Inner Child

If you have ever had an emotional outburst or been triggered by something it could well be your inner child acting out in your adult life. Our foundation as a child and the experiences we have had growing up both positive and negative play significant roles in who we are and our emotional triggers and issues.

Based on these experiences you can develop many different unhealthy beliefs. These core believes come to us from our childhood experiences. For example a child who has often been reprimanded by a parent may fall into a poor me victim mode and fall into despair when things go wrong. A child who has judgemental parents may always be looking to be perfect or achieve the next new thing in order to feel a sense of worth. Perhaps even somebody who has lived a sheltered life with little struggle may fall into complacency and expect life to go their way holding very little resilience when it doesn't.

I'd like you to ask yourself now, what underlying inner child issues you struggle with: for me I particularly find I can be hard on myself and sometimes become slightly neurotic, obsessing over things trying to be good enough, worthy enough, trying to be perfect (an unattainable ideal).

- Do you feel the need to constantly achieve and be perfect?
- Do you feel bad stuff always happens to you?
- Do you feel life should come easy and unfair things happen/have happened to you?
-Do you feel unloved/rejected by others?

These are not nice nor are they self-serving feelings. Luckily when we become more self-reflective and listen to what these lower level feelings are telling us we can heal them. 

When these or other negative behaviours come up think, how does this relate to the inner child in me? How can I heal them and in turn heal myself?

For example sometimes around my monthly womanly time when emotions are strong I can become very needy and my need for security in these moments can sometimes cause me to start to lash out at those around me. Why haven't you done this? Why are you doing that? Why am I not the center of your universe? Not a healthy or rational way to be. 

In this moment I stop and I ask myself what past trauma have I experienced and why am I feeling this way. In this instance, it is the need for love, praise, I need to feel loved to feel accepted and good enough, hence the perfectionist and critical side appears. 

Once you have identified where your emotional triggers lie you can begin to heal them by:

Mantra

Use positive self talk to change your negative feelings into positive healthy ones.

Some examples:

This isn't good enough - I am doing the best I can and that is good enough.
I hate the way I look - I love myself unconditionally as I am right now.
Bad things always happen to me, it isn't fair. - Good things are coming, I learn from setbacks.

Sending Healing Energy to your inner child

Imagine yourself as a child, visualise pink/green light going through the child, see the child smiling as you send them love.

Nurture your childlike side

Be silly; try to steer away from taking life too seriously, have fun, muck around, make fun or yourself, humour and being silly can help us nurture and tap into our inner child energy.

Be creative; sing, dance, cook, paint, colour, draw. Do something fun that you used to do as a kid, just because you're an adult doesn't mean you can't have a go at these things and it is okay not to be perfect at them, fill yourself with inner child confidence and have ago with out judgement.

Be spontaneous; look at the world with wonder, try something new, go on an adventure, eat a new food. Look at the world through curiosity as a child would, don't be afraid to explore and reexplore it.

Be wild; go out in nature, garden, put your hands in the dirt, run around, play a game, swim in the ocean, embrace your wild child-like nature. Live a little.

Be imaginative; have fun imagining what could be, or thinking up silly things. Imagination is sadly lost as we grow older, don't let it slip away, it a can be a lot of fun.

Happy Inner Child healing

Thanks for reading

The Spiritual Novice