Inner Child Work: How to connect to her
Have You Connected to your Inner Child today?
A powerful tool in psychology and one I use a lot in my work to help people heal their wounds is that of the Inner Child. What exactly is this inner child? Does it truly exist? To begin with, the inner child is real. Not literally, or physical but figuratively, it is metaphorically real. It’s a psychological reality, and an extraordinarily powerful one at that. Most mental disorders and destructive behavior patterns are, as Freud first showed us, more or less related to this unconscious part of ourselves. We were all once children, and still have that child dwelling within us. But most adults are quite unaware of this. And this lack of conscious relatedness to our own inner child is precisely where so many behavioral, emotional and relationship difficulties stem from. Our subconscious mind stores every event, feeling and emotion so although we may have been bitten by a spider at the age of 5, our adult self will remember this event like it was yesterday. All the same fears, emotions and feelings are activated as if we were 5 years old. We take that 5 year old and their feelings all the way through out life until we heal the wounds that that child had.
A majority of so-called adults are not truly adults at all. We all get older. Anyone, with a little luck, can do that. But, psychologically speaking, this is not adulthood. As Stephen Diamond explains, true adulthood hinges on acknowledging, accepting, and taking responsibility for loving and parenting one's own inner child. For most adults, this never happens. Instead, their inner child has been denied, neglected, disparaged, abandoned or rejected. We are told by society to "grow up," putting childish things aside. To become adults, we've been taught that our inner child--representing our child-like capacity for innocence, wonder, awe, joy, sensitivity and playfulness--must be stifled, quarantined or even killed. The inner child comprises and potentiates these positive qualities. But it also holds our accumulated childhood hurts, traumas, fears and angers. "Grown-ups" are convinced they have successfully outgrown, jettisoned, and left this child--and its emotional baggage--long behind. But this is far from the truth.
In fact, these so-called grown-ups or adults are unwittingly being constantly influenced or covertly controlled by this unconscious inner child. For many, it is not an adult self directing their lives, but rather an emotionally wounded inner child inhabiting an adult body. A five-year-old running around in a forty-year-old frame. It is a hurt, angry, fearful little boy or girl calling the shots, making adult decisions. A boy or girl being sent out into the world to do a man's or woman's job. A five or ten-year old trying to engage in grown-up relationships. Can a child have a mature relationship? A career? An independent life? Yet this is precisely what's happening with us all everyday to some degree or another. And then we wonder why our relationships fall apart. Why we feel so anxious. Afraid. Insecure. Inferior. Small. Lost. Lonely. But think about it: How else would any child feel having to fend for themselves in an apparently adult world? Without proper parental supervision, protection, structure or support?
HOW TO HEAL OUR WOUNDS
In order to heal our wounds of the past we firstly need to become conscious of our own inner child. Remaining unconscious is what empowers the dissociated inner child to take possession of the personality at times, to overpower the will of the adult.
Next, we learn to take our inner child seriously, and to consciously communicate with that little girl or boy within: to listen to how he or she feels and what he or she needs from us here and now. The often frustrated primal needs of that perennial inner child--for love, acceptance, protection, nurturance, understanding--remain the same today as when we were children. As pseudo-adults, we futilely attempt to force others into fulfilling these infantile needs for us. But this is doomed to failure. What we didn't sufficiently receive in the past from our parents as children must be confronted in the present, painful though it may be. The past traumas, sadness, disappointments and depression cannot be changed and must be accepted. Becoming an adult means swallowing this "bitter pill," that, unfortunately for most of us, certain infantile needs were, maliciously or not, unmet by our imperfect parents or caretakers. And they never will be, no matter how good or smart or attractive or spiritual or loving we become. Those days are over. What was done cannot be undone. We should not as adults now expect others to meet all of these unfulfilled childhood needs. They cannot. Authentic adulthood requires both accepting the painful past and the primary responsibility for taking care of that inner child's needs, for being a "good enough" parent to him or her now--and in the future.
By initiating and maintaining an ongoing dialogue between the two, a reconciliation between inner child and mature adult can be reached. A new, mutually beneficial, cooperative, symbiotic relationship can be created in which the sometimes conflicting needs of both the adult self and inner child can be creatively satisfied.
It is an amazing relationship, although hard at times, which creates a functional adult who understands and accesses that special part of them making way for a happy and understanding adult life. Dig deep and find that little one, listen to that inner child, he/she is waiting for you. Inner child work is all about reconnecting with all parts of you and returning you to whole. You were never broken. Are you ready to return to WHOLE?
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