By HELEN ANDERSEN

I decided to participate in the Radical Acceptance workshop, beautifully led by Angie Parrish and Betsy Arizu, as a way to deepen and continue the work I had been doing in the Emotional Healing Intensive which began in March with Fred. 

The intensive and workshop have given me a clear way to observe those times where I feel ambushed by deep emotion – sometimes seemingly out of the blue. 

What I have discovered is that these emotions have always been there waiting to be tended to – and what I have habitually done instead is to immerse myself in “doing” (fleeing from them), and then doing to the point of exhaustion -- doing to the point where it can be hard to just sit and enjoy playing with my kids. 

I live in Parrish with my family – my husband Brandon, and Mia, 9, and Theo, 6. I began exploring mindfulness in 2013, but it wasn’t until I heard a recorded talk by Thay that I felt connected to a teacher. I continued to listen to this talk over and over, then read The Art of Living right after Theo was born in 2017. Taking Thay’s recommendation seriously to try to find a sangha to practice with, I felt incredibly lucky to find that FCM was just 50 minutes north and had a family program so we could all explore this path together.

At the Radical Acceptance workshop, I discovered that it was my inner child that was crying out for support in those times because she feels/felt it is her responsibility to fix, help others, keep the peace. She hopes that once things are fixed that she can then receive the love, acceptance, attention, etc., that she is looking for. 

I have learned that as an adult I have the emotional maturity, compassion and strength to give my inner child what she is searching for – to be present to her, not to mistake her emotions for my own adult emotions. That separation has been so powerful. I do not need to be “blended” with that inner child.

Instead, I can show up for my inner child in the same way I show up for my kids -- like when my son was lying under a  table crying over a piece of art that was not turning out the way he wanted, and I lay down next to him and offered a strong, compassionate, loving presence. 

I see now, I can do that for my inner child, too. I am capable and I feel such a wonderful hope as I continue to work at practicing this in my everyday life.

Helen and Brandon Andersen and their children became FCM members in 2018.