wingwave® Coaching and Trauma

The little Girl and the Fairy: A somewhat different Fairy Tale

A little 7-year-old girl hid in the closet after a brutal attack by her drunken father.

She prayed, "Please help me, I can't take it any more."

When she opened her eyes, she saw a fairy with a blue feathered hat and a shiny pink wand in front of her. The girl told the fairy about her experiences. That her father kept beating her and her mother wouldn't help her, and that she thought her parents wished she were better off dead.

The fairy listened to the girl with tears in her eyes. "I won't be able to take away your pain right now," she said, "but I will support you in another way. I will help you forget what has been done to you right now, in this moment, and only remember it again later - when you are truly capable of dealing with the pain and the memories."

Then the fairy moved her wand and spoke :

"I will send your painful experiences and the memories of them to different places in your body. They will be kept there until you feel able to bring them out again so that they can move freely."

And she explained to the little girl that she would tighten his pelvis and stomach and make his heart and throat tight so that he would no longer need to feel the intensity of his pain and fear. Nor his broken heart.

The fairy looked lovingly at the little girl and continued:

"You will often have difficulty feeling yourself and being close to other people. You will sometimes feel like you don't even inhabit your body. But that will be your way of surviving for now. Sometimes, when the pain comes up, you will find your own way to control it. This will sometimes be difficult, especially in contact with other people. Some will find you strange and they may feel rejected. But it will help you temporarily. You, my little girl, will be able to function in the outside world despite all this because you are strong and can hold so much pain inside you. I will be there to help you through it."

The girl looked at the fairy and asked, "How will you help me? Will you come back and be with me?"

The fairy replied:

"You will not forget everything. I will anchor a voice within you that will ask you to connect with your inner, invulnerable core of being. Perhaps it will take a long time. But in time you will feel a strong inner urge to step out of the memories and thoughts and beliefs that hold you captive. Your body will want to free itself from all that you have held in all these years.

You will learn the art of being present - of staying there even when you open yourself up to the physical and emotional pain. Because you will have what you need: compassion and wisdom, and loving people who support you to become whole. You will find access back to your inviolable core. Because that was and is always there. It was just hidden under the scars and injuries of painful experiences in your life."

The good fairy put her arm around the little girl's shoulders and gently led her to her bed. She stopped there and waved her wand as the girl slowly relaxed and eventually fell asleep.



The fairy looked tenderly at the little girl and whispered:

"Goodbye. When you wake up, you will have forgotten that I was here with you. You will have forgotten that you asked me for help. You will also have forgotten your intense pain. This is the only way I know to see you through these terrible experiences. You are a wonderful child. I love you. And actually your parents love you too. They are just not able to show you that. It is important for you to love yourself so much that your wounds can heal. So that later, when you are older, you will live full of strength and abundance and feel yourself free.

One day you will know who you really are.

You will trust your love and know that you belong.

I will always love you."

Translated from "Meditation and Healing Trauma" by Tara Brach (American psychologist and meditation teacher).