A Hand for the Little One Within

An invitation to meet our wounds with truth and love

There’s a living of untold stories, not the events themselves, but the feelings and beliefs woven behind them.

Stories most women know. Inside, the little innocent girls still carry the pain. And when the memory returns, it never comes the same; it comes searching for a way out. Each time, it collides with another wall of belief.

I’m not here to speak about numbers or reports — you can find those everywhere. I’m here to hold space. To extend a hand.

To whisper to that little girl inside: it was never your fault.

Because we were taught to carry not only our actions, but the weight of others’ too.
We were taught that the body is the problem, not the harm.
We were taught to silence the cry, to polish the wound with shame.

But the little girl still remembers.
She knocks on our heart with every wave of pain, asking not for us to hide her away, but to hold her closer.

So take her hand.
Sit with her.
Let her know she is safe now.
Tell her the truth she was never given: her body was never a sin. Her innocence was never a crime.

This is not just a story of pain. It is a story of return. A return to the body, a return to the little girl, a return to the truth that no wall of belief can erase: we were never to blame.

When the memory hits, it doesn’t arrive politely. It comes like a wave you already know too well — the one you’ve sat with before, the one that brought tears, the one you thought you’d finally let go.

And yet, it keeps returning.

So you sit again. Guarded. Braced for impact. Almost armed — because a part of you expects it, prepares for it, rehearses how to survive it. Sometimes you even see the shadows of similar situations, so familiar that you know what to expect before it even comes.

And you wonder: why am I still not held?

You’ve sat with this memory before. You’ve poured compassion over it. You’ve wept, you’ve journaled, you’ve spoken it out loud in therapy. Perhaps your therapist told you again and again: “It wasn’t your fault.” And you’ve repeated those words to yourself like a mantra, trying to root them in your body.

But something inside still feels broken. Something still clenches around the pain.

That’s when the deeper truth shows itself: it was never just about the event. It’s about the belief.

Because you can sit with your wounds for years, but if the belief planted inside you is still alive, the wound keeps bleeding. Healing doesn’t always mean mending something broken — sometimes it means realizing you were never broken at all. You only believed you were.

This belief is what chains us. The belief that our body was wrong. That our voice was too loud, or too quiet. That our innocence was to blame. That safety was something we didn’t deserve.

And so, we carry it. Not the event itself, but the shame, the guilt, the false responsibility.
Even when we think we’ve outgrown it, it has a way of returning in disguise, shifting shape but still pressing on us.

It seems we’re no longer playing the old game of shame. At least, not in the same way. We dress differently now. We speak of freedom, of choice, of power. And yet—something still lingers underneath. The story has not died; it has only learned how to wear new clothes.

And just when we think we’ve set it down, it comes back in another form.

What if the truth is this:

we left the behavior, but we never left the belief? We may no longer hide under veils of silence, but the weight of being measured, compared, exposed ,
it still lingers, just in another form.

This is why I wonder: is freedom truly freedom if it is still built on the same foundation of fear? If the little girl inside is still watching herself through borrowed eyes, have we really changed, or only expanded the game?

Because society doesn’t meet us as truth. It meets us as roles.
The good girl. The reckless one. The wife. The rebel. Even freedom becomes a role to perform. And whichever part we are given — or whichever we choose — it is still a costume, not the fullness of who we are.

And the same happens on the other side. Men, too, are trapped in their own costumes: protector, provider, predator, threat. They are not met as human, but as positions to be filled.

So when we meet each other, it is rarely in truth. It is role meeting role. Mask meeting mask. And no mask can hold the depth of our being.

This is why the wound lingers, even when the world changes its language. Because beneath the new words, the old belief remains. Until we touch the truth beyond all roles, we remain in the same game — only with different costumes.

And perhaps healing begins here: by reaching for the hand of that little girl inside, and choosing not to measure her by any borrowed eyes. To meet her, and ourselves, not as roles, not as beliefs, but as truth.

And this invitation is not for women alone. It is for all of us — women and men, the little girls and the little boys within — to step outside the masks, the roles, the games of blame and defense. To meet each other not as halves searching for completion, nor as rivals fighting for ground, but as whole beings standing side by side.

A place where wholeness meets wholeness.
Not to complete one another.
Not to defeat one another.
But to create a new world — one born not of fear or shame, but of love, and of the truth of who we really are.

Here, wholeness meets wholeness — and love has the last word.

If this resonated, you might also enjoy my previous poem [but I can carry flowers].

Thank you for being here and for reading my words — it means more than I can say.
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