Nesting Doll

Nesting Doll

The Doll House

Consider how old you are. Now, consider how old you feel. Perhaps those numbers are the same. For many of you, they won't be; they will be completely different numbers. Many of you will find it a curious experience, to learn about growing up, and developing, all over again.

Your development from that baby you were, to the adult you are now, follows a kind of "path." The path to becoming a whole adult requires one to accomplish certain tasks, learn certain basic principles, as well as receive certain types of support. Each step in the right direction, on that path, has helped you to accomplish your current level of emotional development. Each experience, moment of discovery, and learning, prior to today, has built upon the one before it. It is the foundation of who you are.

The Nesting Doll

Imagine you are looking at a "nesting doll." You've seen those before, the beautiful, intricate, hand painted dolls that fit into each other, each one getting bigger and bigger to fit into the largest one. Each doll is separate, and can stand on its one, yet together, they create a larger doll, that holds all of those smaller dolls inside. That doll, is you. Each stage of your emotional development can stand on its own, just as one of the smaller dolls. Just as you did at each stage of life, each doll has its own memories, beliefs, experiences, and lessons. These smaller dolls fit inside each other, to create who you are, and your emotional self, today.

Getting Stuck

What if a doll got broken, scratched, or cracked? It is very possible that it wouldn't "fit" or gets "stuck." Similarly, as we grow up we, too, can have traumatic events, significant experiences, and feelings that leave us feeling stuck. Even though "it's in the past" that doll, that stage of our development, has been impacted. It is likely that at that age, that time, we may not have learned healthy self-beliefs, experienced support, or experienced our natural growth. Instead, the developmental task went askew, and the healthy lessons from that developmental stage aren't learned. Instead, negative feelings, thoughts, sensations, images, and beliefs remain.

At an unconscious level each developmental stage, or doll, is "nested" within you. The experiences from your history attempt to replay themselves out, often resulting in you recreating them, to release the energy of the past. Without knowing it, you may still seek to meet those unmet needs. Unfortunately, those needs may not agree with the needs of the older, aspects of yourself, your chronological age, or even those around you.

People sometimes find that they may feel older, or younger, than their actual age. Some may have always felt older, and have always been known as a "little adult." Others may have the experience of always "feeling like a child." There are some people who may experience a kind of "flip-flop" between various ages, depending on the situation. Either way, the developmental stage that is nested within you is "stuck" and needs to be released.

Negative Core Beliefs

Perhaps someone had the experience, as a toddler, of being punished, or shamed for exploring new things. Perhaps, instead of doing what is normal, at that age, to want to explore and "get into everything," the toddler was experiencing some kind of abuse. The child does not learn the appropriate lesson that "it's okay to want to explore." Instead, the child learns a negative core-belief, one that stays "stuck" inside that nested doll, that developmental stage:  "I'm too much," "I can't do it," "I'm not capable," "I'm afraid to."

That same child, now an adult, when faced with new experiences, or changes, is likely to have the same negative core-beliefs and feelings. Instead of embracing, and exploring new things, perhaps there is debilitating fear, triggers of the abuse, or self-defeating statements that come from the negative core-beliefs learned in the past.

Our negative core-beliefs are in the subconscious, and grow up with us. They nest into every stage of our development. When we are infants, toddlers, school age, adolescents, and adults, these beliefs are unconscious, but familiar when explored. They become part of us and are like magnets that attract situations, experiences, and people that seek to "prove" these negative core-beliefs as true. They are embedded in those original experiences, and seek to sabotage our conscious wants, needs, and desires. For example, though a person is in recovery, and consciously seeking sobriety, a belief that "I don't deserve to be healthy" may constantly serve to sabotage it.  When one relapses, for example, a vicious cycle occurs, and the unconscious "holds onto" the original negative core-belief. It takes the relapse as "proof" of its truth. Learning where that belief originally came from is key to releasing its hold.

Getting Unstuck

Exploring one's childhood, and examining its impact on your development, is key to healing and self-discovery. I often ask my clients, when they are the most distressed, to connect with their age and how old they feel in that moment. Often, people find an image, thought, feeling, or sensation that tells them they are not in the "now." Instead, they are recreating an experience from their past, connected to that feeling, sensation, image, or thought. Eventually, we find the developmental stages where the nesting dolls are "stuck" and release them by processing those often painful childhood experiences.  Clients then learn and recover the healthy lessons, feelings, and experiences for those developmental stages. It is then, that people start saying things like "I feel my real age," and "I feel grown up." It is then that they can stop feeling stuck, free to pursue the next stage along their developmental path.

About the Author

Sarah Jenkins, MC, is a counselor in Tempe Sarah helps people feel safe, validates their experiences, and helps people to resolve their issues. Sarah can be contacted at Good Therapy / Therapist Mountain View

Where can I purchase Russian nesting dolls?

I found some at Claire's and I bought one for one of my sisters as a Christmas gift and I want to buy some more for my mom, other sister, and my brother's fiancee, but Claire's doesn't have a real good selection of these nesting dolls.

I have an on-line store that has a big selection of nesting dolls We give free Priority Shipping too! Here is the link:

http://www.craftedtoys.com

Happy Holidays!

Nesting Dolls