Dear Lori, I’m sorry you had this experience with your dad. I want to emphasize how important it is that parents who are unable to give to their children, see and love their children, are limited by their own inner resources. It’s about him, not you.

Dear Nathalie, yes indeed, ignored and suppressed feelings only become more intense under the surface. Then they may erupt when touched off by a current situation. I hope this helps!

I have been wanting to share something with you. I feel like I have gone through CEN as a child, and I recognize in myself some kind of a dissociation pattern, that I have been working on (and getting better!). But at the same time, I have always been very in touch with my feelings, in a specific way: mostly through reading and writing. As a kid, I used to read Anne of Green Gables over and over again and I really identified with this character, whose feelings are always so intense and colourful and full of poetic complexity. I felt that I was a little Anne on the inside, with very intense / dramatic / romantic feelings, that I had access to when writing, but it didn’t show in real life. I was not able to know what my real needs were, or what my feelings were in the moment, on the outside, in real life : I was taught that feelings are best ignored and avoided, that they’re meaningless and I felt ashamed that I had any. My question is: have you noticed in your practice if this is a frequent thing? Do ignored/avoided feelings tend to intensify, as if to scream « please listen to me », to get us to finally pay attention to them? I notice that some of my friends who also recognize CEN in their life can be very emotional people (per example, when talking about things that really matter to them), but have trouble identifying their real needs in their love life. I would love to hear your thoughts about this!

Thank you! 🙂

Dear Babs, thank you so much for sharing. I’m happy to have helped you on your healing journey.

Dear Cynthia, Yes, believing you are deserving and asking for what you are worth are signs of a person who has grown up validated and emotionally seen. And the opposite is also true. CEN, as it teaches you that your feelings don’t matter, also makes you feel that you as a person do not matter.

Dear Nan, please don’t settle for that. You can feel love, you’ll just need to work your way there.