Healing Childhood Wounds
Childhood
In this episode I was brought to tears when Melissa Arnot Reid speaks about her childhood.
The relationship she had with her mother and with her parents being addicts.
The feeling of being a child who wants more than anything for your parents to care more about you than their addiction.
The way this sets up a feeling of never being good enough, of feeling unworthy.
God how many years I felt that way.
These days I don’t struggle with feeling worthy of love. I soak up the love in my home with my children and my husband. I absorb it all and share it freely. It is the best chapter in my life and yet as usual unworthiness creeps in.
Unworthy of being read.
Unworthy of being an author.
Unworthy of selling books.
Unworthy of having a supportive group of friends and family around.
Unworthy of belonging.
It’s all right there. The cloud of unworthiness and it hovers over my sweet life when I take steps toward publishing books.
The writing of books feels easy. The editing of books is harder, but has become more enjoyable. The monetization of books opens old wounds and lets the voices of unworthiness come out screaming.
I hesitate to put myself out there again.
I hesitate these short letters.
I hesitate reaching for dream I feel unworthy of.
I lay in bed so tired.
Worn out by the relentlessness in my mind.
The little me returns and just wants to lay in bed and binge watch tv all day and all night. I don’t want to be seen or heard. Just want to hide. I’ll creep out if the room to eat. I’ll creep out if the room to remind myself I am still a part of a family and there are others who are here taking care of me.
I’ll eat their food and then disappear back to my room to hide in the TV.
As an adult hiding in my TV it means I let my kids do that same. Then I beat myself up because I am just like them, my parents, letting my kids disappear into a screen.
I fight this part of me everyday
I fight to take them outside more times than I have the energy for.
I fight to do art with them, to write with them, to cook with them, to put my phone down and stare at their adorable faces.
Then I hide away in little moments and do my best to not hate myself for it.
Will I always feel not good enough? Is that part of what being human and being a mom is about?
I don’t know.
Worthiness: the quality of being good enough. The quality of deserving attention or respect.
How to Let Go of “Not Enough” with Melissa Arnot Reid
Love always,
Danielle Mallett
