Cognitive Defusion and Comforting My Inner Child

Today is a hard day. It's a bone-deep-tired, want-to-crawl-in-a-hole-and-hide-for-months hard. The wounded me inside wants to panic and believe that this is how life will always feel.

Fortunately, the wounded me no longer runs the show. So today, I honor her. I comfort her. I tell her that I hear her and that it is scary to feel like this. I validate her and speak to her with kindness and compassion.

This is the moment where I utilize cognitive defusion: I honor the reality of my experience without accepting that story - the "life will always feel like this" story - as true. "I feel like life will never get easier" is different from "Life will never get easier." I am feeling these things, but feeling these things doesn't make them objectively, verifiably true.

And I do this for as long as it takes. I don't rush through the feeling or try to fix it. I allow it space to communicate whatever it needs to with me. Even though it's uncomfortable. Even though I'd prefer to exist in a happy, light-hearted space. Because that is what little wounded me NEEDS on days like today. She needs space to feel, and be heard, and know that she matters, even (and maybe especially) when she is sad and hurting.