The Little Girl On the Green Carpet And The Healing Kitten

 A true story about healing the inner child

Once upon a time, because that's how all fairy tales begin, there was a little girl sitting on a green carpet.

A little girl not much different from any other little girls in the world. Her black hair curled over her big hazel eyes.

However, the little girl sitting on the green carpet was sad. And maybe this made her a bit different from at least some of the little girls out there because even in a world that did not turn out to be perfect like ours, maybe, there are still happy little girls to be found.

But the source of her sadness was unclear even to her.

Maybe it was because of the brown that blended into the green of the carpet in bizarre patterns.

Maybe because of the strange stare of the little teddy bear wearing a fancy red hat.

Or maybe because of the monsters…the monsters hiding piled on top of each other in the wardrobes from her mother's room,  or those infesting the neatly arranged drawers or hidden under the couch for lack of a better place...

Maybe our little girl would have managed to cope despite the obvious difficulties if at least the dolls had remained faithful to her.

Instead, Silvia, the silver-haired doll she had inherited without clothes from an older cousin, stubbornly refused to come to life, despite her fervent pleas and solemn promises to eat breakfast at least for a few days in a row.

If only the adults knew the hidden tragedies that poor little girls are living while sitting politely on their green carpets, they would certainly be affected as by the most tragic and serious event...

But what do the adults know?

They are busy with their worries, with their struggles and with the 5 o'clock news…for them, the wardrobes hide only cloths bought during the last season’s sales and…childhood memories deeply buried in the hope to never find them again.

For them, childhood is the symbol of a life without worries...because after all, what worries does a child have? They would know if it was otherwise as, after all, they have been children once too.  Haven’t they?

And if they could remember much from that time, it would certainly only events full of childlike joy and charm.

But the truth is that adults have forgotten what is like to be a child and especially they have forgot about the little girls (or little boys) sitting on the green carpets hidden in their souls.

We keep telling ourselves  that childhood was this wonderful period, full of love and light, so much so that we all hurried to get rid of it like the plague.

 And to make sure that it will never catch up with us again with its charm she seductively, we slammed the door shut and buried the key deep under the fog of oblivion.

Oh, but if it were so simple to run away from ourselves, to exile ourselves, to deny ourselves and on top of it to keep the spontaneity and freshness of a childlike existence!

 But that is impossible, so we've all become RESPECTABLE and SERIOUS adults, HYPERSENSITIVE to loud noises and inexplicably irritable by the slightest symptom of childhood.

But how could it be otherwise when every gesture, every childish laughter reminds us painfully of the little girl on the green carpet, of the way we betrayed her, of how we left her prey to the monsters in the drawers and cowardly ran away.

However, we didn't get very far, we carried her deep within through crowded city trams, to studies and later in the safe space of our new families. The little girl on the green carpet stayed there, lonely, patient and sad waiting for a day to come when we remember her.

I met her after a long time on a hot summer afternoon.

I expected her to scold me, or worse to reject me for my unforgivable treachery…and yet she received me gently, crying because of all the unsmoothed terrors of childhood…sad and forsaken…

I did not know how to approach her…her pain filled my heart with infinite compassion for her story which happened to be mine too, for the impossibility of denying the painful truths of the past and the frustration of not being able of changing anything that was.

 I cried sitting on the green carpet of my childhood not knowing how I could ever make up for her, how I could reconcile her and take her with me.

Us adults...what do we know about life, what do we know about happiness? All we know is how to build beautifully whitewashed facades and post on Facebook evidence of our socially desirable joy.

 But what do we know about the simple happiness of a child's heart?

The little girl on the green carpet didn't ask me what job I ended up with, or how much money I make, or even where I spend my summer vacation...all she asked for as a pledge of my devotion was a white spotted kitten with blue eyes like the sky, small and fluffy, symbol of all the dreamed and unfulfilled desires of her child soul.

If you ever happen to meet the little girl on the green carpet, don't be afraid of her, don't avoid her, sit silently by her side and listen, through tears she whispers your way back to happiness!

Who Is Speaking?

I am Dana Haridasi ILIESCU - by now most of you know me as the main 'agitator' behind the Conscious Crete Movement. I am the organiser of most of the events and also the first blessed participant to them. I am also the editor of the Conscious Crete Newsletter.

I am a stress management coach, inner child therapist,  family constellations facilitator and artist among many others. I used to be a climate policy maker and international negotiator before life showed me that it had different plans for me.

If you would like to know all my story and my methods check me out at www.dana-iliescu.com.
If you are interested in experiencing a family constellation, check out the schedule of events here.