Loving your inner child - From PTSD to love

We all have different parts to us. There’s the grownup responsible part, the part that is moral and the part that wants to break away from social morals. The part that we learned to be to survive and fit in. The various roles we step into, mother, partner, worker, lover etc and the inner child that remains inside us all.

Your inner child is that part of yourself that’s about 2 - 12 years old. This is when you learned to choose for yourself, to say no and take on information about yourself and who you are as a separate person.

This time in our lives is often a tug a war between our inner being (who we really are) and what we are told and experience from the outside world. This is when those around you either confirmed who you are by loving and accepting you as an individual or contradicted who you knew you were and told you who you should be. Your parents, teachers, friends, siblings and society all contribute. If your connection with your inner being is strong you now have your inner being as your inner voice, lovingly guiding and accepting you every minute of the day. If it is not then you have a different dominant inner monologue and you probably have a few issues. A lot of us do lol.

Sometimes we feel safe enough to hold onto who we are and blossom. However sometimes we learn to adapt and mould who we are simply to survive, to be loved, and accepted by those around us, even if they are the ones hurting us. Sometimes we relinquish responsibility for how we feel and become the victim. It can be very subtle. We learn not to trust or listen to our own inner being as it is so far removed from what others think of us and how they treat us, we come to believe we must be wrong. We believe the fault is us, so we learn to be what we think we should be either fully or on certain levels.

Our inner child is drowned out and pushed down but it is still there. It is still wanting to be heard, loved and accepted. This part of you still acts and feels on this very basic level every day. It’s the part that says in your inner voice, ‘it’s not fair, I’m scared, I don’t want to…., I don’t feel like it, nobody likes me, I hate it, I don’t know….’. It’s the part that wants to hide, escape or run away someplace else, or even have a completely different life. It’s the part that looks for external validation on social media. Only most of the time you don’t listen to it or you answer it with criticism and a whole pile of ‘shoulds’. Or maybe you drown it out with your drug or habit of choice. This is when your negative inner dialogue ramps up. It can be quite nasty and call you names, put you down, get disgusted in you, lay on the guilt and yell at you. Basically it doesn’t like you. It can make you feel sick, harm yourself and not take care of yourself. At its core, this other negative voice has three basic beliefs:- You are not good enough, you are not loveable, you can’t cope and therefore you need to do / be better. This is not your inner being / higher-self talking. It’s simply not true. You are not stuck with this negative voice, this opinion and these beliefs. It’s easier to change then you think. The voice that’s telling you it’s hard or not possible is the negative voice. It sneaks in, doesn’t it?

Sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes others reject or leave us. Sometimes we make a mistake or even a huge mistake. Sometimes we feel sad, scared etc. Sometimes bad stuff happens to us. When this happens to us as an adult we tap into the feelings and response we learnt as a child when a similar thing happened. (We learn it cognitively the first couple of times as a child and then it becomes an automatic response). This is not about blaming our parents etc or being the victim it’s about looking after yourself now, in this moment, because only you know what’s best for you and what you need. We are all responsible for how we feel and our own minds. Its harder to change something you are not aware of. You are becoming aware simply by reading this. There is so much more to discover as you begin this journey. With a little bit of practice we can decide which voice we listen to and what thoughts we think. The voice you listen to makes all the difference in how you deal with life and therefore the life you live. We have free will.

What is our inner being?

There are lots of different names for this. Basically it’s your core, the source of you, your soul, your higher-self, your intuition, your pure self, your GOD self or whatever you believe it to be or call it. We are love and wellbeing, it is our natural state. Baby you were born that way. (did you sing it in your head?) You were never meant to be perfect or to try to be and it has nothing to do with your worthiness. We are spiritual beings having a human bodily experience here on earth. We all have our own inner guidance whether we are aware of it or not. This is our spiritual self and its always there loving us, because it is us.

How do you tell the difference between your own inner guidance / voice / thoughts and that other negative inner monologue?

Your inner being is you and loves and accepts everything about you so it only says loving things to you. It is truthful, respectful, clear, responsible for self and open. It listens to you and accepts how you feel. When you feel anxious or sad for example, just stop and ask yourself what does the child part of me feel right now? Sit with it, right in the middle of it. Allow yourself to yell and cry if that’s what comes forth. Be prepared for a child’s point of view to answer. Don’t judge this part, don’t push it or correct it, just know that it’s your inner child. It is finally getting the chance to be really heard so it may overdo it for a while. Would you judge any other child you loved for this feeling or thought? Simply listen and accept and be loving towards this part of you. Re parent it with as much love as you can and more will come. (separating this part of yourself and calling it your inner child helps you to relate to yourself in a way that this part of you can understand.) You are relearning to trust yourself.

When your inner being is talking to your inner child, it talks with affection at the appropriate age level.

It refers to you with terms like sweetie or darling, or gorgeous. It talks to you like you would have loved to be talked to as a child. It say ‘that’s ok, I know you feel scared, I’m hear with you, you are not alone, I’m here’. I love you no matter what’. It gently reminds you that you are responsible for how you feel about any situation in your past, in the future and right now. The situation is the situation and not you. That you are choosing to think, feel and believe things and you can change this and choose something else if you want to, but you don’t have to. It is gentle and caring at all times. It never says you should.

You smile when you are listening to your inner being. You feel good when this is your dominate voice. You feel good when you are being guided by your inner being. Just try it and see for yourself. Become the parent or best friend to yourself. Once you start to do this it becomes easy and very natural, because it is simply you loving and talking with you.

Start your day deliberately talking with love to your inner child. End your day the same way. Do it when you look in the mirror. Look at yourself with love and notice your inner beauty. Look deeply into your own eyes with the love you would have if you were looking at yourself as a child.

Notice how you feel. It’s wonderful.

Michele Ableson

www.micheleableson.com

Part two will look further at discovering the core beliefs holding you back.