Going Back to Help the “Little Girl Downstairs”
The first time I had an inkling of one of these “unbearables” [see previous three articles] was twenty-five years ago. It took me two years of discharging “around” what I felt had happened to allow it to be “true.” It helped when counselors would say they believed me. It also helped when they’d reassure me that it was okay to accept it and look at it, that I had survived long ago, and that now, in present time, I had tools and resources.
A powerful tool is going back to help the “little girl downstairs”—stepping in and doing or saying what needed to be done or said or helping her to do or say it, providing what an adult should have been available to provide. This is a big contradiction to the powerlessness, the lack of help, the aloneness, and the giving up in that “unbearable” situation.
How we do this can vary. It can be confrontational and strong, for example, taking the child out of the situation, or it can be fanciful, light, imaginative, or magical—whatever works, whatever the child wants and needs.
Northfield, Minnesota, USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC teachers
(Present Time 191, April 2018)