Need to pee? Thirsty? Tired? What this can mean for your healing journey

Being a kid means you’re dependent on your parents.

You need them to show up for you.

And yet, many of us had experiences where we didn’t get what we really needed from them.

Instead we got…

Inconsistent emotional availability…
Being left alone with your feelings when you were distressed…
Unpredictable reactions from them, leading to fear of triggering their anger or disappointment
Feeling responsible for their emotions
Repeatedly experiencing criticism or comparison
Being punished for expressing emotions
Experiencing physical separation or loss, like a parent leaving for long periods without explanation
Too much responsibility too early
Feeling unsafe in your own home due to yelling, fighting, or unpredictable tension
Being publicly shamed or embarrassed for a mistake

This can be overwhelming as a kid.

And if we experienced that, it’s likely you formed a strategy to survive that time. 

Maybe you became invisible and undetectable. 

Maybe you became vigilant and self-isolating. 

Maybe you became more tense and reactive. 

Maybe you became very likable and perfect. 

These are survival responses: fight, flight, freeze and fawning your way to safety. The main point was making it through the situation, which, being a child, was likely something you couldn’t step out of. 

While your focus was on surviving the situation, you needed to stop feeling your body, which includes your needs and feelings. 

Your body’s signals (with needs and feelings) took a back seat as they were likely not being met and weren’t key for your survival at the time. Sometimes it’s even painful to notice the unmet needs, so extra reason just to ignore them. 

So in the process you turned the volume of your body down. You stopped listening to yourself. 

The trouble is, even though the environment and situation have changed, your nervous system and way of being can stay stuck in that moment in time. Frozen.

This makes it hard when you’re in a new (great!) relationship, but your nervous system is still set to an outdated mode that says ‘I can’t trust other people; stay on high alert and don’t let your guard down’.

So we want to lovingly update our nervous system so we can be with what’s happening here and now, not continuing to live what happened back then.

A very simple and easy way to update your nervous system and let it know that your needs matter and you’re safe now is to listen to your body and follow it’s cues. For example, when you notice your bladder is full, go to the toilet. When your throat is dry, go and drink something. When your eyes feel tired and your head is heavy, go and rest. 

This is letting your body and nervous system know that you’re listening, it wants matters and you’re in a time and place where you can have your needs met. Unlike before. 

This builds trust with your body. It starts to realise it’s not in survival mode where it is invisiblised until ‘later’ — it’s starts to *feel* and know that it’s safe and matters now. 

Healing from the unfinished business from the past isn’t always about talking about what happened. It’s about practice: doing things to lovingly dialogue with these parts and letting them feel (you know the saying, feel it to heal it).

So, go pee and lovingly update yourself to be here and now.