It was only supposed to be catching up, shooting the breeze, chit chatting. Under no circumstances was I going to do soul retrieval AGAIN! No way, no how. It was too hard. But by the end of that phone call with my shaman, I was in soul retrieval. . .AGAIN. If I had listened real closely, I probably would have heard my inner child laughing. For the last couple months, she had fully manifested in my heart and in my life. Since January, I felt like she had been guiding the whole show. That’s right. My higher self was a three-year-old.
Before the live session began, I was setting intentions for the next month. I told my shaman that I really wanted to connect and honor this three-year-old part of me—the one who had her own mind, her own way of doing things. Instead of agreeing with me, he said, “It’s important to also honor the girl who survived. She’s the hero of your story.” I bristled a bit. Well, maybe not just a bit. It was hard to honor her. If I did, then I’d have to accept all the bad things that had happened to me as part of my herstory. I didn’t say anything, but a part of me knew that he was right.
During the live session, I saw a little girl who was about three years old. She was living with people who I knew were not her parents. I understood immediately what her situation in life was and that she was me in a past life. Her parents had clearly passed on, and her current guardians did not care about her well being. She was being beaten for sure. After the live session when my shaman and I talked about what I saw, he said, “Yes, no one cried for her.”
That day was the birth of this idea. I think the hashtag #MeToo was such a comfort for a lot of us. It was a way to feel not alone in that struggle. It was also a way to shine a light on things that no one talked about enough. But the thing is, after you’ve told your story, it doesn’t make everything better. You may still have pelvic pain. You may still be in therapy. You may still have problems in relationships. You may still ignore parts of your body. I realized that we, the survivors, needed to start honoring our own girl who survived. The four-year-old who endured abuse to survive. The teenager who couldn’t speak up for herself. The young woman who was people pleasing. All these selves survived so that you and I could heal now. Like my shaman said, they are the heroes of our collective stories.
Maybe we need new hashtags for the new ground we’re treading. I’m thinking #thegirlwhosurvived and #noonecriedforher. Only now, we’re not talking about someone else. We’re not talking about another person whom we should cry for, but instead, the parts of ourselves that need comfort, tears, kindness, acknowledgement. We’re talking about the parts of you that no one cried for. We’re talking about all the selves that survived so that you could be here now to heal. I don’t know if anyone will really understand this. All I know is, that I want us to start honoring these parts of our selves. I want us to embrace the girl who survived. I want us to cry for those parts of us that we have shut out. That’s the journey that I think we’re all on now.