Did you grow up too quickly?
This is a common problem from childhood that can be overlooked, particularly in its subtleties.
It can be one of the root causes of soul loss, because growing up too quickly deprives us of innocence, and innocence is where we grow from in our spirituality, where we claim an awareness of body, feelings, emotions and the innate wisdom that our inner-sense gives to us.
Growing up too quickly takes away safety, humility, freedom, our natural curiosity and fascination for life. It also denies our ability to find our innate purpose.
So what causes this?
Often it is caused by trauma, whether that is because of abuse or because of accidents and traumatic experiences. It can also come about because of neglect, where we had to look after our own needs too early, when a parent has been incapable of this. And often it is caused by having to become a care-taker too soon on many different levels. It might be taking care of our parents, siblings and other members of the family. Sometimes this is necessary because of illness or disability in the parent, but all too often it can be because we are told or expected to look after others feelings, secrets, inabilities to cope and many other traits in the family system.
I can remember myself, having to ‘take care’ of my fathers feelings, not for him, but for my mother. She didn’t want him to be ‘upset’ by certain things, so I was told to keep secrets. This led me to believe that I had to care-take my father on this level, even without his knowledge. What it meant was that I could not trust my father with emotions, with feelings, with his own wellbeing. My mother had undermined him to me, in that respect. This affected my relationships with men and meant that I thought I had to take care of their emotions myself, until I was able to recognise this subtle pattern and do the work necessary to change it. But it was hidden deep, hard to find, until I understood the full story.
What happens with our grown-up self?
We become very capable and dependent on ourselves. This can be a great asset to our young mind, heart and body. We can become the one that others always come to for help and support and we become flattered at our great capabilities, admired for our courage, seen as a great saviour, deemed incredible with super-human powers!
We often end up in jobs where we are care-takers for others and are exceptionally good at this.
But there is a down side, we can become wrong-sized, we begin to be too big for our own good, unable to find the help that we need ourselves as individuals, we find it hard to ask for help in the right places, the shoulder to cry on, the hug where its appropriate, words shared without having to be fixed or to automatically need to fix the other in order to avoid our own vulnerability.
We can lose our sense of God/Spirit of a higher power, because we become that higher power for ourselves, as well as for other people.
And the deepest pain of all, can come about because we have been robbed of our innocence, we have lost our curiosity for life and its fascination. Life becomes a drudge, a conditioned path that is decided upon by others. A story that is not our own to live.
That innocent part of us has been neglected and once acknowledged we need to find a way to reclaim it, if we want to live wholesome lives, understanding our vulnerabilities, loving those around us from a place of equality, finding meaning and purpose in what we do. Instead of a strong grandiose personality, justifying all we do as being caring and believing that we are the answer to everyone else’s problems.
It is ourselves that need this care and attention if we are to find true meaning and our real purpose in life. We will continue to be wonderful care-givers, healers, assistants in parts, but not at the expense of ourselves, our vulnerable hearts and particularly our soul.
Why the Soul?
When we are born our soul is connected, we are that pure golden light of our innocence, we are pure love. Over time that can become diminished, conditioned out of us and that curious state of innocence can be too quickly forced to ‘grow-up’ and be given responsibilities that should not be there. The soul becomes buried, hidden from view, the light goes out or is dimmed. Heaviness prevails. The soul carries with it our purpose, the reason we are here so it begins its journey in the undercurrents of our lives, sculpting and forming the gift that will be ours when the time is right for us to wake up and be seen for who we really are. If we choose to wake up!
And what will happen then? Who will be there for us to trust, to support us, to help us through some of the grim and gritty tales that will feel too hard to face in moments of exhaustion and fatigue, when our fears are too great to be looked at?
What is the community that we will be able to lean into, that will hold us while we break down and melt away some of the layers of habit and dysfunction? And how will we cope when we are no longer the answer to everyone else’s difficulties and we find ourselves ‘right sized’ and what we thought our purpose was is simply put aside, our life’s mission reduced to a state of not knowing who we really are?
And then we might meet with the dark night of the soul, the empty place inside us that holds space for our soul to return and come back to the light, the place that is uncomfortable, deep and forbidding. And yet a small light begins to appear there and it grows and we revisit that childhood state of innocence and we face that hurt without covering it up, we remember the things we enjoyed as a child, we remember who we really are and what we loved. And as we reclaim this inner sense of our true being, we become lighter, stronger, more fascinated with life, we want to know what our real purpose is and we begin to claim it. Our Sovereignty returns and we become the truth, the storyteller of our life, the medicine that is really needed for others and not some false sense of what we ourselves think it might or ought to be.
When our soul fully inhabits us, we are happier, purposeful and right sized, we become younger in spirit and once again have a zest for life. This cannot feel anything but good.
And in the reclaiming of this beautiful part of us, we are re-born.
Caroline Carey
Soul Retrieval Workshop 3 module Course – https://middleearthmedicine.com/memevents/discover-your-soul/
