A Story About Breaking Your Own Patterns Once You Finally See Them

A love letter to my inner child.

There’s a kind of hurt that doesn’t announce itself. It just quietly lives under your skin, shaping the way you see the world, the way you hold yourself. For a long time, I didn’t think my dad’s absence affected me. After all, how could someone who wasn’t around a lot leave such a loud mark? But that’s the thing about grief - it doesn’t always come from what happened. Sometimes it comes from what didn't. From the calls that never came. From the birthdays where something always felt a little incomplete. And thank God - truly, thank God - I had the mom I did. It’s like my soul knew I would need someone extraordinary to help carry the weight. A best friend; a fierce protector. She somehow managed to be both mother and father, without ever meeting me feel like I lacked either.

Even with all the love my mom poured into me, there were still parts of my heart that quietly ached. So much of that time is foggy in my memory - like my mind wrapped it all in a soft focus to protect me. But beneath the blur was a quiet confusion. The kind that doesn’t scream, it just lingers. I didn’t understand why certain moments stung the way they did, or why certain times in my life carried a heaviness I could not explain. I was too young to know that rejection can happen without words. That absence can echo louder than presence. When the final silence came - I learned my dad had passed away, I didn’t even cry. I didn't even stay awake. I just went back to sleep. And in that sleep, something stayed frozen in me for many years.

I wouldn’t meet that part of myself again until much later - through relationships that mirrored every unhealed wound. I kept finding myself with people who were warm one moment and distant the next. And I thought it was them. But when I started doing the inner work, I saw it clearly: I was choosing the familiar. I was reenacting the heartbreak I never gave myself to feel. My inner child was dating for me - and she was still waiting to be picked. I was drawn to emotionally unavailability because I had become emotionally unavailable to myself. And I would leave the relationship first, always, because I thought that’s how you stayed safe.

These last few years have been a quiet unraveling. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just deeply honest, and raw. I’ve asked myself hard questions. The kind most people avoid. I’ve sat in the discomfort. I’ve sat with the grief, that I’ve pushed down for so long. I’ve stopped trying to fix other people in hopes that it would fix something in me.

I’ve grieved the father I never got to fully know. I’ve learned to separate the man from the pain. He wasn't a villain - just a soul doing the best he could with the pain he carried. He couldn’t stay the way I needed, and while that absence left cracks in places I didn’t yet understand, I now see his love was never gone - it was just scattered. And with time, with healing, and with the opening of my spiritual gifts, Ive come to realize our story never ended when he left the physical world. It simply changed form. His spirit shows up in ways he never could before - in moments of stillness, and happiness. He sends soft reminders he’s near. That he sees me. That in some unspoken way, he’s proud. And somehow, in this space between realms, we understand each other more clearly now than we ever could in the physical. There is grief, even now, knowing he won’t be physically with me for the milestones. But there’s also grace in knowing he never really left.

And maybe, that's what healing truly is - making peace with what didn’t happen, while staying open to what still can. I no longer search for love in places that feel familiar but unsafe. I no longer overstay in dynamics that ask me to abandon myself. I’m learning that love doesn’t have to be earned, proved, or chased - it can be soft, steady, and true. And I’m learning to receive it - from others, from Spirit, and most importantly, from myself. Not the version of me who performs or pleases. But the one who waits patiently beneath it all - the one who always knew she was worthy of love, just as she is.

Some carry shame for the pain they’ve endured, but I see it differently. True growth, true soul expansion, doesn’t come from pretending the dark didn't happen. It comes from honoring it. I’ve met myself in the shadows and found divinity there. The Light Within. Every wound, every unraveling, every moment of stillness was a sacred initiation - each one leading me closer to the truth of who I really am.

All My Love,

Erica XX