What's in your psychic backpack?

Now that cancer has officially pushed me into menopause, I have been wondering about the next phase of my life. Like children with back packs, all of us carry a boatload of past traumas, hurts, disappointments, losses, and grief. Not only have we stored all of these past miseries in our consciousnesses and deep in our cells, we have also created an oversized psychic backpack in which to carry them around. Our highly over-analyzed society has put such a high degree of importance on the work with the inner-child that we have forgotten that the inner-child needs to eventually grow up and become integrated into the healthy adult. Instead, many people are so engrossed with their inner-child and parenting that inner-child that they have become over-indulgent, giving away their adult personal power to the wounded child.

It has been said that we must connect with our teenage selves, in order to unlock the door to our second half of life purpose. To do this we must delve into the traumas, hurts, disappointments, and shattered dreams from our teenage years, embrace them, and love them into healing, so that we can move through the dark passage of menopause into the light of our true purpose. But too often we want to hold onto the pain instead of pushing through or diving down through the muck to come out on the other side. It is much easier to baby the wounded child’s tantrums, than to love her while simultaneously expecting her to heal through that love and come to stand on her own. Sometimes we actually prefer to stay in the old familiar patterns than push through into joy. Is this because joy is such strange new territory, and whatever is unfamiliar is frightening? But what if we let ourselves experience the joy? Would we still want to go back to the old patterns of worry, and pain, and anxiety? For many the answer is, yes. For some joy seems fleeting, short-lived. Worry, anxiety, unhappiness, and drama seem more real in this world we live in. In order to dive deep and find the light on the other side you must trust your own path. You must know how to hear the voice of your spirit and tell the difference between it and the voices of your wounded child or its extension, your fear driven ego. The less pain you have in your backpack and the more essence you have in your heart, the easier it is to hear the voice of your spirit.

When we allow our wounded child to run our lives we can’t possibly stand in our strength and power as adults. But it takes more than acknowledging them. We have to talk to them. We have to listen to them. We have to take charge. And we have to be willing to let go of the addiction we have to carrying around their pain and indulging their hurts. We need to release the pain, and assimilate the gems of wisdom that the pain taught us. Then we must invite our inner-children to grow up and join us in the present. We must connect to our inner spirit. Because it is the connection to spirit that makes the joy possible. It is the connection to spirit that allows the healing to happen. When we carry the backpack filled with our old pain we allow the pain to drive our lives. We have been taught that our past is who we are. It is not the past; it is the lessons learned from our past gathered together in our present that makes us who we are. When we empty our backpacks of the pain and carry only the lessons learned in our hearts, we will be much stronger, healthier and more powerful. And then we will have the strength to dive deep and come out on the other side to experience true joy.