Inner Child, what is it? Apart of Coming Home to Wholeness
Part of ourselves that is present since we were born through our developing years from being a baby, to infant to toddler to young children and typically up to 11 or 12.
The inner child is built up of our experiences during this time, this can range from joyful or good experiences through to fears traumas or significant loss. These experiences sit in our minds and affect how we go about our lives, when we start to explore this subconscious part of our mind it can feel like following breadcrumbs to who we are.
We all have our own inner child. Its apart of our subconscious that has been collecting our experiences from before we may have been able to process it physiologically this can be emotionally or mentally, it holds our memories and beliefs from our youth as well as our dreams for the future.
The inner child remembers pieces of our past good parts like riding a bike a bike for the first time or the bad times like feeling stupid after a teacher scoffed at a seemingly easy question. It’s the part that understands these feelings result in how we understand things when were older.
Day to day our inner child lives with us, it can be calm and content or it can be a bit shaky rocking the boat when it is needing some attention. Stuck points form in difficulties such as frustration at work or managing our relationships with others, our inner child is always communicating with us and can make it or break it when it comes to interacting with others or in the steps to finding happiness.
When the inner child takes the wheel
The experiences of the inner child manifest themselves in many ways when we become adults, you make notice your experiencing anxiety, fear, avoiding certain people/ places or even perfectionism. These are ways the inner child tries to protect itself, creating a safe space, when the inner child is at the wheel it may make decisions based of unconscious beliefs on what would make the inner child feel safe.
Moving on from these stuck places can be difficulty its often suggested that you work with your inner child building a coalition to meet the needs both of the adult and the child. This can be in cultivating a sense of wonder and balance with responsibility this is the first step in meeting your own needs.
Healing your inner child
To do this, we start by requesting that your grown-up self be somewhat open and conceivably, helpless. For your internal identity to emerge from stowing away and to share what it's requiring, we should be available to hearing and seeing its story, inquisitive with regards to its life, its expectations, dreams, fears, and stresses.
We need your inner child to start fostering a confiding in relationship with your grown-up self so it can share transparently. We need to find out about its expectations, dreams, wishes, its words, as well as its aggravation, its pity, its feelings of trepidation and its concerns.
Frequently, we see that when the inner child has somebody (grown-up you) who genuinely minds and dials back, and is available with it, it can quiet down and feel the sentiments that it needed to push away for a really long time. It's generally advised to do this work with a therapist who works with internal identity work, childhood emotional neglect or emotional pains as the work can be delicate and a talented clinician can assist with directing you and backing the recuperating process.
As apart of the Coming Home to Wholeness retreat at Monte De Orada, Portugal, with Conscious retreats the healing inner child will be explored, with trained processionals Dennis Richards and Jo Edwards. For more information on these retreats check out the link below.
Below are 3 exercises that can help in reconnecting and healing your inner child
1. Reconnect with your childhood
One way to do this is to “time travel” back to your childhood. You can do this by making a list of things that brought you joy when you were young. Spend some time daydreaming and reliving these memories as though they were happening today.
2. Write a letter to your inner child
You can do this in the form of an apology if you feel you’ re living a life that doesn’t honour your inner child. Or you could write a simple letter explaining that you wish to build a stronger relationship with your inner child in your life today.
3. Pay attention to your feelings
Your inner child is sensitive and vulnerable. It’s important to pay attention to your inner child’s fears and insecurities as well as the joys and feelings of wonder that often come up when connecting with your inner child. Throughout the day, check in with yourself and ask, “how am I feeling right now?”
