that strengthened daily. She let me know what she needed; I listened and provided that as best I could. And, a fiercely protective, kind, gentle, unconditionally loving "Mommy" was developing inside of me, a mommy that was committed to caring for her, no matter what.

Over the years that followed, we have together visited and experienced long locked-away rages, terrors, griefs, hates and feeling of helplessness. The more of these unallowed feelings we could live through safely, the more fully the joyful, playful, creative, full-of-ourself self emerged. And, the new "Mommy" could make it safe for that full-of-selfness too. First the process was very much just the two of us. As I became a better and stronger protector and mommy, we were able,slowly and in gentle steps, to gradually include other people.

Guidance from the Grandmothers

During these years of healing - even in the times we were just the two of us and not around people - we have never been "alone." From the moment the "little one" emerged, there has been a constant stream of whisperings in my heart, a powerful sense of being watched over and surrounded with the boundless love of an enormous circle of the Ancient Ones. These ancient grandmothers, the spirits of the Crone, bring in their whisperings the rememberings from the time before woman and her woman-wisdom were denigrated and deposed from her powerful, central, enlivening place in all our lives. These beautiful, outrageous, zany, playful, powerful and infinitely loving presences have guided and supported my journey home to my birthright of loving myself deeply and unconditionally in all my "imperfectedness." They have brought me gifts of words, messages, lullaby song-chants, magical amulets and images for courage along the way of this journey.

The Grandmothers guided me always (and still) into the wild spaces near where I live in the orange groves of Ojai's East End. In these canyons I found places where it was safe to go naked in the woods, to climb up boulders in the rivers and streams, to sit in the middle of little waterfalls, to hug trees. I walked almost every day, most often into the canyon just up the road from my house. I sat, and sit still, nightly at the stream's edge on my "hug me" or my "nap" rock. I sat in trees on the property I lived on, began sleeping year round (except in the rains) on the ground in a fully windowed tent outside my house, under an ancient live oak. Every tree, boulder, stream and cloud brought me the energy of their fierce and abiding love. I felt (and still feel) it flowing into my body and my being. The further I am away from the signs of human "progress," the more strongly that energy flows into me.

I sang the lullaby song-chants they taught me. First to myself and then on tape to share with friends and clients andtheir friends. I put the words and messages on cards that were then my New Year's greetings to friends and clients over these years. I made more of the amulets and care packages to give away to the friends and clients who were also finding their way home to loving and cherishing themselves. And, most powerfully, I continued the process -begun a full twenty years before- of slowing my life and continually simplifying my existence so that I could work less and spend more of my time immersed in the healing, sacred play that has been helping me to heal the wounds of living in this crazymaking, woman-negative, out-of-balance world.

The Grandmothers' words and messages, the gentleness and kindness to self that they continually urge, the acceptance of all feelings and all body knowings that they hold so central to all wisdom - these rememberings and celebrations of my woman-self have slowly and gradually transformed me. They've become, through practice, a part of my daily emotional vocabulary for talking with myself. They've transformed my relationship with myself, with my life and with the whole sacred circle of life. No longer whispers in the heart, these messages have become a bone and cell deep thrumming that keeps me whole, alive, expanding and vitally aware of the never ending rivers of magic and wonder in every "ordinary" moment of my life: in my aging 59 year old, temporarily able body and in all the richness of my feelings, joyous and painful. No matter what mistakes, blunders, "unevolved" feelings, no matter what painful images or body memories or painful feelings emerge, I am always surrendering into the middle of whatever it is that is coming up - even as I'm sometimes feeling furious that it's "happening again."

Bringing the Message to the World

In 1990 the Grandmothers began gently nudging me out in the world. First, it was writing the story of the journey-til-then for a Santa Barbara women's literary magazine. Then in an intense series of waves of energy counterpointed with very long periods of doing absolutely nothing, it was producing the tape, cards, amulets, care packages, resting kits and a brand new step-wise emerging deck of 64 bookmark sized cards - all in quantities to allow me to begin selling them to people with whom I didn't otherwise have contact. Then, I was brought opportunities to speak at women's gatherings, councils on aging, and women's music festivals. In 1992, it was time to send it all forth in a catalog: "For the Little Ones Inside..."

The whole "coming-out-in-the-world" process has been delightful, magical, playful and exciting. It all comes without plan, design or mental decisions. The Grandmother energy guides me sweetly and gently in the time, form and direction of each next step. And, always there are great stretches of time for absolute rest and stillness. It seems the most profound surrender-into-magic, this listening in and following the urgings that flow from the Grandmothers and my own deeps. I ask only and always that all unfolds only as fast as the slowest part of me feels safe to go. And, I ask too that the unfolding happens in harmony with my commitment to live simply and uncomplicatedly in the "slow lane."

I continue, between the power surge times, to rest deeply for days and sometimes weeks or months on end. I read women's mysteries and novels by the yard curled up by the fire or out under a walnut tree in my hammock.

I spend lots of time walking in the canyons by day and through the groves and to the creeks at night - listening to hawks in their courting flights, to owls' calls and to the coyote "conversations" across the valley at night: drifting, dreaming, making art, puttering about my studio and garden. And, always, staying in touch with the "little one's" voice. Sometimes I find myself unaccountably full of rage, irritability, crankiness, sadness or achings of unknown origin. I yell and scream, beat on drums or a stuffed duffle bag, stomp my feet, roar, cuss, cry, wail, howl, curl up with the covers pulled over my head feeling sorry for myself, don't answer the phone and don't go out in the world.

Always and in cycles, there seem to be more layers rising up into the open space: more old feelings to be felt and released. Unlike the me of-the-past, I no longer seem to need to make sense of the whys and where-froms of these torrents of emotion that overtake me. Sometimes images and memories come with the feelings; sometimes just the inchoate feelings by themselves. Yet, always, given the soft, safe space to be in the midst of their storms, I come through to the other side. There the sun shines again, I feel cleansed and I have more of me to create from. I feel the chest-full-to-bursting, heart singing joy of being in the middle of so much beauty and wonder. And, even in the midst of the now less frequent hard times, I find myself feeling (as my sister names it) excited about feeling awful - because, in the middle of it all, I know I'm still coming home to the all of me.

© 2000 For the Little Ones Inside - All Rights Reserved, Reprinted by permission of Robyn L. Posin.

In her converted carport in the middle of a 6 acre orange grove and summer fruit orchard, Robyn L. Posin spends some of her time making art, writing, and doing her own eclectic form of psychotherapy/coaching (in person and by phothe time as possible, she improves her practice of rest as a sacred art: walking in the canyons and mountains near her home, napping, and puttering about in her uncontained container gardens. You can contact Robyn or find out more about her catalog of inspirational goodies, "For the Little Ones Inside," by email rposin@hotmail.com, phone (805)646-4518 and snail mail Box 725 Ojai CA 93024. In addition, visit her inspiring, uplifting, calming, gentle Web site: www.forthelittleonesinside.com, where Robyn's writings and artwork remind us how to love, accept and nurture all aspects of ourselves always and in particular, during difficult times.cept and nurture all aspects of ourselves always and in particular, during difficult times.

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