read it... but just in case someone does........ Dear Daniela, Hello from Berlin! I first came to Berlin in 2015 and I fell in love with the city. There's a palpable energy here that I find deeply nourishing and energizing. And I think it has something to do with the fact that this place has also had a deep wound. Historically, major atrocities occurred here and this city was literally split into two. A wall of separation was built here and later the people brought it down. And now it has increasingly become a vibrant place where people from around the globe come to create and connect with one another. I've been experiencing Berlin as a fertile center, supporting me in composting more of my old pain into new life. I'm writing you from my cozy apartment in Prenzlauer Berg sitting by the wood stove with some chamomile tea as the snow and sleet pour down outside. Lately I've been thinking about our human drive to manipulate the outer world to feel safe within ourselves and what drives this. When I was a little girl, I survived by being hyper-vigilant, overachieving, and anticipating problems. It wasn't safe to rest and trust. Struggling and striving was my dominant mode. As a young adult, it was idealizing a new city, a new relationship, a new degree, etc. Always something "out there" to fixate on to feel safe in here. But it never lasted. Looking back, I see how the thing I really wanted was to rest. To finally rest. And to trust life to take care of me. At earlier levels of my healing, this was simply impossible because I was projecting the lack of safety I felt in my family onto my life situations. Here's the thing... Over time, we realize that no outer thing or person or experience can give us what we truly want. We can't solve inner problems with outer things. And we can't "earn" the rest and peace that we desire. It can only be FOUND within us. It's already there within us, it's just covered up by layers and layers of defenses against the original pain we experienced as children but couldn't feel or process at the time. Each layer we process brings us in greater contact with this peace at our center. Like many people, I used to spend years solving the secondary problems that were created by the defenses I had against my own pain. In the past I wasn't ready to directly embrace the full magnitude of my childhood pain. I needed to get support first and build a strong foundation within to handle it. The thing about healing childhood trauma is we have to feel it to heal it. The healing process asks that we allow ourselves to re-experience that original pain to some degree, in order to become conscious of it and to free ourselves from it. A major challenge as we process it, is to not blend so deeply with it that it colors our present thinking. The pain is telling us what we experienced in the past, it's not showing us anything accurate about our present lives. In fact, often the deepest layers come up for healing when our outer life is most quiescent and stable. What used to feel safe to me was striving, struggling, and focusing on the future. But this anxious focus on the future actually feels violent to me now. The most nourishing thing is to fully be in the moment with what is here, even if that is feeling the terror of my childhood, or sipping tea or walking in the snow. Like many people, I used to resist and avoid my pain because I would judge myself, like "Why aren't I healed yet? What's wrong with me?" That feeling is very natural, especially in our culture that prizes the fantasy of perfection. And yet, when we express that frustration with ourselves, we are being hostile to the suffering child within us, who needs our sincere, loving presence. As kids the defenses we had against pain protected us, but they also created a barrier between ourselves and life. Part of our healing is dismantling these walls of defenses so that we can have inner peace. I recall an experience I had one day sitting with the pain of my inner child. While it was incredibly painful to embrace and sit with the pain of what I experienced as a child, alongside it I noticed a vast aliveness. Everything around me seemed much more vivid. While I did experience pain from the past, I also felt more alive, more simple and more real. It is precisely this process of embracing our own pain that expands our aliveness. And that aliveness is what we are all seeking through outer things. How wonderful that we don't have to keep seeking it out there! As our aliveness expands, life can bring us anything and there's a peace that becomes more abiding and constant. We become less attached to having life turn out a certain way because the essence of what we want is already here in each moment, in the simplicity of our own loving presence to what is, cultivated over time as our adult self, embraces the layers of pain from the inner child. (It's important to mention that getting professional support with this process is crucial.) And as we metabolize new layers, we become more in contact with reality as it is. And in that simplicity is profound nourishment, even if what we're doing is eating squash soup, listening to the rain, talking on the phone, or dancing in a nightclub. Remember that we only have to embrace THIS moment. Just this one single moment. And then the next moment. We don't have to embrace all our pain at once. Just what is here right now. And as we do this, our aliveness expands into everything we do. This allows us to increasingly perceive our belonging with all life, relaxing into trusting what is here now as exactly where we need to be. Whatever you are doing today, Daniela, I invite you to take some time to connect with your inner child. Whatever she is feeling under the surface, embrace it fully. Even if you experience frustration or sadness, embrace that too. Know that whatever you embrace transforms. Sending you lots of love from the fireside in Berlin, Bethany