INNER CHILD WORK
Ask yourself this ... If you felt happy and completely in
balance, do you think your choices and decisions would be different? Do
you think your life might change?
“We are not what we know but what we are
willing to learn.” ~Mary Catherine Bateson
Recapture the sheer joy of childhood and
live life to the fullest.
Sometimes we just do not live the
trouble free life we had hoped for, we can find ourselves lost on our life
journey and frustratingly we cannot put our finger on why life unfolds the way
it does. We can become angry, ill, have accidents, suffer relationship
breakdowns, and have problems at work and thousands of differing scenarios all
of which creates additional but unwanted stress that impact on our happiness.
Rather than being victims to life
events, being angry or becoming depressed we should step back and learn to see
what is really happening in order to finally break the patterns that limit our
potential.
But how?
Understanding that life works on
many levels is essential when planning our own life journey.
Like a map there are many routes
available to reach a destination, yet often we are blindly unaware of most of
them when it comes down to how we journey through life. Many just let life
unfold as it presents itself and then feel let down when things do not go as
well as expected. Notice I use “expected” rather than planned because I found I
had no plan in place, as so many do, as I had been unaware that planning is an
essential part of managing a route to peace and happiness!
Realising that there is a common
thread in everyone’s life was a vital part to changing my perspective of life
and how I lived it. I realised that everything in my life was connected
somehow, absolutely everything and everybody in my life was connected to……….
Me! So maybe when things “don’t go as planned” it was because I had not set in
motion any planning and I had not been taking sufficient or any responsibility
for my involvement in my own life. Countless people do not realise this very simple
concept, we influence every single aspect of our life and if it is not going
well, then, our involvement is contributing to the “upset”.
So maybe rather than blaming
everything and everyone else it is time, as it was for me, to take some serious
responsibility for the part we play in our life. When we lay out a plan we are
committing ourself to a direction and that means we are beginning to set a subconscious
blueprint, an intention, to taking responsibility for ourself.
When we begin to take responsibility
for everything in our life, the real journey can begin. The can of worms can
finally be opened and I did not even know I possessed a can let alone what was
to be inside of it.
Just by scratching the surface of
life, as empowering as it is, can be simply described as to what or who I am,
and without going into great depth, we and life consists of the mental, the
physical and non physical and these three parts are all connected by us.
Many fear looking at these 4 parts because it means putting a greater meaning on life, but by taking responsibility for ourselves requires a modicum of understanding of all 4 parts. You may more familiar with the perhaps overused terminology: Mind, Body, Spirit and the connection with them all; Emotions.
A core human emotion embedded in
our DNA is fear. Fear changes our internal biology as anxiety takes over from
our intelligent brain paralysing our logical reasoning ability to think clearly
as panic sets in, our body becomes an automatic defence system, a reflex action
we have no power or control of. We become disconnected from ourselves as we
blindly protect ourselves in the battle for self preservation at the expense of
our true self and others people in our life.
The
Subconscious Minefield
We cannot simply accept that we
have freewill, our subconscious drivers will dictate most of our life and
sadly, until we pick at them, we will be directed to continue our potentially
dysfunctional behaviour until our inevitable demise. When asked if he believed
in freewill, the famous philosopher William James replied; “Yes, what choice do
I have!”
Freewill is about freedom of
choice. We think we have freewill to make choices for own good, but those
choices are directly influenced by what we believe in. Unfortunately our belief
system is quite flawed as it is consists mostly of our parents, our peers and
our society beliefs and most of it has been formed from our social
conditioning. At the subconscious we have little or no freewill.
Much has been written about the
subconscious and there are detailed chapters in my book “I am Ok! But is that
Good Enough?” so I will not go into specifics here, suffice to say that our
subconscious influences every single waking moment of our life, as much as 95%
of the time. That means that unless we are aware of our own subconscious power
we will never have the chance to alter its perceptions.
So if our subconscious mind is so
powerful, how can we harness its power for our own good? Besides where does the
core of our subconscious belief come from?
We now know that as children,
between birth and around 6 years old, in spite of its small size, the brain has
twice as many neuro pathways as that of an adult. Recording everything during
its waking hours, the brain looses the neuropathways it finds it does need, and
reinforces those that it uses. Thus by 6 years old, the map of the brain
becomes the guidance reference for the adult, and that is when the problems
really start.
Our 6 year old self becomes the
subconscious guide of each adult that is living today. The subconscious
emotions of our younger self are the core guidance signals that influence 95%
of our waking day! Our child’s self
esteem at 6 years old becomes the fundamental core of who we believe we are
today, and unsurprisingly, we fail to “update” its programme as we grow older.
What
are Your Childhood influences?
We look
into a mirror for many reasons, often to check something or to do something.
Usually we use a mirror to see how we look or appear to others but rarely do we
really look into a mirror as if it is for the first time. To truly look deeply
at and into ourselves we have to consciously stand in front of mirror and become
our own observer. To see ourself in a
new fresh light and be aware of how we feel and of what actually is going
through our mind when we do so. When considering our childhood and working with our deep rooted subconscious, a mirror is not necessarily required. Although our memories will be clouded by time, our childhood will have an overriding theme; it can range from brilliant, good, happy, OK, indifferent, unhappy, not good, terrible and everything between. It all depends of whether your childhood was supportive, secure, loving and open-minded upbringing or whether you experienced varying degrees of pain, abuse, neglect, rejection and abandonment.
It does not matter if you think you had a wonderful childhood; there is a great chance that your younger self remembers something that today deeply influences the relationship you have with yourself and therefore others.
Much of our inner subconscious limitations arose through our early childhood and the influences of our families. It is not that they deliberately taught us our limitations, it is that we absorbed our parents and peers characteristics and in turn they became the blueprint of our personality, the core of your self esteem. Working through the limiting beliefs we hold are explained in “I am Ok! But is that Good Enough?” in detail.
Sadly, many people are in denial of their subconscious feelings, just as they are of their family’s influence over the life we all currently lead. Understanding our childhood influences is NOT a blame game, it is just something that always happens because we are not perfect, and neither were our parents. They tried to do their best and, on the subconscious level, their best leaves traces of discontentment or something lacking or deficient in some way that persists through to our adult life.
That part of our younger self that took these messages is called the inner child and it is that part of us that resides within our subconscious. To make matters worse, with our subconscious influencing 95% of our apparent waking life it means that our inner child is continually influencing the majority of our adult life unless its power over us is dealt with.
The Inner Child
Make no mistake; the inner child
is our younger self that lives within our adult psyche, it may really be our
true “self”. Even in adults who had a healthy childhood they still have an
inner child that still exists within them.
However,
a happy and safe inner child is sadly an idealistic concept because in reality
any form of upset could result in a lasting subconscious wound; there being
very many degrees of childhood trauma from the innocuous to the most traumatic.
Try to understand that the most innocent situations from a parent’s perspective will not have the same meaning from a child’s perspective; they are not adults. A child’s core needs are warmth, safety, love and to be heard and anything that does meet these core needs evoke emotions of trauma and rejection that can reside within the child’s self esteem for the rest of its life. For adults today being smacked as child by a parent or grandparent can be the first occasion that fear and physical pain inflicted by another person created a wound but it does not have to be such a deliberate act of control, it can be much more subtle event.
As an example, I frequently hear clients talking to their children when they are on the phone to me: “David, I am on the phone with Jonathan, go and play for a moment, I will be with you after the call” or “David, I have already told you once, (getting annoyed) go and play when daddy is on the phone”. From an adult perspective these exchanges are only a straightforward setting up of boundaries establishing that daddy or mummy is occupied and requires space.
However this is only the adults’ view, the child’s perspective is something quite different all together. A child has an egocentric view of life in that everything should revolve around them and that is final (that’s how they learn). When the parent creates the boundaries in this manner the child’s perspective can interpret the situation as “I cannot be heard” or “I am not important” “I am being rejected” or “I am not good enough”.
The most innocent forms of boundary setting by parents can have far reaching effects. “Clear up your room”, “don’t walk on the grass” right through to “you are naughty” “don’t be so lazy”; all are two edged swords that if not used respectfully may have really strong unintended consequences in the future.
The problem I have found for most adults I treat with ill health or life issues such as destructive behavioural patterns, is that their unequivocal love for their parents clouds the subconscious issues that have arisen through their inner child and without help, those negative patterns could destroy their life. They find it very difficult to truly believe that although Mum and Dad may have been saints in their eyes, everyday circumstances could and often create such emotional conflict in the child, that the ensuing emotional confusion embeds itself as a trauma scaring a child’s future to potential emotional growth.
Exacerbating the problem is that life has become increasingly stressful in the last few decades and we have apparently much less time on our hands, compounding our ability to manage our time and explain things to our children in a patient understanding way that will not leave them emotional bereft.
When it comes down to the more
serious events in childhood; physical, sexual, emotional and mental the
wounds will be much deeper resulting in a severe disconnect between the body
and the mind’s ability to register or express emotions. However this deep
repression of emotions on the subconscious level is not healthy and builds up
mental stress creating low self esteem. This deep inner wound of the inner
child will trigger some or all of the following in the adult; depression,
anxiety, phobias, destructive behavioural patterns and unless consciously dealt
the emotional trauma will physically manifests as a chronic illness.
How our life is at home and
generally how we live our life massively influences our children at the
subconscious level; parents arguing, taking out their unresolved anxieties on
each other all lead to childhood wounds. A divorce can be lead to same emotional
abandonment as a death because the child cannot emotionally recognise the
difference; the same applies if a parent is away for long business trips away
as the child cannot comprehend what “going away for work” means. Family life
creates the abundantly fertile environment to deeply screw up children all
because we as adults did the best we could but were not aware that we do have
to take full or partial responsibility for everything in our life including
managing the emotions of our own inner child.
Of the other more serious traumas,
common inner child wounds can be the result of having an emotionally
unavailable parent who withholds affection others can be attributed to physical
abuse when being “punished” like slapping, hitting, shaking, biting, hair
pulling, pinching, having objects or liquids thrown and “washing out the mouth”
with soap.
The list of potential traumatic
triggers is rather long, but briefly if as child and you were given adult
responsibilities it can result in stunted emotional growth. This can also
include caring for a sick or disabled parent, a parent with such low self
esteem that it depends on the child for emotional support, or not being fed or
deprived of meals as a punishment, not being nurtured or supported, having
“treasured” belongings being lost or thrown out, being called names or verbally
denigrated and abused, being humiliated, being forced by parents to attend
events (religious, funerals, gatherings) that you do not want to go to or
forced to eat foods that are not liked.
The extremes include death in the
family, serious accidents, being sexually molested, shown pornography, or any
other type of sexual contact; all create deep subconscious wounds.
A wound though, is a wound,
irrespective of its depth, and our inner child has them. As a rule of thumb you
should adopt a much greater awareness that irrespective of how loving our
parent or parents were no matter how small or how big an event was, all of us
experienced some kind of emotional trauma as children. We all hold a wounded
and hurt inner child within us that subconsciously undermines our adult self.
The good news is that by understanding our inner child, we allow ourselves the opportunity to become a better parent to our own inner child.
How does knowing what our inner child feels,
help us?
As a child and even as an adult,
we react differently to different stimuli at one level depending on our life
experiences and yet, as a child, at the emotional level the body’s subconscious
reaction can be identical in all manner of situations.
Events like loosing your favourite
teddy bear or doll, being lost in a shopping mall, being shouted at, being
physically, mentally or sexually abused can all carry the same basic emotion. A
pin prick for a child with low pain tolerance and the pain of breaking a bone falling
down stairs for another can carry the same “pain” and emotional reference.
As a child we protected ourself
and sought a comfortable safe place for our safety to avoid future hurt, and
that safe place is often in the deep recesses of our brain. That fear the inner
child numbed itself to secretly resides within us all until identified. As an
adult, you are able to reconnect to your inner child and identify its wounds.
Often the hurt inner child is just dying to be recognised, and once connected
you can explore the root causes of what has been frustrating and confusing you;
your ill health, fears, phobias, insecurities and many of your self sabotaging
life patterns.
Identifying these deep rooted
emotions from the variety of differing interpretations of childhood trauma is key
to inner child work, as they will open you to understanding why you do what you
always have done and why you think like you have always thought. It was and is
always about the fear reflex to protect ourselves.
Humans are vulnerable and when
threatened want a safe place to feel comfortable and secure, it is quite
natural to seek comfort in a protective environment. Protection by its very
nature is a survival reflex and its power can govern our life if left
unchecked. However, the counter intuitive approach is not to seek that safe
place, but to accept what is. By surrendering our thoughts and our attachment
to “needing” a safe place we actually become more open to being vulnerable.
With true vulnerability comes
immeasurable strength and power.
Knowledge of your inner child
allows you the choice to experience the feelings again and work through them,
only this time as an adult, allowing you to surrender your protective
subconscious thoughts thus releasing their power they have over you thus avoiding
them subtly and unknowingly hijacking you in your life in the future.
The bottom line is that it is never
too late to have a happy childhood whatever age you are, we just have to be
better parents to it.
The 4 Layers of your Inner Child
This short guide will help you
understand your inner child on all 4 levels, they are the stories created by
the lack of understanding of the adult world. Stories are stories and may not
contain any grain of truth, so it is always a good idea to question every story
you hold in case you actually believe them.
1. Emotional
If you
believe your parents were distant from you, you may think that they did not show
sufficient interest in you. This can manifest itself, subconsciously, as them
not paying sufficient attention to you and ignoring your emotional needs for
attention and not meeting or denying your emotional expressions of need from
you. Subconsciously they did not meet your emotional needs for love,
support, protection and/or guidance. The likely outcome of this was that:
- You
developed low self-worth and esteem for yourself.
- You
began ignoring your emotional needs.
- You
learnt to hide from, avoid or repress your emotions as they were
associated with feelings of neglect from your childhood.
- You
developed psychological or physical sicknesses connected to your inability
to listen to, accept and deal with your emotions in a healthy manner (e.g.
emotional repression).
2. Psychological
If you
believed your parents did not listen to you, unconditionally accept you or
nurture you, you likely have developed any variety of these symptoms:
- You
developed low self-esteem issues due to forms of abuse such as ridicule,
put-downs, overly high expectations, being ignored, rejected, or
constantly punished.
- You
developed deep-seated anger issues both from unresolved childhood trauma,
and an inability to love oneself.
- You
developed addictions and neurosis to create a misguided sense of comfort
and safety within your life.
- You
developed psychological and/or physical illnesses.
- You
have problems sustaining healthy and respectful relationships.
At a
basic and fundamental level, physical safety and nourishment is one of the most
intrinsic elements of a loving relationship. As can be seen in nature,
with mothers and fathers nourishing their chicks, pups and cubs with food,
shelter and protection. When this is lacking, however, the following
issues can develop:
- Low
self-worth resulting in physical neglect/abuse of oneself, e.g. eating
disorders (anorexia, obesity), maintaining an unhealthy diet, self-harm.
- Intense
safety-seeking behaviours (psychological complexes such as OCD) or extreme
risk-taking behaviours (e.g. unprotected sex, obsessive daredevil feats,
etc.)
- Addictions
to drugs, alcohol, violence, food, etc.
- Sexual
dysfunction or promiscuity (often due to sexual abuse).
When you release the power of inner child victim consciousness you break the cycle, not only for yourself but for your children.
Becoming a better parent to our Inner Child
If we
really want to take responsibility for our life that means we must work on the
core levels of ourself. Even if our parents may have not fulfilled all of our inner
child’s needs, the good news is that we can and heal our own wounds. The benefits of dealing with our inner child’s wounds include;
- Greater happiness and
optimism.
- Healthier mind, body
and spirit.
- Stronger friendships
and relationships.
- Development of
essential life skills: acceptance, forgiveness, vulnerability, compassion,
self-love.
- Greater awareness of
purpose.
- Improved creativity.
Blessings and Love