Today, we are all so focused on being better versions of ourselves. Including me. I am practically the poster child for trying to be “better.” What is important has shifted. In the baby boomer days, love and peace spread. With that, came resistance. After that our parents’ generations came. They saw the carefree spirits of their parents and took a more orderly path. They got the jobs in the offices, in the factories. They aspired to one day grow to the top of the company they worked for. Then, there is this generation. The generation of technology. We are free in that we believe we can do anything we set our minds to. We are trapped in thinking that we can do anything we set our minds to…
What happens when a beautiful, innocent girl gets her innocence taken away? What happens when it’s from the one man she is supposed to trust? What happens when a dad loses his son? What happens when a father leaves his family? What happens when a son is told by his mother that he’s not enough? What happens when a girl who got made fun of all of high school starts cutting herself through adulthood and no one knows why she’s so secluded? What happens when a boy is touched inappropriately before he knows what sex is? What happens then? Is posting inspiring things on your social media page helping them? Is starting a charity? Is alcohol? What about sobriety? Will that help them?
What happens when it is not okay? What happens when the pain is so much deeper than anyone can imagine? All of the media today will only trap minds and make these inner children feel like there is something so mechanically flawed in them. The trauma of their past, which has likely been blocked out, will remain.
The reason kids are bringing guns to school. The rise of the media. The reason the suicide rate is skyrocketing. The reason why treatment centers and sober homes are a billion dollar industry. Our society doesn’t talk about emotions; we don’t talk about trauma. We say that “happy” is the only way to be. The best way to be. It is not an honest way to be. No one is happy all the time. The 7 human emotions I found in the randomness of the interweb in which I am not sure are even valid (BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH SHIT ON THE INTERNET) are: anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise, contempt.
So 1/7 of those emotions are happy. These are natural human emotions according to some field of tested sciences, so “only being happy” we are denying so much of the human experience. As kids, we were told not to be angry or scared or sad or hate, we shoved those feelings aside thinking they were not “right”. Kids today are doing the same. With the rise of technology, these kids are CONSTANTLY REMINDED how happy they are “supposed to be.” It is flawed. We thought something was wrong with us if we felt these emotions too often. We turned into robots walking around pretending to be happy all the time (including me.)
Then… because some feel these emotions so intensely, drown themselves in alcohol or drugs or the internet to escape the feeling. They didn’t see what underlined the action, or think about how the feeling would pass. They numbed. They numbed themselves because it was too much. I used to drown my pain. The choice of sobriety has allowed me to feel everything. Maybe what I was escaping wasn’t the effect of the alcohol, as I thought it was, maybe it was the feeling I thought I was not allowed to feel.
There is nothing wrong with feeling. There is nothing wrong with pain. It isn’t easy though. When it’s not okay, it especially isn’t easy. When we aren’t okay, it’s okay to not be okay. To feel that up to its’ entirety. It’s really just truth. We can’t heal when we don’t feel our truth. For all those inner children that have been destroyed, feel that pain, recognize it, and move through your story. That’s what I hope to do, and what I hope to inspire too.
I wrote this two years ago. Now, as I read back, I see what I can do to those people who’s inner child was taken from them, I see what I can do for the helpless child in myself. I can love. I can love that person. I can love me. That, that is the only thing that I can do when it is not okay. Sometimes love requires no action at all. That is often the most difficult thing to do, yet sometimes love means stepping aside to let that person find their way.