The pain of the little girl hiding behind the backstop, tears wetting her cheeks, is longstanding and tangible. It was a safe spot to become invisible, back leaned against the peeling green paint, arms clutching bent knees, with silent prayers being offered that no boys run by until the bell rings. That intermittent desire of invisibility is one I continue to carry. Then, I didn’t understand why the girls I thought to be my friends were consistently banishing me. Maybe I was bossy, maybe it was basic mean girl business. I’ll never know.

Those early years of feeling unwanted and inadequate, left scars and with each additional wound, a meticulously crafted, complex line of defense slowly took shape.

I starved myself, so as to be too thin for rejection. I got straight A’s, so as to be too smart for rejection. I played sports, so as to be too athletic for rejection. I experimented with my style, so as to be too hip for rejection. I got tattoos, so as to be too cool for rejection. I finely tuned a sarcastic sense of humor, because maybe I’d be too witty for rejection. Perfect girls aren’t accessible and therefore can’t be hurt. Of course, as a child and teenager, the why’s to my Type A behavior weren’t evident. They just fit into my attempts at being a “good girl.” Inside I certainly didn’t feel like a good girl or a perfect girl. I felt alone, weak, without self-control, overly emotional, and unlikeable. These experiences with abandonment didn’t end in childhood. Whether the continuation of this theme over the years was in response to the defenses I honed or a consistent nudge to do the work, I can’t be sure, but it’s persisted into adulthood.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve more adeptly curated my inaccessibility (without much consciousness of the deeper intention)- cool house, cool clothes, clean everything, controlled eating, rigid exerciser, fearless DIYer, self-help guru, avid reader and constant sharer of helpful information. Oh, the safety of being needed. And avoidance of intimate friendships, can’t leave that off the list. If intimacy is developing, by all means judge them out of your damn life.

I pushed through struggles, inviting unnecessary challenges in, like only a martyr can do, the ultimate “good girl.” Each accomplishment served to construct a higher, less reachable pedestal to stand upon. The further I rose, the safer I imagined I’d be, insulated from the judgment of “normal” girls.

But none of those things were effective. Maybe some people were impressed with how ragged I was running myself, but my inner child logic was flawed, immature, and on auto pilot. And, if I had to guess, most people likely just saw me for what I was- an insecure overachiever.

Not until my early 30’s did I begin to have awareness that this crazy person was not driven by an innate “go-getter” temperament. The lack of self-love behind the standards I’d set for myself slowly became transparent.

But, there was another tool I’d picked up along the way and it was more of a problem than all others in totality: judgment.

You were safe from my judgment until I felt the slightest tinge of yours. The moment someone burst the delicate bubble of my feigned perfection and I knew my gig was up, I used judgment to restore myself. Talking mad shit reconstructed walls of protection.

But, there are inherent problems with this method. I only feel better during the moments of verbal validation from others when I shit talk, and then I’m hurled back into shame, cut open from top to bottom, my insides pouring out. I feel more empty and more alone each time I gossip.

I’ll be 45 in a few weeks and I’m still excavating and navigating, wading through years of pain and insecurity. My personal standards continue to be too high and judgment is my most frequently summoned method of leveling the playing field. I’m utterly terrified of female friendships. I have only two close friends I actually trust my beyond fragile heart with. They’re overachievers too, but for totally different reasons.

There are narratives we tell ourselves to justify our neuroses and we slowly begin to believe them. I have a carefully curated list that is incredibly logical and, conveniently, cannot be argued with:

I’m an introvert, so socializing is taxing.

I’m a hairstylist, I talk to women all day, every day. I have no bandwidth for more in my down time.

It’s difficult to find people who know how to reciprocate friendship versus acting like emotional vampires.

I have a specific set of interests that not many share.

I don’t like small talk and a lot of people are uncomfortable with depth.

I can’t hold my liquor.

I can’t stay up late.

I don’t have time.

I prefer to be with my family.

Even as I type these, I’m nodding my head, thinking yep, yep, yep. When we’re dealing with our inner child and shadow, it’s hard to know which parts are bullshit and which are real. We can’t be truly authentic until we’ve worked through these blocks to wholeness. All of what I said above may be true, but which am I abusing as excuses to avoid intimacy and thus, vulnerability?

No one is immune to inner child work. Judgment and gossip are absolute highlighters of unfinished business. If you’re relaying information with pure compassion, that’s not gossip, but if you can feel the slightest bit of judgment, there’s shadow work to do.

Growing up, I, like many others of my generation, had parents who grinned and bared it. There wasn’t much discussion of their emotions or personal struggles. They were there for me but were never taught to be there for themselves. The same could be said of their folks. This is a relatively new phenomenon- self care, boundaries, etc. The experts and pioneers of this movement are, of course, millennials.

Given my parents’ ingrained “shove it under the rug and keep moving” upbringings, I naturally absorbed much of that as a child. They absolutely never told me I needed to be perfect or a martyr to be lovable. Instead, they showed me through their own behavior towards themselves, just as we do with our children. Fuck.

Certainly, our words as parents count, but it’s our actions that solidify the intent and prove the reality of what comes out of our mouths.

I took the nod from my parents as a wee one, that pushing myself beyond reason and dogged self-sacrifice must indeed be the path to lovability and acceptance. My lack of psychological training at the tender age of five made this completely logical.

It should come as no surprise that my judgment is almost exclusively targeted towards indulgence of any kind, something I’ve chosen to never afford myself in the hopes that my shameful inner child will remain hidden beneath overachievement.

A solid decade into my first awareness of the issue, five year old Angi is still busy calling the shots around these parts. This is hard business. It’s not a “knowing is half that battle” situation. Knowing is 1% of the battle and the rest is literally rebuilding your neural pathways to shift a life-long narrative.

Being a working mom to three kids, coupled with a global pandemic, has massively stacked the deck in my inner child’s favor. I can be completely antisocial without anyone calling bullshit on my insecurities. I’ve avoided all of my triggers. No close friends, no pain.

I work with six women who do not share this impediment. A salon girls’ trip was planned and I immediately started sweating. I’d spent years ruminating on my lack of trust with women, content with the notion that inner work was happening and trying really hard to believe my aforementioned list of excuses to spending extracurricular time with them. I’d kept enough personal distance from my coworkers to adequately isolate myself into the “mom zone,” where almost zero expectations are in place. Most of them are younger and childless, so it’s easy to remain on the fringe.

Sean is aware of my neuroses and desperately wants me to have joyful friendships in my life. He suggested I just let go on the trip… and have a lot to drink.

Over the years, I’ve become more socially anxious. I’m constantly terrified I’m going to say something that will leave someone feeling judged, and I’ve lost trust in my ability to control my mouth. I find myself checking out in groups. I can handle all of this when working because I’m in a position of authority. My clients don’t know any versions of me beyond the one I present. I’m safely buried inside that facade, invisible. I share my weaknesses, but on my turf and of my own volition, ultimately making me appear stronger than I feel.

One of my coworkers is newer to our crew. They are very self-aware and have done much work surrounding self-acceptance and unconditional acceptance of others. They are non-binary and this radical level of acceptance has become even more important while traversing gender constructs. But, all of the self-love, boundaries, personal forgiveness, etc, coming from their station has presented a huge threat to lil’ inner child Angi. Good girls are martyrs. We don’t indulge ourselves in that shit. We suck it up and keep moving.

Up until this girls’ trip, my inner child had managed to suppress the reality of this threat. When ruminating on it, I had equal parts curiosity and judgment. I could feel that my bullshit was at work but hadn’t made space for enough introspection to get clarity. It didn’t feel like it was about me. I felt like it was about millennials. Our shadows are sneaky little assholes with disguises aplenty.

As I sat awkwardly in the hot tub with all of these women professing their love and admiration for each other, while weeping, Sean’s suggestion of getting hammered started to sound like the best plan of action. This level of vulnerability was well beyond my comfort zone. I’m sure it’s no accident that the Universe dropped me in with this crew of emoters.

Vodka was had, then had again. Alleged piggy back rides were given around the house and who the fuck even knows what else. It was fun… until it wasn’t.

My memory is very hazy but I do remember the phrases “emotionally indulgent” and “get a real problem” coming out of my mouth, coupled with a rant about the struggles of parenting and the inability to be self-indulgent while doing so. In full shadow gloriousness, I was wearing my mommy martyrdom like a goddamned crown. I recall shaking heads from some and tears from my coworker, while asking me to stop.

Maybe it’s for the best that I’d browned out during most of it. My shadow came in and said her piece and to those around me it was about my coworker, but I know it was exclusively about me, years of childhood shame projected outward. Their vulnerability, self-love, and indulgence are things I desperately need but have denied for the entirety of my life. I was jealous. How could they be so beloved while embracing these qualities. This was like dynamite being taken to everything I’ve worked so hard for, all of the self flagellation. Eat less, clean more, make your house perfect. Bury yourself. Repeat.

If they don’t know “you,” they can’t reject “you.”

But what happens when even “you,” don’t know “you.” You’ve constructed an entire entity to place in front of your shadow, and your inner child is hiding behind it, desperate to be seen but without the proper understanding of how.

We all have.

And that’s where the work begins. That’s where I’ll be for the bulk of, if not my entire life- liberating my inner child from her irrational beliefs about what makes her lovable and owning the positive qualities she’s granted from within the shadow.

Your parents, your friends, your spouse, your children, your experiences, your traumas, they’re all perfectly placed for this growth. None of it is an accident. This is what we were put here to do- unearth all of it and learn to love the flawed personality that houses the unflawed soul and then eventually, everyone else’s too.

We’ll do that until we make our way back home. It’s our sole/soul purpose and every opportunity to commingle with it is a gift. Love is literally what life is about. We can’t manifest our deepest desires until we do battle with this stuff.

So, how to go about feeling the self-love? I’ve become a recent student of reprogramming, reparenting, and rewritinging life-long narratives, making actual changes to the brain. It’s a very tall but worthy order. A lot of this, for me, has to do with derailing society’s “good girl” requirements that I’ve agreed to. Most women could use a little assistance in that department. Here’s what I’m reading and listening to for that and inner child insight:

How to do the Work

Nicole La Pera

Unbound

Kasia Urbaniak

Existential Kink

Carolyn Elliot

Girlhood

Melissa Febos

Kelly Brogan MD

Blog

To Be Magnetic (online program)

and their

Expanded podcast

-Angi