To quote my mentor Karen McCall, “Deprivation means living in a state of emptiness and longing, of which we may not even be aware, but which nonetheless drives our choices.
Deprivation is the wound that develops when our most essential needs-physical, emotional, social, or spiritual-are not met, particularly when these needs are not met for a long time and even more so when this happens to us early in life.”
In my life I have experienced what I refer to as a deep hole in my soul that needed to be filled. It was left there by early trauma in my life. Not trauma with a capital “T” but the trauma that came from being alone a lot. No one beat me or abused me. I hadn’t experienced a war or lost my parents but it was still trauma none the less.
My parents both worked and my grandmother was in a nursing home so when I came home from school as a child I had to go to a neighbor’s home because no one was home. I wound up feeling that I was a burden to my parents. They didn’t do this intentionally. Life just was crazy busy for them and they didn’t see they had a choice. As a child though all I could see and feel was that they weren’t there for me and that translated to me feeling unworthy of love and success.
These feelings lead to buying clothing, taking courses, buying books and anything else I could think of to make myself feel better. At the time it felt urgent to do whatever it would take to “fix” myself even if I didn’t have the money. That lead to lots of debt.
Feeling less than also led to me feeling like I didn’t deserve to be making more than just enough money whether I was working for someone else or myself.
Unmet needs, whatever their source, expand over time, ultimately becoming or amplifying a feeling of deprivation.
If what you need is a sense of security, filling your closet with new clothes won’t provide that. If you’re in need of companionship, excessive gift-buying won’t improve the quality of your relationships.
The world becomes a source of aching disappointment where we must desperately seek what-ever crumbs of comfort we can find. But no matter how much we buy, our feeling of deprivation still remains.
In order to allow ourselves to succeed, achieve our goals and realize our dreams we have to heal those old wounds and in a way reparent the child that lives within each of us. We need to support that little person and help them feel safe and loved now. Otherwise, we will continue to sabotage our efforts to have financial success.
So how do we heal those old wounds?
We can do this through therapy, particularly trauma therapy or somatic therapy or Breath Work that include a physical healing to help dislodge the old experiences from staying in our body. We can use our creativity and art making to interpret, express, and resolve our emotions and thoughts. This helps us explore our emotions, understand conflicts or feelings that are causing us distress, and helps us find resolutions to those issues.
In it we will create a doll to fulfill the needs of our inner child.
I will be there to guide you through the necessary inner work and act as technical support in making your doll.
I chose dolls because children use dolls as a means of comfort. The dolls will be based on your needs and will be unique to you. You may choose to have your doll be small enough to carry with you in your purse or pocket or large enough so you can sit in its lap. It all depends on what your inner work reveals about what you need to do for yourself now.
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