What if you could gift your adult self a glimpse into your inner child’s world?
What lessons can your inner child teach your present self about embracing joy and living authentically?
In this blog, we invite you to go on a special date – a date with your inner child. Sounds silly? I urge you to stay and read to the end, to understand not just why it is important in your healing journey, but more importantly on how liberating this experience can be. When you get an opportunity to connect with your inner child, you will find the doorway to begin deep healing that can set you free.
What is the inner child
Your inner child is a special part of you that has been with you since the very beginning. It carries memories and emotions from your early years, from when you were a baby, toddler, and throughout your childhood. It remembers both the good times and the challenging moments, such as fears, traumas, neglect, or significant losses. It is like a sponge absorbing everything that it sees and feels. Although it may not be able to interpret what emotions it feels.
Now that you have grown up and are no longer the child, you know how to interpret your feelings into emotions. You know what it feels like to be angry, to be loved, to be upset and so on. You know how these emotions make you feel. And yet sometimes we find it difficult to identify a specific event that is affecting us in the present. Chances are when we pay attention to our internal patterns, we can begin to uncover the breadcrumb trails left behind in our inner world.
Think of your inner child as a part of your subconscious that started absorbing information long before it could fully understand it, from the moment of conception to now. It holds onto emotions, memories, and beliefs from the past, as well as hopes and dreams for the future.
How do you identify your inner child
I’ll read a few lines now. I want you to receive them and allow a few moments to open up your memory and feel the feelings coming to you. These lines reflect how our inner child may have shown up in our lives. Maybe at that time we didn’t pay much attention, so let’s do it more consciously now as you listen to these lines. I will pause for a few seconds after every line, so you can reflect and write down what emotions show up, if they do.
- Our inner child remembers being ignored and bullied in school.
- Our inner child remembers feeling dumb when the teacher asked you a seemingly simple question and you couldn’t answer.
- Our inner child is present when we are teenagers, wanting so badly to belong to those we love and want to be loved by.
- Our inner child is present when we start our first job, proving to the boss that you’re responsible and capable, feeling proud.
- Our inner child is inside of us when we go on stage to speak to a room full of people and can’t stop trembling.
- It is the part of us that feels understood, calm, warm and fuzzy when we have good times with others.
- It’s also the part that feels crushed and betrayed when we are hurt, ignored or lied to, when someone hurts or betrays us.
Now that we know more about our inner child, let’s go to the next step.
Like the inner child, there is also a parent in each one of us. The one who criticises or scolds you many times. Richard Bradshaw says each one of us has over 25000 hours of parent tapes within us by the time we are adults.
The question is – how many of these tapes are filled with words of love and appreciation? Telling you how wonderful you are, how you can dream big dreams and go after them, that you can choose to be whoever you want to be and so on. More often than not most of these tapes are filled with negative chatter and criticism – you are clumsy, can’t get anything right, you are not good enough, you are a failure and so on.
Remember – no matter how many hours long these tapes are, they are just tapes – just a recording. You can erase these recordings, whenever you want. Our actions today can change and don’t have to be according to these tapes any more. The moment we decide to take charge and create a new reality for ourselves from this moment on, there is no looking back. Are you willing to take that step? For it will change your story.
Did you know? Very often, the inner child does not have access to the ‘adult self’ reality and may not know about how life is different now, or how things have changed. The child is living in that same time loop of age and does not move ahead. And that is why there is a deep need to connect the two – child self with the adult self.
Three Steps To Cultivating a Relationship with your Inner Child
Our goal is for you to tap into how your inner child is doing, and offer it some tender care and find a way to meet its needs. We want your inner child to begin developing a trusting relationship with your adult self so it can share openly. We want to hear about its hopes, dreams, wishes, and its words. We also want to know its pain, sadness, fears and worries.
- Begin a dialogue
This may sound silly and you may wonder – ‘how do I talk to my inner child? Where do I begin?’ Instead of over thinking and questioning the validity of this process, simply dive in. The truth is starting a dialogue is the first part of healing your inner child. So begin with inviting it to show up in your mind.
Allow yourself some quiet time and talk to your child, asking how it is doing? That you want to meet and get to know the child. It will take some time before it comes out of its hiding. Remember it’s been decades since it has been ignored, so you will need some patience. Assure the child that you are here for good and won’t leave or go away. When it feels safe, it will show up. It was waiting for you all this time.
- Learn to listen
Once the inner child knows it has your full attention, that you genuinely care and want to help it heal and be happy again, it will open up to you more often and more easily. It may express its need for more physical or emotional safety, than it feels at this time. It may want you to move away from someone who is bullying or critical of you all the time. It may want more attention to the way you are taking care of your mind, body or soul.
It may ask for more time to rest and play. Maybe it is bored with your routine and wants to do something different. It may want you to heal past pains, set boundaries in life or shift who you spend time with. Doing this will often uncover whatever is truly important.
Ask your inner child each morning, ‘what can I do to make you happy today?’ When you say you are going to work, it may say it wants to go to the park and have fun. In your mind’s eye imagine the child having a good time playing in the park. Know that the communication has begun, so keep at it with consistency. It is also an indication for you to make time in your schedule to unwind and do something more fun.
- Take action
Now that you have established a two way street communication, congratulations! You have finally created a bridge of communication with your inner child. This is a moment I think we must truly celebrate! Once you know what upsets this child, as an adult you can now take care to ensure the child feels safe and loved at all times. Once you have experienced this connection you cannot unsee it or unfeel it any more. You no longer can blame someone else for hurting you.
When our inner child feels safe and steady, it will allow us to blossom. It’s like an anchor. If the inner child feels wobbly, as adults, we will feel insecure, disoriented and dis-organised in life. When our inner child feels steady, its anchor is deeply rooted and we feel, and come across as confident individuals comfortable in their skin.
If your inner child has had a happy childhood, then you’ll grow up as a secure, happy, balanced and healthy adult. If your childhood was a happy one, but now you are facing issues with relationships at work, in life or have health issues, or feel fear and out of place, then it is time to check with your inner child – what is it missing in this environment?
Maybe as a child you had an appreciative environment at home, with your parents encouraging you and being supportive in your dreams. But once you move out into a new family or relationship, these things may have been missing or you may have entered an environment that is toxic in some way.
Or that your wishes and dreams are not finding any support and are left to complete neglect. You are expected to take care of the dreams and needs of those in your care now – like spouse, children and extended family.
And over a period of a few years and decades, you lose touch with your inner child. But know that it is never too late. Begin today by reconnecting with your inner child and start from where you left off, or start afresh.
Ask the child what it fears, what it misses in this environment and take small steps towards bringing the joy back, one moment at a time. If it is missing fun, think of what fun looked like when you were a child. When was the last time you did it? Like play board games, go cycling, dance, play in the rain, eat your favourite food or simply run around in the garden.
Make the time to indulge in these activities and watch your life feel lighter and more fun filled each day. Allow your inner child to unburden itself from the weight of all the responsibilities you are carrying as an adult.
If you don’t find points of creation of your current challenges in your childhood, then know that – Sometimes the point of creation is in your childhood, sometimes it is in the womb, and sometimes it comes from your past life.
Here are two stories that we’d like to share to help us get an insight into where our inner child issues can be created.
Womb – A young pregnant woman had to go through her pregnancy with an unusual challenge. Around the same time that she conceived, her mother was diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer. Her mother and she were very close and so she was in constant fear of losing her to the disease. All through the chemotherapy and after, she took very good care of her mother and her mother survived this phase and came through as a healthy individual again.
This girl delivered a boy and as time passed her son grew up with the right values and turned out to be a very caring person. By the time he was 18, he was faced with a clear situation of deep fear that he felt at all times. Every time his mother would leave home or travel, he would have palpitations about her safety and constantly be worried for her. Also he was an unusually caring boy, and his friends loved him for this quality. On dwelling further and meeting a healer, they realised the fear and caring both came to him while he was in his mother’s womb. So when they healed that part of his childhood by letting him know all is well and he can let go of fear, he was able to heal and move on.
Past life experiences affect your inner child in the present life. And sometimes not finding this point of creation can leave you baffled, frustrated and upset even. A young couple couldn’t get their 4 year old to dive into a swimming pool. Each time they tried, he would come up with an excuse and avoid getting into the pool. Assuming it is one of those kid tantrums, the mother decided to throw him into the pool one day. The child threw a fit and fell ill instantly with the trauma of being thrown into the pool.
The parents couldn’t fathom what could be the reason. After all, both the parents loved swimming as a sport and looked forward to doing more of it on their vacations. So they couldn’t understand why their son had such an aversion. A meeting with a healer revealed, this child has lost his life in the past birth by drowning in a flood. It hit the mother like a bolt of lightning – and instead of saying how can’t my son love what we love, that is swimming. She blurted loudly saying ‘ Oh my God, no wonder he is terrified of water in this lifetime. How could I have done this to him?’
As you can see, meeting your inner child and opening the doors of communication and connection can be immensely healing. It can set you free from years of carrying trauma, fear and any non serving emotions. So allow yourself the time to make this connection and enjoy living a life that is light, more joyful and more authentic.
