Chapter 7 • Inner Child Healing through Pet Grief

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When an innocent animal you love transitions, it awakens the innocent child within—the one who still longs to be held. Meeting that child with love is the deepest honor, and it grows a kind of self-love that can’t be born any other way.

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Ellie Helped Me Heal Unresolved Sexual Trauma from My Childhood

I’m sorry if this is hard to read, it’s definitely not easy to share, but I’m so grateful to be sharing it, and I’m so incredibly thankful that you’re here with me, and Ellie. There were many moments of profound healing while I was caring for Ellie, but I want to share one in particular.

In Ellie’s final weeks, she would go into these violent spirals on the ground. Her limbs would flail uncontrollably, and she would spin in circles, her body moving a million miles an hour. Since she couldn’t get up on her own, she would end up spinning in place on the floor. I couldn’t hold her up during these moments because it was too dangerous.

After these tough episodes, I would finally put her down to nap and then I would just collapse. Sometimes with my husband holding me and I would share this process out-loud with him. Or I would crawl into bed, or my sacred healing chair, and I would do the Guided Experience 6. This happened many times. Both while she was alive and after she passed over the Rainbow Bridge.

The first time was a few weeks before she passed. I was allowing myself to feel and express this outrageous pain inside, and all of a sudden I had this vision of being held down while being raped when I was sixteen. It was the first time I had “intercourse”. And I was really drunk, alone on a dark beach with no one in sight. I knew my abuser, and so after saying no, and pushing back, I didn’t fight, or scream. I just let myself be pinned and raped.

Watching Ellie’s pain and struggle brought back flashbacks of being pinned to the ground, of that same desperate energy in me wanting to get up and escape, yet being held down. Not just by his body weight, but by my own decision not to fight, not to scream, to simply endure it.

In some wild way, Ellie’s fury freed me. Ellie’s violent struggle somehow stirred awake the violent, yet fiercely hopeful, unresolved struggle inside of me. She helped me find that place inside of me that also never gives up.

I didn’t fight back the way I wanted to. But Ellie helped me reconnect with the part of me that wanted to scream and stand up for myself. And so I screamed. And I raged. And I allowed that sixteen year old Zoe to say what she needed to say in my healing book. And I heard her. I honored her. And I loved her.

After Ellie passed, this same memory kept resurfacing during my grievealing process. But the more I allowed it and felt it with fierce compassion, the more it began to transform. First, I moved from rage and fury into deep sadness and shame. Then, as I continued to allow and stay present, the sadness softened. And it gave way to something unexpected: a rising wave of love, compassion, and resolution. And eventually, a deep sense of worthiness and freedom.

Inner Child Healing Through Pet Grief

You’ve probably heard of inner child work. If not, it’s simply about reconnecting with and healing the younger, wounded parts of yourself, the parts still holding old pain, unmet needs, and emotions that never fully resolved. It’s not about changing the past. It’s about finally giving yourself now what you needed back then (see online References: Inner Child Healing).

Grievealing an animal can be one of the most powerful forms of inner child healing. When we feel we’ve “lost” them, it often stirs up more than just missing them, it can awaken old grief, guilt, or wounds we didn’t even realize we were still carrying. Often, these are foundational wounds from our own childhood, the moments when we first felt unloved, unsafe, unseen, or not enough. These earliest emotional imprints often shape how we perceive ourselves and how we give and receive love for the rest of our lives.

So as painful as it is to lose our beloved animal, that loss also opens the door to healing those foundational beliefs and conditioned neural pathways. When Ellie crossed the Rainbow Bridge, she took me straight into the depths of my grief. But she also led me to a kind of self-love I had never known. She showed me how to care for the most vulnerable parts of myself, the way I had always cared for her. And through that, I began to heal in ways I never expected.

Grief Frees Us to Live with Childlike Energy

We try so hard to be adults: staying responsible, staying productive, always working on ourselves. Yet no matter how much we “adult,” there’s still a part of us that feels like a child, full of big emotions and even bigger needs. “Losing” a beloved animal can bring out emotions that feel overwhelming, raw, and even childish. Some parts of grief make sense, like missing them or feeling deep sadness. Other parts can take us by surprise, like feeling completely lost, untethered, or unable to function.

The truth is, grief isn’t meant to be logical, it’s meant to be felt. When we stop judging our emotions and allow ourselves to grieveal, we open the door to deep healing and transformation. In doing so, we don’t just move through loss with more ease, we move through life with more energy, flow, and joy.

Instead of trying to hold everything together or get it all right, we can live with the natural innocence of a child, awake to life, full of energy and enthusiasm for the present moment.

I often tell my clients that when we allow our emotions the way we once did as children, we also free up our energy that same, incredibly efficient and integral way too. Life stops feeling like a constant push and begins to flow more naturally, like a child at play, intuitive, engaged, joyful, and alive. A child doesn’t need to be told what to do. They simply go, straight to the sandbox, to the monkey bars, brimming with energy and delight. When we stop fighting our emotions and start allowing them, we open to that same kind of **beautiful freedom.

Allowing the Big, Irrational Emotions of Grief

Grief doesn’t play by adult rules. We’re taught to be logical, composed, and appropriate. We’re praised for “keeping it together.” Yet the big, messy emotions, the ones that feel raw, overwhelming, even childish, are often the very ones that carry the deepest healing.

Consider something small: a friend cancels a coffee date without explanation. Rationally, you know it isn’t a big deal. Normally you’d shrug it off. But this time something in you hurts. You feel rejected, dismissed, maybe even betrayed. The pain isn’t really about the coffee. An old wound has been touched, perhaps a memory of being forgotten, invisible, or unimportant.

Grievealing works in the same way. It doesn’t only show up as sadness about the one you lost. It can spill into other areas of your life, tapping into childhood pain, stirring old heartbreaks, and activating patterns you thought you had already healed. When we judge those feelings, dismiss them, or try to reason them away, we miss the medicine.

When we stop filtering our emotions through the lens of what is “appropriate” and instead give ourselves permission to feel, we begin to break free from the deeper patterns that keep us stuck. Feeling our feelings doesn’t mean believing every story they tell or acting them out, it means allowing them to move through us so they can fully release, rather than run our lives.

Recognizing When It’s Time to Feel and Heal

I can’t always drop everything and process my emotions in the moment. Life still happens. Work, responsibilities, and adulting don’t stop. But over time, I’ve learned how to recognize when it’s time to pause, to open my healing book, and give myself the space for deeper emotional work.

My simple rule of thumb is this: if my emotions are Recurring, Irrational, ****or Big, I need to find time to grieveal.

1. Recurring emotion. When the same feelings keep showing up in different areas of my life, it’s a sign something deeper is asking for attention. For example, I might feel overwhelmed at work, like I’m not doing enough or nothing is working, and then notice the same feeling surfacing in my marriage, and again in my grievealing process. That repetition tells me an old, unresolved wound is rising to the surface.

2. Irrational emotion. When my reaction feels much bigger than the situation calls for, I know there’s more beneath it. Maybe I drop something and burst into tears, or receive minor criticism and feel deeply betrayed. The intensity of the response tells me the emotion isn’t just about the present—it’s tapping into pain from the past.

3. Big emotion. Some emotions are completely rational but still overwhelming. The passing of a beloved animal, for example, naturally brings immense grief. Even when the feelings make sense, they still need space to be fully allowed. That is what helps us heal and rewire our emotional patterns.

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If my emotions check even one of these boxes, it’s a good time to slow down and feel. And if they check all three—Recurring, Irrational, and Big—I know there’s a massive opportunity to release and transform not only deep grief, but old childhood wounds.

Using My Healing Book to Feel and Heal My Inner Child

I want to share a raw, verbatim experience from a few months after Ellie passed. I had just been working on a video about her, watching clips of her flailing and falling, and it triggered such deep, devastating pain. I stopped editing, crawled into bed with my healing book, and let myself sob for a while. Then, I opened to a clean page and began, as I always do, by setting an intention.

Intention:

I am healing and clearing as much as I can for the highest good.

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I kept letting myself feel it all, letting the emotions flood through me and spill out onto the page.

Step 1 – Feel my feelings:

I am broken. I am floored. I am lost.

I am heartbroken into a million pieces.

My heart feels broken, bruised, like a deep dark black bruise thats deep and matte.

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Step 2 – Embrace my feelings (from my Huge Heart):

I have so much time, space and love for you right now.

I see you, I hear you, I welcome you.

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Step 3A – Express My Feelings (from my Feelings Form) Broken, bruised black heart:

I’m done. I’m never getting back up again. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do it. I’m done. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to keep loving and living it’s too much. I just don’t understand. It’s not fair. I hate this and I hate everyone. I want to help her. I want her to be here. Why couldn’t I save her God how could you take her. I want her to have fun and to run and to feel the joy she gives to me. I want her to get up. I need her to get up. I need her to be here.

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Again the memory of being raped at sixteen, held down, not being able to get up flooded every cell of my body. And again I embraced it, allowing my inner child to come front and center in my consciousness. And I begin to allow my inner child to share freely, without judgment, without censorship in anyway.

Step 3B – Express My Feelings from 16 year old Zoë:

I’m dead. I give up. I’m not here. I can’t do this. I can’t escape. I’m broken. I’m broken forever. I’m wrong now. I’m tainted. I’m black and dirty and every color of wrong. I’m disgusting. I’m forever bruised and broken. I’m so afraid. I’m so lost. I don’t know what to do and I don’t know where to go. I don’t exist anymore. I’m not here. (Sobbing and then stillness.)

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Whenever I reach that stillness that comes after fully expressing an old, painful moment, I often ask myself two questions, both of which are included in this chapter’s Guided Experience:

What did you start to believe about yourself in this moment?

What did you start to do from this moment forward, to cope and to deal with your big feelings and needs?

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So instead of answering these questions from my head, by thinking or analyzing the situation, I take my time to truly connect with the feeling. In this case, it was my broken, bruised, black heart. I consciously reconnect with that emotion, because it's the core of my sixteen-year-old traumatic experience.

My mind always wants to jump in, to fix or figure things out. But it's a subtle yet important shift, to stay with the emotion itself, so that sixteen-year-old Zoë can answer the questions from the most emotionally authentic place.

16-year-old Zoë, what did you start to believe about yourself in this moment?

That I was wrong. That I wasn’t important or valuable. That I wasn’t precious. (More tears flooding now.) That I wasn’t worthy of being held, cared for, or loved. That I’d never find love.

16-year-old Zoë, what did you start to do from this moment forward, to cope and to deal with your big feelings and needs?

Keep my distance. Never trust men ever again. Not let them in. Not let them get close. Not trust people that want to get near to me.

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When we speak from our raw, uncensored emotions, it’s wild what unconscious blocks we can uncover and release. If you had asked me whether I believed I started to feel unimportant or unworthy because of that experience, I would’ve said no! It’s almost impossible to consciously see how trauma gets locked into our beliefs and nervous system. That’s why giving our inner child a voice, right in the heart of their pain, is so powerful. It helps us access and express what’s been hidden, so it can be brought into the Light, honored, acknowledged, and finally released. And when we finally see just how crippling, and foundational, some of our inner judgments and beliefs have been, it unlocks something extraordinary: a superhuman level of compassion for ourselves. A kind of awe-filled loving that rises up not from effort, but from understanding. And with it comes a whole new perspective on our lives, one that’s tender, visceral and deeply transformative.

The next part I wrote down while sobbing and loving myself deeply.

Great Job! That’s Week 7 Reading Complete 🏆 🎉 😁 🙌

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