My journal has had different names over the years. In my teens, she was Dear Orange. In my twenties, she was Dear Ella. The name changed, but the pattern stayed the same.
I'd sit down and the words would pour out. Pages would fill with thoughts about something that happened years ago, whatever tension I'd been carrying around all week. Then, a few minutes in, the writing would lift off the page—suddenly I was writing about life, happiness, existence, why we're here.
I thought I was being profound. Getting to the deep truth of things.
What I didn't see was that I was running. Running from the small, scared voice inside me that just wanted to be heard.
The way we protect ourselves from ourselves
There's a reason we do this. When you write about "the human condition" or "what people go through," you're not really writing about your pain. You're writing about everyone's pain, which somehow becomes nobody's pain. And that doesn't hurt as much.
Two years into my therapy journey, my therapist gently asked me to try something different. To voice what was going on for me specifically. Not for humanity. Not in general terms. Just for me.
I kept circling back to abstractions. She'd ask what I was feeling, and I'd answer with why people feel that way. She'd gently redirect. I'd go again. And again.
Somewhere in that session, I stopped flying up. I stayed with it. And that's when I finally felt what was there.
I didn't feel relief. I felt a deep aloneness. A sadness I hadn't let myself touch. The philosophising had been a buffer. When I removed it, I met the little girl who'd been waiting there the whole time, carrying everything I'd refused to name.
There was someone inside me, my inner child, who was feeling everything personally, directly. And I'd been sitting right there beside her, looking away, talking about distant truths instead of the one truth that mattered: what she was feeling.
When we turn away from ourselves
Imagine sitting next to someone who's just lost their job. They're gutted. Scared. Questioning their worth. And instead of turning toward them, you start talking about unemployment rates. The economy. "Things are hard for people right now."
How would they feel? Seen? No. They'd feel more alone than before.
That's what I was doing to myself. To the part of me that needed me most.
I'd feel sad and instead of acknowledging the sadness, I'd direct the conversation toward how people should be treated—this behaviour was bullying, this person doesn't understand my culture.
I'd feel hurt and suddenly I was building a case, explaining why what happened was wrong, analysing their behaviour instead of feeling my own pain.
I'd feel rejected and somehow it would become a discussion about respect, or boundaries, or what's acceptable.
Every single time, I was taking my own experience and making it about something else. Someone else. Anything but the raw feeling underneath.
Every single time, the part of me that needed attention was being turned away from.
When I finally stopped building cases and stayed with what was there, I found something much simpler and much harder to say: I was hurt because the people I trusted didn't protect me.
That was it. That was what the little girl inside me had been trying to tell me the whole time.
The invitation to come home to yourself
This is what I'm learning, slowly: next time something makes you feel sad, pause. Don't reach for the big questions. Don't try to be understanding, or write about what it means about the world.
Turn toward your inner child and ask them why they're sad. Specifically.
Not "why is the world like this?" But "hey, what's making you sad?"
Not "why do people feel disconnected?" But "what are you feeling disconnected from?"
Not the distant truths we can all nod along to. The direct, uncomfortable, small truth that's happening inside you, right now.
What happens when we finally turn toward ourselves
There's a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from not seeing your wounded inner child. It's different from being tired.
You might not even recognise you're doing it. You might think you're being thoughtful, or insightful, or wise. You might believe that understanding pain in general will somehow resolve your pain in particular.
It won't.
The only thing that resolves your pain is turning toward it. Not analysing it. Not contextualising it. Not making it mean something about the world.
Just being with it. The pain that is specifically yours.
This is harder than it sounds. It requires you to stop being impressive, to stop having answers. To sit with something small and specific and true, without turning it into a lesson.
And when you do, when you finally stop abstracting your experience and start feeling it — the part of you that's been waiting to be seen can finally relax.
Not because you fixed anything, but because you stopped abandoning yourself.
Your inner child doesn't need you to understand all of humanity's suffering. They just need you to see theirs.
And with the seeing, that willingness to stay, to not fly up into philosophy or outward into blame, is the start of something different.
This is not a dramatic transformation—I can't tell you where this will take you, but I'm sure it is somewhere where you're finally, actually, there with yourself.