Isn’t this the million-dollar question? Most of us are aware, to some degree, that there are parts of us that need healing. Whether it is your way of being in certain situations or certain relationships that you aren’t happy with, or self-limiting beliefs that you are aware of, you know that there are parts of you that you feel powerless against and that hinder your full self-expression and happiness in the world. These are usually the reasons why we undertake personal development or ‘self-improvement’. We try, slowly, to chip away at the parts of us that create mental and emotional suffering.
So, what does this have to do with your inner child?
The foundation of our minds and beliefs are created roughly between the ages of 0 and 8 years old and stored in our subconscious. Afterwards, most of our actions, reactions, choices and what we create in our lives are influenced by the foundation that we have built in our subconscious early in life.
The child that you were back then has grown up, however you still carry them with you as you operate off of the unconscious conditioning that was created at that time in your life.
The way your mind and body operate
When you get a cut, your body will warn you with pain, swelling and inflammation. This is your body’s attempt at working with you to guide you back to a state of well-being and equilibrium.
If ignored, the cut will get infected causing further harm, which can lead to amputation and even death.
Your brain, your mind and subconscious are all a part of your body and have their own system of communicating with you that something is off, or not aligned.
Your mind, spirit, and body, all wish to operate in a healthy way. Which is why when something isn’t aligned with you in your way of thinking and being, your body and mind will alert you by creating mental and emotional suffering (pain). If ignored, this mental and emotional suffering will manifest in your life in the form of fights with others, dissatisfaction with your job or career, unhealthy relationships, or unhealthy habits, among other things.
We think that these circumstances are what is causing our mental and emotional suffering but the truth is that it starts in our minds and then manifests into our lives as part of the natural creation process.
These are all examples of signs that there is something for you to look at internally in your belief system.
When dealing with a self-limiting belief, a repressed traumatic memory or a pattern, your mind and subconscious want to get you back to a state of well-being and equilibrium and will give you signs (just like pain, swelling and inflammation) that something isn’t right.
Trauma
Let me explain what I mean by trauma in this context. When I speak of trauma, I am talking about all events that happens as a child that carried a heavy negative emotional weight (in the mind of the child), that the child did not have the tools to deal with emotionally. Any event of this kind has resulted in trauma in some way, shape or form.
This could be a parent forgetting you at the grocery store when you were 4, or a bully at school, a tyrant of a sibling or cousin, a parent that used shaming, yelling, or hitting as a form of punishment… There is no way to tell what can result in trauma because an event that was a big deal for you might not have been a big deal for somebody else in the same situation.
How does it work?
Your subconscious’ job is to keep you safe at all costs. In order to do so, throughout the years it creates files in your mind of past events that it can use as reference for the future in order to create a certain level of certainty and predictability.
When you are young, your subconscious hasn’t had time to create a big database because you are still new to this earth, which is why your experiences between the ages of 0 and 8 will dictate the foundation of that database.
When an event happens to you when you are young, that you do not have the tools to deal with, your subconscious is on hyper alert because its job is to keep you safe. It thinks ‘if this has happened, it is likely to happen again… And when it does, I’ll need to be ready!’
So your mind will create systems (that you later on call self-sabotage) and warning bells so it can use the traumatic event as reference for the future.
One of the problems with that is that your subconscious will generalize and categories information.
So for example, if you were hit by your father as a child, your subconscious mind will create a special file that might be labeled ‘men are not to be trusted’ and will collect proof throughout your life, in order to reinforce it to help you avoid that kind of pain ever again.
The more painful the event, the more you will look for proof and reinforcement.
Repressed memories
Your subconscious mind operates in the shadow and in the background so YOU can still function and focus on the tasks at hand. But as mentioned above, your body, mind and spirit want you to operate in a healthy way and want you to be in a state of well-being and equilibrium.
So when warning bells go off in your subconscious that you might be in danger based on repressed traumatic memories, it also gives you the opportunity to revisit the event, or the beliefs that you created from it, for resolution.
The reason the self-limiting beliefs and the conditioning stay, years after it has stopped serving you and is now hindering you is because your mind wants you to create the proper tools in order to learn from it and grow.
Each unconscious conditioning and each belief that are causing you pain is an opportunity for you to learn from it and grow even more into who you truly are and who you were meant to be.
And each situation in your life that is causing you mental and emotional suffering, be it an unhealthy relationship, unhealthy habits, an unfulfilling career, is a warning bell that there is unconscious conditioning and self-limiting beliefs that are needing to be looked at and resolved.
Do you see how even though you are grown, you carry your inner child everywhere that you go? He/ she is present in your mind, in how you feel about yourself, in your relationships, in your career, etc.
All that your inner child wants is for you to SEE him/her. For you to acknowledge them, to slow down and to look at what they are begging you to look at.
Only when you take the time to really acknowledge them, look at them and HEAL what needs to be healed, can you really embody their child-like wonder and qualities. Only then can you really step into your true self.
If I am not my true self now, then who am I?
There are talks about being yourself, being your true self or your higher self, but what does that even mean?
These statements can bring confusion because you know you haven’t been ‘fake’ all these years, and you’ve really just been doing your best. And that is true!
Anybody is only ever doing the best that they can in any given moment with the information that they have that seems real to them.
You haven’t been ‘fake’ at all. But you most likely also haven’t been your true self.
Let’s look at this a bit deeper.
When trauma takes place, there are a few things that happen. One of them is that because you see danger, you lock up parts of yourself that you do not want to see damaged or hurt. The more inner wounds you have, the more you lock up these parts of you that are vulnerable, raw, and tender.
Another thing that happens is that you create stories in order to try to make sense of what is happening to you. These stories later become self-limiting beliefs.
For example, if you were shamed as a child as a form of punishment, in order to make sense of what was happening to you, you might have created a story that sounded like “this must be happening because I am a bad boy/girl.”
The story and self-limiting belief that took place unconsciously that sounds like ‘I am a bad boy/girl’, you carry with you and it unconsciously influences every action, choices and relationship in your life.
We have created a lot of these stories and self-limiting beliefs over the years and through the experiences that we have been through.
With each story, we have locked up vulnerable parts of ourselves that we try to overcompensate for (with others as well as with ourselves) by trying to be enough. By trying to be something that we, in fact, are not.
We have also created defense mechanisms to try to avoid that kind of pain again. These defense mechanisms might look like: Lashing out in anger, lying, manipulation, ignoring our own needs, emotional dissociation, not saying what we want to say, saying yes when we want to say no (and vis versa), not asserting our boundaries, letting our boundaries be violated, violating other people’s boundaries, only valuing certain parts of ourselves and not others, not communicating (or even knowing) our needs, wants and desires, among other things.
Ego and you
When I talk about ego, I refer to the persona that you have created with your self-limiting beliefs and conditioning that has you be, feel and act in the way that it thinks you should in order for you to feel protected and safe.
Ego is the person you think you out to be in the world, not the person that you truly are.
Ego has only one goal in mind: Survival. Physical, mental, emotional and social survival. When dealing with trauma, we call upon ego to come and protect us, and ego, the fierce protector that it is, obliges.
Over the years, and because we live in a society where trauma and ego are widely spread, and widely accepted, ego is who we mistake as us!
Ego is your inner critic telling you who and what you should be. How you should or shouldn’t act. What you should want and desire. What your life is supposed to look like. How others are supposed to be. How the world should or shouldn’t be. Ego puts labels on everything ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘too much’, ‘not enough’, ‘should’, ‘shouldn’t’ and it is the one telling you if you are too fat, too thin, not good looking enough, better than others, less than others, etc. Ego is the reason that most people live in their heads and not in their bodies!
Ego, which is our trauma band-aid, has us be dissociated from ourselves. From our deepest truths, and deepest needs, wants and desires.
What happens when we are disconnected from ourselves is we start looking at the outside world for validation, guidance, and approval.
I am not saying that you are supposed to have all the answers and should never listen to another person for guidance. However, most of us have lost the ability to be our own feedback loop. Our own source of validation and approval.
Therefore, not having been you true self doesn’t mean that you have been ‘fake’. Again, everybody is always doing the best that they can with the information that they have that seems real to them.
But the life that most people live and the self that most people operate from has been founded operating from a place of listening to their ego, inner-critics, self-limiting beliefs and influenced by the unconscious conditioning and defense mechanisms that they have put in place in order to protect themselves.
Most people are in a state of constant survival mentally and emotionally and do not have the capacity to be fully self-expressed.
Beginning the healing process
So, what now? How do we heal? How do we get connected to ourselves and begin to detangle the mess that we have put ourselves in?
First and foremost it is important to be willing to recognize where and how we are in pain. Often times we tend to downplay the pain that we are in. How often have you said/ heard ‘Oh it’s not that bad… It’s okay… Things are okay… Ah well, it will figure itself out…” Etc.
This happens for a few reasons. We have, in the personal development industry, an epidemic of positive thinkers. It is important to not go down the rabbit hole of negativity, however too many people have fallen down the other rabbit hole of trying to think positively all the time and losing touch with reality.
Trying to think positive all the time is a way to get to not deal with our own patterns and self-limiting beliefs.
What you resist, persists and the ‘pain’ that you are in will manifest itself in your life whether you think positively or not.
Too many people do not ever take the time to slow down to feel themselves on a deeper level and numb themselves, that they never get to feel just how much the pain that they are in is actually costing them.
Thinking positively all the time and not being willing to look at our own pain is a way that we ignore our needs, wants and desires and disconnect from ourselves even more.
Taking the time to feel yourself, to feel your emotions and to question your behaviors, patterns and belief systems will be crucial for you to be free of your mental and emotional suffering and to grow personally and spiritually.
If you would like more information on how to connect with yourself on a deeper level, click here.
If you would like more information on how to become the master of your emotions, click here.
- Ending the victim epidemic
Because most of us do not ever take the time to slow down and to be with ourselves, and as mentioned above, have lost the ability to be our own feedback loop and resort to looking to the outside world for validation and approval, we have also lost the ability to see ourselves as the sole creators of our lives.
We believe that life happens to us and that our job to make the best of it. But the truth is that this way of thinking is a part of the victim mentality epidemic that we find ourselves in today.
How many of us feel like the victim of our circumstances? If you listen to anyone talk about their lives for just a few minutes, you will hear it.
‘Because my job only pays this much and I do not get the time off I would like, we couldn’t go on vacation.’
‘I am too busy and do not have the time to cook healthy which is why I gained the weight.’
‘My spouse acted this way which is why I got angry.’
‘Because I have kids I could not start the business I wanted to.’
Does this sound familiar? We think that our internal state is caused by our outside circumstances, but it is our internal state being manifested that creates our outside circumstances.
Us getting it mixed up is happening as a natural consequence of being disconnected from ourselves and has turned us into victims of our own lives. If things are happening just because and not by our own doing, there isn’t much that you can do about it, right?
Being stuck in a victim mentality renders you powerless and you cannot be the powerful creator of your own life from that space, and neither can you be the mighty healer that you are.
Recognizing that we are the source of all that we have in our lives: Our internal state, our circumstances, our relationships, our health, our careers and more is the first and most important state to beginning to heal your inner child.
If you think life happens to you, you are stuck in a victim mentality. Life doesn’t happen to you, life happens FOR you.
Each circumstance, state, relationship, and situation that you are in that isn’t conductive to a peaceful and blissful life and way of being is an indication (again, just like pain and swelling with a cut) that your inner child is asking for more healing. Whether or not you listen to that call is entirely up to you.
Obviously there are things that happen you cannot foresee such as a loved one passing away or getting hurt, a natural disaster or a pandemic. However, these are rare compared to the day to day, month to month or even year to year circumstances that you create in your life; and even those are an opportunity for you to heal on a deeper level.
2. Being with yourself
Slowing down and taking the time to BE with yourself is another crucial step to go through the healing process of your inner child. How can you develop a relationship with yourself and with that inner child if you do not take the time to be with him/her? To listen to the messages that are being sent out in the form of thoughts, emotions, patterns, etc.?
A lot of us have such little experience doing so, that the first question I get asked when talking about being with yourself is ‘how?’
There are a few things. The first one is to recognize that a lot of us fill our days so jam packed just so we can AVOID being with ourselves. If that is you, the simple idea of slowing down might be frightening.
Slowing down and being with yourself can look like a few different ways, but the main thing here is: Are you making yourself a priority in your life?
Are you taking the time to journal? Reflect? To feel your emotions? To have some down quality time with yourself? To do things that you love, such as a creative activity?
Not only does slowing down allow you to work things out with yourself, but it also actually allows you to go further faster (eventually) because you are taking the time to re-fill your cup and to get energized.
3. Recognize your pain and give it breath
Do not downplay your mental and emotional suffering. Too often we are quick to brush it off without looking at it or giving it breath and will often numb it with TV, alcohol, food, the news, drugs… Etc. Anything to distract you from looking at yourself.
If something doesn’t feel right or is off, give it breath!
Giving your mental and emotional pain breath can be scary because we think that if we open that can of worms, not only would we not be able to deal with it, but it would also take us backwards. The truth is, you are taking 3 steps forward by being with your reality so you can heal. Ignoring your pain is just another way that you deny yourself and send the message that you are not important or worth it.
4. Feel your emotions
I talk about this in almost all of my articles because of how important this is. Your emotions are another way that your subconscious and inner child communicates with you. Feeling all that there is to feel, even the emotions that you believe are ‘inconvenient’ or ‘negative’, is another way that you get to be with yourself and to tend to yourself. What you resist, persist, and ignoring an emotion such as anger, rage or grief will not make it go away. They will manifest themselves another way in your life, perhaps in the form of feeling unsettled, anxiety, unhealthy relationships, unhealthy habits and even depression.
I posted the link above but here it is again if you would like more information on how to become the master of your emotions for your internal freedom.
5. Be mindful of your inner critic
As you go through a healing process, your ego will most likely be extra active because you are staring to do things differently which could mean danger. Again, it has put a lot of things in place because it wants to protect you. We now know that the metrics your ego has put in place are way more hindering to you than it is protecting you.
As your ego shows up, please remember that it is your protector, not your enemy. The goal is not to annihilate your ego but to meet it where it is at and to befriend it. The only way out of operating from ego is to look at it and to appease it. Remember, your ego is just another expression of your wounded inner child!
6. Trust the process
Healing is not a straight line and things sometimes get worst before they can get better. When you are poking at a system that has been created for your survival it is likely to get over-activated in an attempt to keep you safe. It hasn’t caught on yet that it is no longer needed.
Take your time and trust the process – Stay grounded within yourself – Keep going.
7. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
If you suspect you may be dealing with a trauma that is too much for you to deal with on your own, do not be afraid to ask for the help of a professional. Finding the right fit for you can help you heal more than you know.
Even if you aren’t dealing with a trauma that is too much for you to heal on your own, asking for help can not only give you tools to help you heal, but the tools will also help you personally and spiritually grow for the rest of your life.
I looked for the help of a coach a few years ago which has drastically transformed every single area of my life and which has given me the tools needed to get deeply grounded within myself and to develop a rock solid relationship with myself and my inner child.
Take the time to find what kind of professional is right for you!
And lastly, just know that you are not alone. If you have found this article, you have already begun the process of healing. Be gentle and kind with yourself as you go through this journey which I am honoured to be a part of.
With Love,
Nino