Our inner child has a major impact on our daily life. Its needs are the core needs we have in adulthood. The trauma it feels is the same trauma that’s the emotional triggers we feel even as adults. Its joys are our joys. Our inner child is a part of us, not a separate entity, and many of us in today’s world neglect and reject it. Because of this, this week in Deeper Thoughts we’re going to take a look into connecting to our inner child.
To put it simply, our inner child is a part of our inner compass that points to where we need healing. In fact, we have many inner children inside of us, all fragmented parts that lay within us due to various traumas we experienced as children. Each of these fragmented versions of us are frozen in time where the original trauma took place. Each fragmented inner child is there facing that trauma and waiting for you to come back and integrate them back as a part of you. For more on integration of these parts you can read my article titled, “Sitting with Pain and Healing.” I would also recommend looking into works by Teal Swan on parts work on her YouTube channel as well as her book, “The Completion Process.”
How you treat your inner child will affect your karma. If you always neglect its pain and suppress it, you’re suppressing yourself. Ignoring the wounds it has instead of healing them causes you to latch onto coping mechanisms that might feel good and bring pleasure in the moment, but in the long run are ultimately detrimental to you. The various forms of escapism that you constantly seek out keep you locked in misery. They’re just a band aid on a wound that never heals.
When you’re triggered by something or someone, it’s your inner child feeling trauma that you’ve repressed in yourself. Your inner child needs you. You need to go inward to them and show them love and meet the needs they had.
For example, when you’re in a situation that makes you uncomfortable and even scared, you might feel a range of things that goes from crying, anxiety, wanting to feel small, to even anger. These are ways that inner child that’s fragmented inside of you acts out to get your attention because it doesn’t feel safe. But if you’ve taken time to sit with that fragmented inner child, you realize this and have set up processes for you to RESPOND to that situation, instead of react. This allows you to navigate that situation from a calmer perspective and shows to that inner child that you’re able to meet its need for safety. Asserting yourself and your boundaries, for instance, to someone who tries pressuring you to do something not in alignment with your values or even safety can protect you, and thus the scared inner child within you.
Start the process of healing your wounded inner child. Spend time with them. Show them the love they/you needed. Show up and be there for them. Doing the things needed to provide your inner child safety and love to meet their needs, heals them and yourself as a whole. Start healing your Inner Child and you start healing yourself.
Take time to sit with your inner child to nurture it, feed it’s needs in a HEALTHY conscious manner. From here you make better choices in life that may be uncomfortable at first, but ultimately are of the utmost benefit for you. Conscious decision making leads to healthier choices, and this better karma overall.
Our inner child is a tool to help point us into areas we need healing, but it also has another function. It can remind us to enjoy life!
At our core, we’re children who have adapted to adult sized bodies. Deep down that inner child within us still wants to play. Those of us with a healthy connection to our inner children still enjoy our various play times. Most of it has adapted as we’ve grown older.
Instead of randomly playing pretend we have role playing games like D&D. Instead of playing with toy guns we have paintball matches. Wrestling around in the dirt becomes jujitsu. For some it changed from building a fort or club house to building a small shelter in the woods to stay in during hunting season.
Learn to connect with your inner child. So many people in the world today suppress their inner child. The world of adulting is viewed as so serious and you have to be on point 100% of the time. These people who are always working, always serious, and never take time to smell the flowers are usually miserable.
It’s healthy to still have play time, but as we grow it adapts to our adulthood. Healthy adults realize this and know when this playtime is appropriate. For many of the straight-laced adults who refuse to have such fun it’s often due to having that playtime shamed and forced to repress to meet needs as a child. If this is the case for you, learn how to heal that fragmented part and enjoy the world. Life’s too short to not have fun!
Do you feel joy doing some of the things you used to do as a kid? Dancing, and singing? Watching silly movies? Playing around and wrestling with your friends? Laying in the grass and looking at the clouds?
Keep in touch with your inner child. Its emotional outbursts are the triggers you feel when you get angry or sad, but their joy comes out along with your joy as well. Keeping in constant contact with them is a key step in regulating your emotions, let alone regulating your life. When was the last time you sat with your inner child? Spent time with them? Gave them a hug? Told them you love them?
What’s the point of living if you’re not going to enjoy life and have fun? We all have inner children we need to re-parent and heal. These inner children want to come out and play.
If you’re one of these people that keep their inner child suppressed, take time to study yourself and why this is. Growing up, were you shamed for being silly? Was work more important than play to your caregivers? Did you grow up in a household where children were meant to be seen instead of heard? Look into why you suppress your inner child and learn what you can do to feel safe letting it out.
To love your inner child is to love yourself, and vice versa. Show that inner child the love it craves, meet its needs, and assure it with consistent action that you’re there for it. Your inner child is YOU.
Thank you for reading, and like always, I hope you have an enlightening day.
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