The phase of intensely grieving our childhood losses can last for a couple of years. When sufficient progress is made in grieving, the survivor naturally drops down into the next level of recovery work. This involves working through fear by grieving our loss of safety in the world. At this level, we also learn to work through our toxic shame by grieving the loss of our self-esteem. As we become more adept in this type of deep level grieving, we are then ready to address the core issue of our trauma – the abandonment depression itself.
