Re-referencing your hurts

I feel very compelled to teach you something that Kristopher worked with me on the other day. This something can change lives. I saw the power in it after one session. It was almost ridiculous how obvious and simple it was. And while it is may be a continuous process, I can see how it would be monumental in healing past hurts.

It is about RE-referencing things in your past.

So....I had a little incident when I was 10 years old where I said something dumb and caused great, great, great, pain to someone. Because I was a child and thought this incident was ALL MY HORRIBLE FAULT it has  haunted me for a life time. The actual incident was VERY traumatizing for me.

Still to this day I can't think of a worse feeling then causing someone else pain. I am so afraid of feeling the pain of causing someone else pain, that I am COMPLETELY non confrontational, lest I say ANYTHING that should hurt someone.  To the point of wimpy. I am a huge people pleaser. In the past it was to the point of completely forsaking my own needs. I have been a "yes" women and a huge codependent to the demise of my own mental health. (see appendix A where I sometimes want to drive myself into telephone poles... okay, fine. There is no real appendix A. I just wanted to write that.)

Anyway, I finally told Kristopher about this event because I figured out that it might be the root of some of my other feelings. Telling him was an event in itself for me.

I have been ashamed of this incident for a very long time. I had it worked up so big and horribly "beautiful" in my mind for a million years.

When I told him about the event it was so simple and easy. In his most dearest natural beloved way he validated that that event, indeed must have hurt and was sad.

He told me the ridiculous incident was not my 10 year old little girl's fault.

He told me in detail why it was not my fault.

He said a few things about it that made me laugh. He is funny sometimes. I don't think he even means to be but he makes me laugh sometimes.

 He took all the horribleness and shame off of me, and my 10 year old pathetic little self, in about five minutes flat. Like magic.

 I have been remembering this incident from a 10 year old's perspective for THIRTY years. I have been feeling the pain of it from a ten year old's perspective for THIRTY years. I have relived it from a ten year old's perspective for THIRTY stupid annoying painful shame filled unnecessary cotton pickin' stinkin' YEARS!!!!

He told me I needed to re-reference this incident in my brain by telling myself different things about this incident. Not things a ten year old thinks and feels about this incident. But things a rational adult can see about this incident. And HE RE-REFERENCED it for me in his most beautiful therapeutic loving caring gifted adorable blessed way.

After the session I began to think of that event. And because of Kristopher putting it into an ADULT perspective for me I was thinking ..."What in the crazy world? That wasn't my fault! That person completely overreacted to my one dumb perfectly normal 10 year old comment. That person had a complete and ridiculous FREAK OUT (probably due to something COMPLETELY unrelated to me) and LASHED out at me.

And I have been carrying shame about that event  ON MY BACK FOR NO GOOD REASON!!! And no one who witnessed this incident ever said a word to me about it. No one said...."Wow. That person had a freak out! You are NOT a big fat jerkish loser evil and terrible child with all of this enormous power to cause someone GREAT pain". No one ever said that. Until Kristopher.

I carried this stupid incident around all this time thinking my little 10 year old disgraceful self had this horrible POWER to HURT this person so deeply (because of their extreme overreaction) and awfully and extremely.

WHEN....

 IT WASN'T ABOUT ME!!!!

THIS WHOLE ENTIRE RIDICULOUS LONG TIME,  IT WASN'T ABOUT ME!!!!!!!!

IT WASN'T ABOUT ME!!!!!!!!

For THIRTY YEARS IT WAS NEVER. ABOUT. ME!!!!

Because my ten year old didn't know that it wasn't about me, I have been packing this baggage around with me this entire time.

Kristopher told me an example of another client he had.

This client was FORTY YEARS OLD when she finally realized that her father leaving WAS NOT her fault. When she was THREE years old she remembered sitting in her highchair.  She spilled her milk. At that moment her dad just happened to leave the family, as in for good.  This person believed for all this time that her spilling the milk was the cause of her father leaving. Her little three year old self carried that blame for THIRTY SEVEN YEARS.

Then she saw the incident through adult eyes. She re-referenced it. Kristopher said it was like she woke up. And she  realized that her spilling milk at the same time her father decided to leave had nothing to do with each other. THAT WAS NOT HER FAULT. He said she realized at that moment, "That's absurd! That wasn't my fault!"

It seems so simple. Look at these childhood events from adult eyes and re-reference them in your brain.

A way to re-reference is to "explore the false beliefs causing the pain" (Healing Your Aloneness) Your adult self needs to look at your childhood pains and tell the truth about them from an adult instead of the hurt child.

I just thought I'd share that. It felt like such mercy to have Kristopher do that for me. To tell me through his adult eyes how -not my fault- that incident was. To make me laugh about it and sooth my thirty year old baggage. If you don't have a Kristopher you can still do it for yourself. You don't have to have a Kristopher to do it. I am going to have to do it for myself also. Even about this one event. I will have to continue to re-reference it until it sticks.

See ya!