There’s a quiet kind of revolution happening in me.

It doesn’t roar or shout.
It doesn’t demand a spotlight.
It simply knocks — gently —
from the part of me I used to leave behind.

The child.

Not just the memory of him.
But the living, breathing presence that still needs to be held.
To be seen.
To be remembered throughout the day, not just in moments of collapse.

Carl Jung might say I’m walking the path of individuation.
That this relationship I’m building — between my adult self and the inner child — is the bridge between ego and Self.

When I sit with the child, I’m not regressing.
I’m reuniting.
I’m practicing active imagination — listening to the voice of the unconscious, and allowing it to guide me toward wholeness.

He’d remind me that the child is not weak — he is sacred.
The “divine child” who holds the vitality, spontaneity, and emotional truth that the adult world tried to train out of me.
To ignore him is to ignore life itself.

Carl Rogers, I think, would smile gently.

He’d see this as unconditional positive regard in action —
offered inward, after a lifetime of it being withheld.

He might say:
You are becoming your own therapist.
By accepting all parts of yourself — especially the ones that once felt unlovable — you’re creating the safety needed for transformation.

You’re not fixing the child.
You’re finally loving him.
And in that love, something beautiful is growing:
a fully functioning adult who doesn’t need to abandon the child to be strong.

This practice I’m building —
checking in, not forgetting, offering space for play —
it’s not indulgent.

It’s medicine.

Sometimes I sit with him in the simplest of ways.
A cup of tea.
A video of diggers on the screen — because, for some reason, they make him feel safe and joyful.
We watch them move earth, like it’s a sacred ritual.
And I ask him gently,
“What do you need today?”

Not to let him take the wheel.
But to give him a voice.
To show him — finally — that I’m here. That I care. That he matters.

It’s taken years to get to this place where that doesn’t feel shameful.
Where it doesn’t feel like something I have to hide or explain away.
I don’t know anyone else who does this daily.
And sometimes, that makes it feel lonely.
But also: undeniably right.

I used to chase wholeness through perfection.
Now I find it in the moments I hold his hand.

Not to rescue him.
Not to silence him.
But to walk beside him, wherever he wants to go.

Maybe this is the foundation of the authentic self I’ve been seeking all along.
Not built by escaping the past,
but by weaving it into something whole.

Something true.

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