This is a personal and professional interest of mine. Being the child of a parent whose own trauma manifested in narcissistic personality disorder, the healing path I have walked helped my own body, mind, heart and spirit find coherence. It was a long path and of course things still show up in the present day as these are deep imprints. But I have awareness now in both mind and body of these patterns and they continue to unwind at the pace of trust.
My almost decade of practice now with chronic conditions has meant I have again and again encountered adult children of narcissistic parents healing from chronic fatigue, chronic pain, autoimmune diseases, and other chronic mind body syndromes. They heal beautifully by the way, so before you proceed with reading, let me assure you that your history is not your destiny. Being a cycle breaker is hard yes, but if you are that person then this path is for you. Not as a punishment but as an offering of emancipation from generational trauma that no one in your lineage was able to face and heal.
In this one size fits all reductionist online social media shark tank that is chronic illness healing content, I have seen endless reels and posts about ‘regulating the nervous system’ with programs promising to ‘free’ people from trauma and chronic illness. Somatic skills practices in reels, sound bites, and promises of ‘trauma release’. And do not get me started on extreme diets for chronic illness. In my experience, this really is not the road home to physical, emotional and spiritual health for my clients.
The road home is based on building reciprocal trusting relationship with ourselves and our bodies. From there, yes I will teach people how to self-regulate, but through listening to their own body’s unique cues, needs, ways it likes to be seen, heard, expressed and held. But the absolute foundational pillar for adult children of narcissists is self-relationship. This also goes for adult children of alcoholics and of emotionally immature and neglectful parents.
In the last two years I have had many clients come from these online programs, lost and feeling like a failure because they had not ‘gotten rid of’ their symptoms. In my experience of all these people, and we are talking in the hundreds now due to the length of time I have been in private practice – none of these people are too complex, broken, or unable to recover. In fact these people are a joy to work with because they tend to be highly sensitive, deep feeling and thinking, and have an innate drive towards growth and connection. This never ceases to awe me, as it speaks to me of the gifts we are born with, that refuse to be extinguished no matter how tough our early environments were, and how much they have impacted how our mind and body had to adapt to survive.
In fact the reason I became a psychotherapist and why I still love my work so deeply, is that I believe trauma and challenge are a part of life, not apart from life. That they are our the soil from which compassion, wisdom and authenticity grow. I do not bypass the extent of challenge contained within healing, but it is within that process we grow our true sense of Self, connect with our gifts, and are able to hold our innate rhythms of regulation, our blueprint of holding healthy connection, and embody our full authentic expression. This is why I love what I do, so to see it reduced to ‘nervous system regulation’ has both baffled and saddened me, as the human story of growing through adversity is achingly beautiful and unfathomably powerful to me. So please do not reduce yourself to a nervous system. You are a miraculous concert of mind, body, heart, nervous system, and being. You are also part of a wider web of community, which can both help and hinder healing. We do not all have access to the same level of resources, so self-care and individual healing has to be set against an understanding of community care and healing. We do not get hurt or heal in a vacuum. However as we do heal individually, we are able to help our communities and the collective.
That said, let’s look a little more at commonalities with narcissism in families.
Generational Wounds
When I question my clients, often there is a pattern going up a generational line, that contains narcissistic injury. Somewhere up a maternal or paternal (sometimes both) someone got hurt, and could not or did not heal that. Those wounds led to a defensive and protective personality (ego) structure that we call narcissism, that protects an incredibly fragile and shame based sense of self. That wounded child self, inside the narcissistic shell has chronically unmet childhood needs and the adult is not aware of this at all. Self-awareness in these manifestations of trauma is generally low or non-existent. Due to this, the wounded child is the part that acts out in the world in relationships, and the one that does parenting. Always hungry for those unmet childhood needs to be met by others, this part will seek those needs to be met by their closest attachmet relationships; partners and children. Unfortunately this happens in ways that violate boundaries, inverts the parent child relationship making the child responsible for the adults feelings and needs, rejects a child authenticity, and causes damage in a developing young person. The child must stay attached to the caregiver in order to survive, so will adapt themselves to stay connected and as safe as possible. In doing so will separate from their authenticity, which causes deep suffering that often only emerges in a cycle of healing that begins with symptoms; both emotional and physical. This cycle will often roll downhill through a family generation by generation until someone breaks free and heals. Along with your generational wounds you will absolutely have generational strengths, so it important to keep open to these too. You are here, which shows tremendous inner strength and purpose, that is never broken by traumatic injury.
I want to start by summarising the commonalities of early narcissistic parenting environments. I will shorten narcissistic parent to NP, for ease.
Common features in homes with narcissistic parents:
· The NP’s needs are communicated openly and covertly as the most important thing for the entire family to be constantly, vigilantly aware of and meeting as their primary purpose. The NP is like a planet, and family members are the stars that orbit around the NP. None are allowed to leave that orbit to tend to their own needs or ask for their needs or feelings to be met. Their primary purpose as stars is to use their own light not for themsleves to shine, but as a mirror to best display the image of the NP.
· The other parent can often be more appeasing in the parental relationship, and their priority is the NP, not the children. They tend to allow the toxic dynamic, so they enable this behaviour. In doing so, the other parent fails to protect the children. I say this not to blame. These parents are quite often also the children of traumatic homes playing out some facet of their own childhood in their adult relationships. But they do fail their kids even though they might be the ‘nicer’ parent comparative to the NP. Quite often adults will focus in therapy on the damage created by the NP as it is more overt. Over time we will explore and they will see the contributing dynamics of the other parent. There will then be a need to process the difficult and often conflicting emotions and unmet needs that come up from this.
· The NP will be triggered by a child’s needs as it will trigger the pain of their own unmet needs that they are entirely unaware of. Attachment needs; to be seen, soothed, helped to feel safe (emotionally and physically) will be rejected and/or shamed.
· Children need to be taken delight in, just as they are, to grow comfortable with their voice, who they are, to know they are worthy and that to be imprinted internally as internalised self esteem and secure attachment. Children of NP’s learn the opposite. They exist to meet the NP’s needs, so that becomes the imprinted role that can be summed up as ‘I am good and worthy if she/he is happy with me’. They become a human doing, not a human being. And yes, the burden on the nervous system of this constant mobilising to please the unpleasable parent begins at a very young age.
· If only it were as easy as getting it ‘right’ to please a NP. Demands change, moods are capricious, tantrums, passive aggression due to not having the adult skills and awareness to communicate needs and feelings healthily, are pervasive. It creates an environment of walking on eggshells constantly.
· Kids of NP’s learn that to fight is not an option as the punishments are so severe; stonewalling, silent treatment, turning others against them, mocking, shaming, name calling. So they swallow their anger (that does not disappear, it must be processed when safe to as an adult) and instead they go into appeasement or freeze or shut down to survive. All very adaptive at the time, but over time this stress response will cause damage to their immune system, endocrine system, organs and whole body. We discuss this impact in another article.
· No matter how bad the caregiver, children must stay connected to survive, and we are born wired to love our parents.
· There will be no apologies. Ever.
· The NP is either the victim or a suffering martyr in each conflict. These are two sides of the same coin.
· Kids learn to be dialled into every single sign of a change of facial expression, tone, sudden movements, reading the room for energy changes – to try and get it ‘right’ to de-escalate, stay connected, or get out of the way. So many type A personalities are born this way. The perfectionist personality part can often begin to do some heavy lifting here as the child can comes to believe ‘If I just get it ‘right’ or be perfect I will get love, or not be rejected’
· This constant vigilance can be mistaken for being an empath. It is not. Empathy in balance is being at home in our body whilst simultaneously feeling a little of what others do, in order to connect and relate. My clients tend to not even know what compassion is in practice as they have empathy on all the time on autopilot. Compassion allows us to be WITH another, but not take on their pain or responsibility for their experience. Compassion has boundaries and is a practice, a choice, and one that does not burn us out. Empathy for kids of NP’s is a reflex that causes burnout, loss of embodied boundaries of where we end and others begin, and very high anxiety in later life because it does not feel safe to our brain and body to be constantly not home in our bodies.
· We learn to disconnect from our own embodied physical and emotional needs to meet someone else’s and often because ours were not acceptable very early. We do not realise this is a deep source of our brain and body not feeling safe and thus creating symptoms through our nervous system and organ systems.
· It can in fact feel dangerous to dial back into our body as we learned to stay dialled out of it to stay safe, connected with the NP, and away from rejection. Also when so much distress has happened in the body without support, dissociation becomes a very valid protector.
· When I am with a client, and we begin to help them re-associate with the body, huge fear and terror can come up, and fear of feeling. We titrate this as much as possible and we only get here when someone is stabilised (phase oriented work – which is what I do – always prioritises stabilisation first). But it needs relational warmth, acceptance, total non-judgement and not being alarmed by the strength of emotion. This kind mirror allows someone’s neurology, body and heart to finally learn to be with their experience with kindness and they begin to gain access back to their embodied feelings, needs, and sense of Self.
· Sibling relationships are often like the Hunger Games, due to siblings trying to please the NP, and stay away from trouble. An environment of triangulation where one child is in favour and others are not, keep siblings from building trusting relationships and this is devastating. It allows the NP to maintain control. The more controlling the NP, the more unmet fear and shame they have in them. Unfortunately most NP parents wield a tremendous amount of control in the family system and overpower everyone else's will.
· This control can often also manifest as gaslighting. The NP’s version of reality is the only reality. No one else’s feelings or needs or perceptions are allowed to co-exist. Their way, reality, view is the only way. This teaches a child not to trust themselves, and they will grow up to second guess every tiny thing as they have been separated from their embodied sense of Self.
· Image is often an important unspoken rule in these homes. Like a beautiful red apple that is rotten in the middle, as long as it looks good from the outside, the rotten core of lack of safety, trust, kindness is totally unimportant. The image of the NP is a central planet and other family members serve as stars in orbit around that image, to boost it, show it off, shine it and never ever threaten it.
· This is why narcissists can often be found in high up positions, positions of authority, often public facing, seen as pillars of the community with their shiny beautiful family. All other people exist to serve to fill the gaping black hole where the NP’s self-esteem would be if they were not so wounded.
· Signs of a child's individuality, of gifts growing will not be tolerated. It will bring up a deep internalised sense of inferiority and shame in the NP. This will be projected immediately and the child will be shamed for who they are, belittled, not supported at all in their endeavours. I think this is amongst the deepest damage I see in adult children that takes a lot of care to help them believe in themselves again, and find clearer mirrors to look in than the NP who cannot see the child, they can only see them as a reflection of themselves.
· To heal the shame based sense of self that a child internalises from the NP's, the adult will need to be supported to find and let in new positive relational experiences, growing confidence in gifts, skills, abilities, and healthier relational mirrors to look in – for that old belief of 'I am not good enough', to begin to viscerally feel untrue and that burden to be released. It does release as it does not belong to us and letting it go becomes much easier the more we are able to extend compassion and understanding to our younger selves.
· The natural progression of childhood involves individuation – a child getting a sense of their own wants, needs, likes and dislikes. This is not tolerated by the NP. Individuating is not allowed as it threatens them getting their needs met by their children. The child exists to supply their grossly lacking self-esteem and to provide an emotional punching bag for how bad they feel about themselves. Often when an adult child of a NP does begin to deeply heal, this will destabilise the family status quo and chaos can ensue to try and get the adult child back into their old role.
· There are often no boundaries in a NP home. The child is an extension of the NP’s self-image so the child can be accessed to both feed low self-esteem and to vent at whenever the NP feels like it. This lack of boundaries continues into adulthood for many children of NP's, leading to more inner unsafety in the body and leading to symtoms, as we have no energetic skin between us and the world. This is a source of danger and protection mode for the brain.
· 'Blood is thicker than water, it’s family, you ‘should’, they are your parents, this is just how family is' – are all common spoken and unspoken things in a dysfunctional family to justify abuse and toxic dynamics. These kids grow into adults that will jump through hoops for the NP and others, without checking in for any inner consent or boundaries, as these family rules are imprinted so deeply. Guilt and shame lay at the heart of this. Religion can drive this deeper.
· These homes also lack any consent, as the child is not seen as an autonomous being worthy of respect, empathy, and dignity. This violation of boundaries mean kids grow up with poor boundaries couples with poor self-esteem that can lead to further re-traumatisation in situations later in life People often do not feel othes crossing their boundaries, or they let in people without any red flags being felt in the body. If we grew up wrapped in a red flag, it feels familiar as we have coupled together unsafety and love, as an imprint. Of course, the NP will them blame and shame them for any traumatising situations they encounter too.
· The natural greater individuation into an adult that happens in teenage years are often the most shamed by the NP, the most over controlled, and not tolerated. All signs of growing a sense of self separate to the NP is shamed, judged, belittled. I generally need to do a lot of tender work with people’s teenage parts as this is such a formative time of growth. Wider community comes into play here too, and often teens of NP are already isolated so do not have good community to turn to.
· Unfortunately the disconnected kid at home is very apparent to other kids at school, and so can subsequently be bullied – driving shame and poor self-esteem even deeper. With no safe space at home to unburden the pain of this bullying, kids can often be left to deal with this alone and it is damaging long term until we go get that younger self and advocate for them, accept them, and help them feel seen and loved just as they are.
· A NP’ child’s emotions and needs are very often dismissed, shamed, invalidated, judged or ignored. A child will only learn to safely feel what they are allowed to feel, and what is modelled. So kids very early lose access to many feelings and vitality as no one is showing them how to feel them safely. The brain and nervous system labels these emotions as unsafe and begins to set up a whole host of defences to them in mind (personality patterns – people pleasing, helping, achieving, perfectionism) and in the body in stress responses (fight, flight, freeze, appease, shut down). If we get a whiff or a sniff of these emotions later in life, it can set off havoc in mind and body. This is a major source of symptoms and chronic dysregulation in my clients. And sadly the (temporary) inability to connect to joy, play, and vitality.
· The constant invalidation, punishment, gaslighting will remove a child from one of their biggest gifts – their intuition. In highly sensitive people (HSP’s) who I work with a lot, this intuition is a deep innate gift, so losing this causes a lot of suffering from being separated from our fundamental sense of core knowing. This inner conflict often shows up in nervous system dysregulation and symptoms.
· Along with this, a child will disconnect from their authenticity. When this is not safe, is punished, and shamed, they will instead form an adaptive personality (people pleasing, helping, achieving, perfectionism, hypervigilance, the empath) that is so important to survive so is very valiant, but again causes a fundamental separation between who we really are, and who we become to survive. This is a profound inner conflict. Not being ourselves is exhausting, we do not realise this adaptive personality exists full time in a stress response.
· It causes suffering on a deep level, as being apart from ourselves is the opposite of presence. Until we belong to ourselves again, we will be hustling and fighting and freezing and bracing against life.
· This is for me, the deep beauty of the conditions I work with. At some point the wisdom deep in us says enough – and manifests symptoms. Physical symptoms, depression, pain, anxiety etc – to show us something inside and sometimes in our environment too needs our kind attention so we can stop pathologizing ourselves, stop ‘working on’ ourselves. And learn how to be with ourselves with acceptance and kindness.
· We are relational beings, community and collectively oriented when healthy. NP’s break this apart because relationships were so unsafe at home, causing a child to grow into an adult that can fear others, wants connection so much but as connection was the deepest source of pain, also can sometimes avoid it.
· Some kids will learn to avoid distress, squash their feelings and needs totally as they were so neglected, appease and freeze a lot – and these can develop an avoidant attachment style, which makes sense.
· Some kids will learn that sometimes needs are met and sometimes not, so will protest, feel very distressed when invalidated, and try to extract what they need from others – and these can develop an anxious attachment style, which makes sense
· Some kids find their primary relationships such a source of fear, distress, instability or chaos, that they oscillate between anxious and avoidant, wanting connection but then feeling deeply scared of it so pushing it away – and these can develop a disorganised (I like to call it disoriented) attachment style, which makes sense. This was mine by the way. I now learn secure but with some disorganised still that comes up in my primary relationship.
· All these insecure attachments prime the brain to both sense and predict more danger in the body and in the environment – so sensitise the child’s nervous system to go into stress responses more easily and with less provocation in the future. This paves the road for chronic illness later in life. We call this priming and we teach a lot more about this within the community.
· A child will move into adulthood thinking their set point of what they feel day to day is ‘normal’ when in fact it is generally some version of fight, flight, freeze, fawn or shut down and they are pretty dissociated as a default mode, living in their head, or hyper vigilant about other's feelings and needs, often always on alert.
· It can be a physical or emotional trigger, often both concurrently – that will tip the mind body system into a chronic illness cycle. To me this is actually not pathology, it is the mind body being’s way of saying no. To bring our attention to the fact that our survival states were meant for just that – survival, and not for thrival. That we will need to start to become aware of these default modes and grow home to our authenticity, which gives us the ability to be present, where we have energy, creativity, flow, and access to our life force.
The Road Home
· Healing deeply is more than possible. But it has no destination. The kinder we learn to be to ourselves. The more we lean into healthy reciprocal trusting relationship with ourselves, the less we need to perform, get anywhere, or achieve anything
· This is crucial for kids of NP’s as they need to learn for the first time what it feels like to BE
· These adult kids immediately jump to interpreting rest as ‘lazy’. They may not have access to play in their body and must learn this because play gives access to authenticity, learning and innate joy.
· Growing home to feelings and needs in our body’s and how we learned to defend these with personality patterns and stress responses and bracing in the body.
· Finding anger, self-protective healthy anger that holds boundaries that are breathable and in service to healthy relating.
· Building healthier relationships in our lives that can reflect back that our feelings and needs are acceptable.
· Finding what no and yes feel like and the safety and power to begin to practice these.
· Recognising learned helplessness and our victimised part if we have one, who might still want to be rescued, with compassion, and letting them connect to our adult resources and abilities so we can give them the power they lacked. They may need to kick and scream first that it was not fair - we must let them as their grieving matters and is part of healing.
· Unearthing the shame based sense of self and reinstating belonging to ourselves. All the above helps with this, as do healthy relationships, community, movement, nature, living and nourishing our daily lives in small cumulative ways.
· Growing enough self-relationship to build bridges with all part sof us at all ages, and extend acceptance to them, no matter their story, behaviours, sensations they cause in our body. Acceptance paves the way for change and growing from what we have gone through
· This however does not mean we turn into victimised marshmallows. No one heals purely from sympathy for their past or talking about trauma. The deep compassion of another is crucial yes, but we also have to want to reach a hand out for something new and to be willing to build it. And that is a unique time frame for each person when we are ready to heal. No one is behind or ahead. We have our own timeline.
· Intrinsic motivation is crucial – this means something we want, from inside of us. Our willingness to take radical responsibility for the here and now, where we go from here and that we do have the adult power to shape our lives one moment at a time. That causes us to step into our healing and all its ups and downs and non-linear shit shows.
· Extrinsic motivation - a coach telling us what to do, a therapist telling us what we should do, someone else setting a goal for us – none of this will work. It has to come from us. Sometimes the discomfort of staying the same has to get really spicy, before we are ready for change. That was certainly the case for me. True change often happens when the pain of staying the same is more than the pain of change.
· Creating new family values, a new bill of rights. I have written about this in the resources section of the community. To hold esteem on how we want to be treated and new family dynamics we want to create so that the cycle ends with us.
· Learning skills of healthy communication and holding intimacy, which will be done with time, practice, and willingness to try new things with plenty of space for mistakes to again learn that we are allowed to be human.
· Learning and practicing that needs and boundaries are not selfish, they in fact insight healthy relationship with healthy others.
· Working in new ways in our careers and work lives that are not from pushing, stress, achieving or pleasing others. Learning that work can be playful, easeful, and we can be present and relaxed. Highly sensitive people especially make great innovators of working in flexible and new ways, so people need to have support and permission to explore working in non traditional ways that work for their unique body and gifts.
· Forgiving the NP is not necessary to heal. It can come later if people want to. It is a gift to self to reclaim power. It is not about the other person. But truly it does not need to happen to get well and thrive. You can also forgive and not be in contact.
Mindful Awareness And Self Relationship
· As I said, the foundation of my own work with children of NP’s is self-relationship. I will teach basic self-regulation and nervous system knowledge to help them feel like there is efficacy and choice in the present moment, but I am always focused on building self-trust, connect to themselves more, helping them stay with their present moment experience in the mirror of our connection that will always be kind.
· These people have a very high alarm system in brain and nervous system for all the reasons I previously wrote about. The brain is firing neural pathways causing symptoms unique to that individual that are signs of distress and a very over sensitised alarm system. We have to stabilise this.
· This stabilisation will pave the way for deeper healing and processing – but we never focus on ‘trauma release’ in a system that does not have the capacity to feel sensations, emotions, charge in the body without alarms going off. This can re traumatise and again, lacks the consent based approach needed in systems that had boundaries violated constantly.
· Simultaneously I am helping someone break the ‘what’s wrong attention’ which is a stress state that is like blinkers on a horse, that only allow the person to constantly focus on ‘what’s wrong’ in their body, themselves and their life.
· This takes mindfulness, and willingness to practice. We cannot get anything new by focusing on what’s wrong all the time. This is very understandable as a pattern when you have grown up hypervigilant. So it is not bad or wrong. But it does need to change. It can be tough to break as we have chemical reward systems set up for this catastrophising and spotting perceived danger, so humour here helps a lot to spot how impressively pervasive this pattern can be!
· I teach skills that help this, that are all based in compassionate relationship with ourselves and on LISTENING and CONSENT.
· I do not write over anything, or brain re-train over protective patterns, I listen to them and understand what is needed from the system to feel safe enough to begin to change and grow.
· I will help adult kids of NP stay in their bodies when around others as often they leave as a reflex to dial into other’s needs, feelings and experiences. This is no longer authentic or in service to good relationships, so we help the young part of them that does this to trust the adult to take over. This takes time. As this happens, vigilance goes down and so does social anxiety – which is just an alarm to say something in us feels unsafe. We get to be curious and help that feel safer under our wing.
· This will take years to integrate and there is no destination - only growth. I can usually help someone stabilise within months, the ongoing healing and growing an internalised somatic map of safety, sense of Self, self-trust, voice, tolerating the discomfort of being misunderstood and stepping away from a toxic family system (sometimes needed, sometimes not – this is each person’s choice) will go at the pace of trust.
· I will have really worked with someone to get them back to life as soon as humanly possible as 24/7 healing actually turns into a kind of narcissism of its own. We must live as we grow and heal. Again why it is crucial people have things they want, that we grow them towards, as we must start to live life again, move our body, try new things, nourish mind and body day by day – if we want different outcomes. The avoidance of this is treated kindly but brought into awareness so we can work through it at the pace of trust. If we feel constantly hard done by, our head will disappear up our bum and we will not be able to practice gratitude, new habits, self regulation and getting out in the world, we will stay stuck in our story.
· I teach mindfulness in an embodied and relational way, and teach people something called the Mind Platter to begin to build a sustainable daily life flexible structure that is not powered by survival energy and 'managing'. This again takes time and willingness to fail, be honest, are breaks, laugh and grow. The more this daily practice grows from feedback of what feels good to us and what doesn't, the more we find our yes's and no's, we begin trust ourselves again, and we move from rigidity to flow, and from chaos to more stability. This is integration in action.
· Everyone that takes small consistent enough steps over time, experiences deep transformation. These basic building blocks negate the need for a lot of expensive ‘treatments’ that actually often disempower people more and disconnect them from their body and push them into fear based diets, programs, and treatments. I value all the support for people I work with that they wish, but from empowered knowing and self advocacy, not from disembodied fear based consuming.
Features of adult children of narcissistic parents I work with:
· It amazes me how many HSP’s (highly sensitive people) I work with that are adult children of narcissists. It leads me to wonder, are our narcissistic parents highly sensitive and their wounding was just so deep they over protected their fragile inner child to this massive extent that turned into a narcissistic shield? Or do we land here as an HSP in the family system to be a cycle breaker? Who knows. Sometimes I think my NP is highly sensitive and other times, just very fragile.
· Incredible integrity. These people I work with have bodies that at as a barometer of integrity. When we are out of alignment with ourselves, have inner conflict, unmet parts of us – our bodies speak. The people I work with want to grow. They have an innate drive to find the truth of themselves and their lives. It is stunningly beautiful and powerful to bear witness to. Over time they turn into a kind of tuning fork that can pick up when they are in integrity with themselves, and what environments are right for them. They also when in integrity tune IN to their own unique song, and trust it. This is how we learn to hold our equilibrium in a challenging world.
· They are naturally emotionally intelligent and astute. I do not mean the hypervigilance that can look like empathy. I mean a really innate sense of feeling the world, of nuance, a wish to understand others and themselves in a really humanising and healthy way that our global community needs more of desperately. They just have this innately and a lot of it. As they come to be able to acknowledge this about themselves, it becomes something they share with others and it enriches their own lives and their communities.
· A lot, once feeling safer, have ferociously good sense of humour and honestly this is life saving for so many of us in this utter shit show of life. When I see someone’s humour emerging I always know they are going to be ok. We cry together, and we laugh too. They are learning deep down to let go a little and appreciate this wild ride we are all on. Laughter is a potent way to feel safer, more connected, and release energy that may have been stuck.
· This next point is not a trite point or me blowing smoke up anyone’s ass. I work with people that are gifted. All of them. Their gifts sit right next to their wounds. To grow home to these gifts they need to meet their vulnerability, their emotions, their parts they may have exiled away. As they do this, their gifts begin to grow and take form in highly unique ways for each of them. I am smiling as I write this thinking about so many clients over the years changing careers, starting new hobbies, finding their voice, becoming so beautifully themselves. All of them after walking through their own personal fires that have burnt away all they were not, their survival armour in mind and body. And allowed them to feel safe in who they are.
· Become the safe space for others they never had themselves.
· Live deep and rich lives, and that often will be different to the norm. This at first can be very difficult to feel safe doing when you were so alienated as a kid for being ‘different’ but it is where our power lives, and where we finally we feel we belong because we belong deeply to ourselves.
· Make incredible friends that can become chosen family, build reciprocal communities based on trust, authentic connection, and reciprocity.
· Care for our Mother Earth deeply, and want to give back to her, advoate or her and steward her. It is why my work with magic mushrooms is centred around reverence for nature, in respectful relationship with our plant teachers and I do believe this is why the peol I wok with have such beautiful healing experiences with it. My love for nature and when I am with nature, is limitless.
· Become conscious parents and aunties and uncles and step parents. Are beautiful parts of their communities and have so much to give without draining themselves when they are at home in their own body, with agency, boundaries, and esteem.
I know my step daughter feels safe with me and there is no bigger gift to me having felt so chronically unsafe my entire childhood. I would not be the woman I am without the impact of my NP. I say that without bypassing . It has taken me many years, some beautiful work with sacred plant medicine, a lot of honesty, finding anger, acceptance, finding voice and agency, a lot of trial by fire, radical responsibility and compassion as spiritual practice really, to get to a point of peace with my own history. I did not choose the cards I was dealt but I do get to choose to play the hell out of them, and that has been and always will be my approach. When I choose this, I have the power, not the NP who was so much larger than life when I was a kid, but now feels like the child to me and I am the adult. I get to choose the hands I play now, who I meet at the table, and when I choose to walk away from the game altogether.
I would not be able to hold my clients how I do without my lived experience, exactly as it is, pain, suffering, trauma, illness, all of it. And I would not trade what I do for anything in the world. So I am grateful for my life as it is, whilst also having really good boundaries with my NP. If I needed to be, I would be no contact and I support this in my clients when it is necessary. Everyone has their own path with this and I never direct them. Each land where is right for them.
I have a chosen family of friends that have become much closer than blood related family. It took a lot of healing before I was able to meet these people and let them in. I have no friends from childhood as I was so alienated and bullied back then and my school was hideous for me, but my NP wanted me to go there due to it having a great image as one of the most academic schools in the country. So I know what real loneliness feels like to both as a young person at home, school, and then in recovery. My recovery just put me face to face with what was aleady there that I was unaware of until my wise body stopped me in my tracks. It did that so I could listen (took me a decade but I got there!). I never gave up on learning, trying, stepping forward, resting, then taking another step, until I built something beautiful from the ashes of illness and CPTSD. And that success to me. The willingness to keep getting up after failure. To learn from it and keep going. I see that tenacity in all my clients overcoming a touoh home life. They are more than resourced in ways they really do not know, until they meet themselves and begin to see how brilliant they really are. Their strength, coupled with their innate sensitivity, is sorely needed in this world.
With love to each of you if you are still on your way through. There are many of us with our hands out to you who see you belong, just as you are. When we are brave enough to choose to grow and change, we will begin to meet people and circumstances to support that. I see this time and again. We are never alone when we choose to grow and heal.
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