Losing Innocence and Finding Hope

In 1989, former Eagles drummer and vocalist Don Henley released a song with Bruce Hornsby entitled “The End of the Innocence,” which became a top ten hit for Henley in the United States and Canada.

The song expresses a yearning for a more simplistic time:

You can lay your head back on the ground

And let your hair fall all around me

Offer up your best defense

But this is the end

This is the end of the innocence

In just these verses, we are offered the image of an individual who has lost their innocence.  We don’t know their circumstances.  We don’t know their suffering.  But something has happened to them.  Filled with despair, enduring grief and trauma, it might feel like life will never, ever, be the same again. 

And so the walls go up.  Their defenses become strong, impermeable.  They need to be.  They help guard an individual from exposing that wounded part of themselves.  Delving into that place of sadness and torment may feel too immense.  Going near that deeply personal experience of shame or vulnerability seems like it could destroy them, all over again. 

These resilient strategies help an individual not only to survive, but also, often, to flourish.  The individual persists and tries to avoid looking at what has happened to them.  They keep on going, keep pushing forward, demonstrating to themselves that they will overcome, they will triumph.   

Until something happens.  A relationship breaks down.  A job comes to an end.  An unexpected trigger sets them off.  A seemingly unrelated external circumstance reminds them of what they went through, so many years ago. 

“Once we stop suppressing or avoiding our experiences, once we allow even the most painful life events to enter more conscious awareness, we are unable to push them down again.”

The walls begin to crumble.  Their best defenses shatter.  The tears, so many tears, endless, cascading tears flow like salty torrents, as if the walls of their house were leaking and they did not have enough fingers to plug the holes.  The wounded parts, the seemingly broken and unfixable parts, start to emerge.  The individual questions, “Will I ever be the same again?” 

No, probably not.  Life begins to look different from here on out.  It can feel awful, like starting over.  But there is help and there is hope.

Once we stop suppressing or avoiding our experiences, once we allow even the most painful life events to enter more conscious awareness, we are unable to push them down again.  What becomes known to us, cannot be ignored, or become unknown again.  Our woundedness, our loss of innocence becomes real.  Our suffering, our pain, becomes palpable. 

And here’s where therapy can help.

Henley’s lyrics provide a metaphor for therapy.  His words suggest the idea of one individual seeking comfort from another.  At the outset, the individual may be wary, tentative, or scared.  Yet the grounded and regulating presence of the therapist provides a sense of safety to the individual.  The therapist’s presence -- calm, open, welcoming, warm, and without judgment allows the individual to deepen their expression, to feel supported and nurtured in examining every emotion, every experience.  The individual may realise that even their best defenses, can be held, and supported, within this therapeutic encounter.  Over time, as the therapist and the individual continue co-creating and maintaining the safety of this therapeutic space, it becomes possible for the individual to face what once seemed unfaceable. 

Life may not feel like it is the same anymore.  But what happened in the past can be acknowledged, processed, and it can remain where it belongs – there and then, in the past.  The individual can emerge from therapy and can confidently admit, from a place of true healing, resilience and empowerment:

That was the end.

That was the end of my innocence.

And from that experience, a new beginning – bright, expansive, and hopeful – has taken shape, and begun to emerge.