There is nothing wrong with you.
You didn’t fail as a kid.
The scary situation wasn’t because of you.
Controlling your life, your body, your spouse or your children now
Will not make you safer.
It won’t make them safer either.
Things wouldn’t have gone better if you were somehow different then.
Changing or controlling yourself today still won’t work.
It really was impossible be anyone or anything but who you were.
Same now.

The pressure of trying to be something else –
The constant vigilance, self-criticism, blame, self-loathing –
Can’t make you be anything other than you.

But oh honey,
You don’t need to be.
You never did.

You’ve been trying your whole life to get love, get seen, get heard, get included and
Get inside the loving shelter
That may never have been there at all.
You’ve been
Trying to find safety
In that way-back-when place.

But
That
Is
Not
Happening
Anymore.

There’s nothing wrong with you
And that terrifying time is over.

Come home now.
Come out of the dark forest, the bushes
Trying to punish yourself, hide or track all possible new danger.
The scary thing is over. No matter how long it lasted.
It’s over.
Come home
Finally into the deep rest, the relief of being exactly you,
Perfect as you are,
As you have always, always been. 

~~~~~~~~~

We’re here, together, now,
Chris