March 2026 – The Circles of Life
Belated Happy New Year! I am still here. Learning, growing, journalling. The past three or four months have been a tad chaotic as there have been some interesting developments in my life to which I am slowly adapting. In some ways, it does feel like I’ve been undergoing metamorphosis within a cocoon during that time, making this blog entry a form of emergence. Due to the ah-ha moment I experienced during this morning’s journalling, the cocoon metaphor is rather apt. However, the imagery that arose while journalling was of a highly-lacquered shell that I am shedding.
In a rather bizarre coincidence (?), yesterday I was transcribing journal entries from 2006 that remain relevant twenty years later. My subconscious did its usual overnight processing with surprising results – another layer exposed of a topic that I have circled more than once over the decades. Back in 2006, I was puzzling over the relationship between love and protection – and how I seldom, if ever, felt either. I queried what I need protection from as well as by whom. When reprocessing two decades later, it reinforced the connection to never completing the development stages of love and belonging, safety and security as a child.
In a weird twist, I recognized that subconsciously I had come to the conclusion early on that my only chance to feel safe and loved would be in the romantic context of finding a mate. Fast forward a few years, and I would struggle with a form of transference every time a male person would be kind or attentive. Transference referring to the subconscious process of transferring thoughts or feelings from one person or situation onto another (e.g. seeing a teacher or a therapist as a lover/protector/parent/etc. and reacting accordingly).
I was aware of the transference issue a long time ago. The new layer came in the connection between what I failed to learn as a child and how that transferred into my confusing relationships with any male personage – particularly the interconnected needs for love and protection. Circle back to my flawed conclusion that I just had to find the right mate and all would be well – therein lies the double quandary. This also clarifies why my marital dissatisfaction affected me so deeply – and why I worked so hard at resolving it.
How to explain all that? I might need a diagram. 😊 Imagine an inner circle of love and protection with four overlapping circles of childhood needs, marriage, transference, and my protective hard shell. My unmet childhood needs for love and protection (I still have a visceral reaction when I think about that unprotected child) led to a belief that I would find that once I married. Unfortunately, my marriage did not provide the love and protection I craved which spilled over into transference whenever a male person was kind or attentive to me leading to intense inner angst and questioning what was wrong with me. Every failed experience at “earning” love and protection added another layer to my hard shell of personal protectiveness resulting in extreme trust issues and an aversion to vulnerability, authenticity, and true intimacy in any context.
The protection piece finally made sense in light of my childhood in that I never felt safe and secure. I didn’t need my marriage partner to protect me from external threats. If anything, I needed him to protect the relationship – that I was treasured and cherished enough to know I was worth protecting – something I never experienced as a child (that still makes me want to cry). I have attempted to complete that trauma loop by focusing on no longer being a vulnerable child needing protection to an adult with choices to protect myself – and subconsciously adding another layer to my shell with every disappointment in myself or the men around me.
So. All this work on healing the father wound (and/or other attachment wounds) to help me see that I am worth protecting and to be open to receiving said (metaphorical) protection. It has been quite the journey developing a secure sense of self (strong inner core) over the past few years! It is the abstract nature of this protection that likely tripped me up for so long. My life experiences taught me I couldn’t trust/rely on anyone – and later a precious few – so I had to have my own back. While in a practical sense this remains true (I am an adult with choices rather than a vulnerable child needing protection), I have undergone an ’emotionally corrective experience’ that has opened me to accept that I am worth protecting in the abstract or general as well as practical sense.
I have also been working on reparenting my inner child and all those other trauma-recovery techniques I blog about. So imagine my surprise when this layer involves other people and shedding my shell (or at least decreasing its thickness) to receive love and protection. It is hard for me to explain these overlapping circles including circling back twenty years to have this ah-ha moment. It will likely take some time to ‘settle’ into my psyche as it has prompted an internal shift. In a nutshell, I see myself differently today than I did yesterday.
This next paragraph is an ‘addendum’ after having a day or two to process. I wrote in my journal, “Before I can accept ‘I am loved,’ I must recognize ‘I am safe.’ Safety precludes feeling loved. I never felt loved because I never felt safe. But my brain only understood that I was unloved, ergo there was something wrong with me and therefore unlovable. When the real problem was unprotected and unsafe.” As I am starting to feel safe in my own skin and in the company of others, I can also begin to feel loved – and it is a tremendous feeling.
I hope your 2026 has gotten off to an amazing start – maybe with less dramatic cocooning moments than mine – which reminds me of the transition from the Year of the Snake to the Year of the Fire Horse. It is definitely turning out to be a year of transformation for me! Feel free to share how the first three months of 2026 have been for you or if you have any questions regarding this blog.