🫶 when the child stops holding on 🫶
A spiritual journey of healing the seven-year-old within
This morning, I had a dream. In the dream, I saw a little girl crying. She was curled into a small ball, hiding in the corner of a tiny room. She looked frightened, heartbroken, and alone.
When I woke up, I became very still and asked my soul: “Who is this little girl?”
The answer came quietly. She is me.
She is the seven-year-old me—the little girl who experienced a wound so deeply that, decades later, some part of her was still waiting to be seen.
🫶 the day my little world changed 🫶
I was seven years old. I remember being at my uncle’s house and asking for some money. I wanted to use it to buy a beautiful pen. To a child, it was something simple.
A little treasure. A little dream. But when my father discovered what I had done, he became angry. He picked up a large piece of wood and hit me, saying: “We are poor, but we have pride. I will teach you never to ask people for money like a beggar.”
It was the first time I experienced that kind of punishment from him. But the deepest pain wasn’t simply the physical pain. Something much larger shattered inside me.
Until that day, I had believed I was my father’s little princess. I felt loved. I felt special. In my child’s world, I believed I could do almost no wrong.
And suddenly, everything changed. I remember thinking: “He doesn’t love me anymore.”
And then: “I don’t respect him anymore.”
For a seven-year-old child, one painful event can become an entire universe.
- I didn’t know then that I was creating an interpretation of what had happened.
- I didn’t know that a child’s mind could turn one moment into a lifelong story.
- I didn’t know that the story could continue long after the event was over.
🫶 the story I unconsciously kept alive 🫶
As I grew older, that experience became deeply imprinted within me. Not necessarily as a conscious memory I thought about every day, but as an emotional pattern. The painful scene had become a movie. And every now and then, my mind would press play.
- The scene would return.
- The words would return.
- The heartbreak would return.
- And I would feel the wound again.
It was as though, somewhere deep within me, I had unconsciously signed a life-and-death contract with the story.
I had agreed to hold on. To remember. To interpret. To resist. To keep proving that what happened had hurt me. And then one day, a beautiful metaphor came to me: 🤝 Every story is like a handshake. 🤝
Two people meet. They touch hands. They connect. And then, eventually, the handshake is supposed to end.
- We released the hand. But what if we never let go?
- What if we keep holding the person’s hand long after the meeting is over?
- What if we continue gripping the past long after the event itself has disappeared?
That was my realization:
🫶 I wasn’t only remembering the story. I was resisting letting it go. 🫶
🤝 the hidden power of resistance 🤝
This is where my healing journey became deeper. I began to wonder:
- What if the wound isn’t only the original experience?
- What if part of the suffering comes from my continued relationship with the experience?
- What if I am still holding the story because some part of me believes that releasing it means:
- “What happened didn’t matter.” “My pain wasn’t real.” “My father was right.” “I am betraying the little girl.”
But letting go does not mean denying what happened. It does not mean approving it. It does not mean forgetting. It does not mean pretending that the child wasn’t hurt.
Letting go means I no longer need the past to keep hurting me in order to prove that it mattered.
That distinction changed something inside me.
🫶 “whatever is unknown must become known” 🫶
During my Vipassana journey, I often remembered a teaching attributed to S. N. Goenka: “On this path, whatever is unknown about yourself must become known to you.”
Those words invited me to look inward. Not to blame. Not to judge. Not to rewrite history. But to become curious. I began asking my soul questions that I had never asked before.
- Am I willing to let go of the old story?
- Am I willing to see that experience from more than one perspective?
- Am I willing to loosen my attachment to the identity I built around my childhood?
- Am I willing to accept that nothing is permanent?
- Am I willing to stop allowing one childhood wound to write the rest of my life?
- Am I willing to create a new relationship with my past?
- Am I willing to believe that what happened to me does not have to determine who I become?
- Am I willing to release the drama while honoring the child who experienced it?
- Am I willing to transform pain into purpose?
- Am I willing to rebuild an inner structure that supports the life I want to live now?
🫶 And eventually: Am I willing to love the little girl who was waiting all these years for me to come back for her?
The answer became: Yes.
🤝 meeting the seven-year-old 🤝
I began to imagine sitting beside that little girl.
- I didn’t tell her to stop crying.
- I didn’t tell her to forgive.
- I didn’t tell her to forget.
I simply sat beside her. I imagined looking into her eyes and saying:
- “I see you.”
- “I know you were hurt.”
- “You didn’t deserve to feel alone.”
- “You were only a child.”
- “You were trying to understand a world that was much bigger than you.”
- “You don’t have to carry this story forever.”
And perhaps the most important words: “You don’t have to protect me anymore. I am here now.”
Something changes when the adult self finally turns toward the child instead of asking the child to disappear. The child doesn’t necessarily need us to erase the past. Perhaps the child needs us to stop abandoning her inside the past.
🤝 a spiritual practice of release 🤝
From this experience, I began developing a simple personal practice. I call it:
🫶 the release ritual 🫶
1. see
Close your eyes and bring the old experience gently into awareness. Don’t force it. Don’t search for the most painful memory. Simply allow what is ready to be seen to appear. Ask: “What story am I still carrying?”
2. meet
Imagine yourself at the age when the wound occurred. See the younger you. Notice her posture. Her expression. Her fear. Her loneliness. Her needs. Then simply sit beside her. Presence before fixing.
3. name
Give the experience a name. Not an identity. A name. For example:
- “the day I felt rejected.”
- “the day I felt unsafe.”
- “the day I believed I wasn’t worthy.”
Naming creates space between who I am and what I have experienced.
4. witness
Allow the emotions to be felt without immediately turning them into conclusions. Sadness can be sadness. Anger can be anger. Fear can be fear. You don’t have to become the emotion. You can witness it.
5. loosen
Imagine the story as a physical object you have been gripping. A rope. A contract. A stone. A photograph. A handshake.
Ask: “What am I afraid will happen if I let this go?” This question can reveal the resistance beneath the wound.
6. release
Take a slow breath. On the exhale, imagine loosening your grip. You are not erasing history. You are releasing your ownership of the pain. You might say: “This happened. It mattered. I learned from it. And I no longer need to carry it in the same way.”
7. choose
Finally, ask: “Who do I choose to become now?”
- Not: “Who should I have been?”
- Not: “Why did this happen to me?”
- But: “Who am I becoming because I am free to choose again?”
That question moves the soul from the past into possibility.
🫶 the transformation 🫶
I began to understand something profound. Healing isn’t necessarily changing what happened. Healing is changing my relationship with what happened.
The seven-year-old cannot rewrite that day. But the adult I am today can choose what that day means in the larger story of my life.
- The wound can become wisdom.
- The pain can become compassion.
- The memory can become awareness.
- The experience can become purpose.
And the story that once imprisoned me can become a story that serves me. This doesn’t mean the transformation happens instantly.
Healing isn’t a performance. There may be days when the old movie plays again.
There may be moments when the little girl still cries. And when she does, perhaps I don’t need to fight her.
I can simply return. Sit beside her. Listen. Breathe.
🙏 And remind her: “You are not alone anymore.”
🫶 the story is not the soul 🫶
Perhaps this is what I have been missing all along.
- I had mistaken the story for the self.
- I had mistaken the wound for the identity.
- I had mistaken the memory for the present.
But a story is something I experienced. It is not the entirety of who I am.
A wound is something I carry. It is not the entirety of my soul.
And the past is something I lived. It does not have to become the limit of what I can become.
đź’– The past may explain to me. But it does not have to command me.
🤝 releasing the handshake 🤝
Today, I imagine myself returning to that little room. I see the seven-year-old girl curled up in the corner. This time, I don’t walk away. I sit beside her. I take her hand. And together, we look at the story.
- We honor it.
- We acknowledge it.
- We thank it for everything it taught us.
And then, gently, we open our hands. The handshake is over. Not because the experience didn’t matter. But because we no longer need to grip it to prove that it mattered.
The story can remain in my history without remaining in control of my destiny.
The little girl can remain part of me without remaining trapped in that moment.
And I can carry the wisdom without carrying the wound.
🙏 Nothing is permanent.
- Not the pain.
- Not the interpretation.
- Not the identity.
- Not the story.
And perhaps not even the person I believe I have to be. My self-healing journey continues. And this time, I am not walking toward the past to live there.
đź’– I am walking toward the past to bring the child home. đź’–
Keep in mind: you don’t have to erase the story to be free from the story.