Since I was a small child, I’ve had a recurring fantasy about being tucked amongst furs in a sleigh, being pulled through a wintry forest. It is equal parts the Snow Queen from the Chronicles of Narnia, and an actual memory of a family photo shoot where we children were arranged in a dogsled and surrounded by furs. So ensconced, I am safe and warm. I am cared for by a mysterious presence driving the horses among the trees. It has long been the happy place to which I send my mind when it is busy and anxious at bedtime. Sometimes, when I am especially struggling, the sleigh driver sends a guard to lay beside me in the sleigh, watching over me like a child until I fall asleep. I never know where the sleigh is going, only that it is safe and I am protected. I have relied on this imagined sanctuary into adulthood, especially in the dark hours when sleep eludes me. I trust myself to the unknown driver, letting go of my own agency for a moment, allowing myself to be rescued from whatever fears are keeping me from sleep.

As I’ve been doing my parts work (through Internal Family Systems therapy) this year, so many childhood images and memories have come back to me, revealing deeply held beliefs and powerful early feelings I haven’t had access to before. It’s no surprise then that I’ve begun to examine more deeply this winter dreamscape that has served me well for decades, especially since it hasn’t been working as well as it once did.

Inside this fantasy, inside the little girl who is still me, tucked deep in furs, is a burning desire for someone to come and rescue me from the pain of my big feelings, whisking me away to a magical place of safety where my pain is tended and I’m told everything will be okay. It served as a coping mechanism for a sensitive and anxious child who learned only much later how to allow her big feelings to be felt by a body that was finally spacious enough to hold them.

In important ways, especially in my most intimate relationships, I have been looking for a flesh and blood version of this unreal sleigh driver, someone who would be my safe space. I’ve been looking for one who would hold my feelings with me (for me?), whose voice I could trust when they tell me it’s going to be okay. I have been waiting maybe my whole life for someone to come and rescue me.

Naturally, every person I have tried to entrust with this role has failed me, not because they were bad people (though some of them were acting badly), but simply because they are human, and humans fail. Every one of them wanted to take this role for me, I truly believe that, and yet none of them could. In the clarity that so often accompanies the ending of a relationship, I have recently realized that no one is coming to my rescue. I am going to have to rescue myself.

The sleigh driver should always have been me, but I didn’t know how to drive. I was too young to understand when I first started relying on this imagery, but the sleigh has always been a place of self-soothing. I am both the little child seeking safety, and the mysterious driver in control of the speed and safety of this trip. And now with the skills I am learning as I befriend my internal family system, I can trust myself to keep me safe, to tell me that I’m going to be okay, to never abandon myself in that cold forest.

This skill set is still new and awkward, so I am more or less successful on these self-rescue missions I’m undertaking, depending on the depth and potency of the emotions I’m trying to hold. But I have been shocked at how good it feels to place my hands over my own heart and breathe into my pain, offering myself understanding and compassion in hard moments. I have been floored by how quickly and completely soothed I am, by my own hands and heart and words. I didn’t know I could be this for me, but it makes perfect sense.

Who knows better than I do what I feel? No one. Who knows better than I do what I need to hear when I’m feeling uncertain or betrayed? No one. Who is the only person I have actual control over, to make them be what I need? Myself.

I am only beginning to understand how this inner landscape shift will change my intimate relationships, but I have a feeling that not needing so desperately to be rescued will provide as much relief to my future romantic partners as it has to me internally. I still hope for a person who will provide me safe space in which to feel all my big feelings, and I still want someone who will remind me that it’s going to be okay. But now, I think that person will be a true partner in my own work, and me a partner in theirs, rather than a mutual rescue mission that is forever doomed to fail.