About The Inner Parent Or What Makes Adults Happy

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

“Stupid. Well, just stupid! Well, how could you do that, huh? Didn't you see that stupid Volkswagen ahead? I had to keep my distance. Brake on time. And you! Stupid! Sit behind the wheel, clumsy … Now you yourself will solve all the problems. And no one will help you!"

These words, like gusts of cold wind, burst out of Katya's lips, sitting in a chair designed for the voice of her “inner parent”.

The voice did not stop. He was harsh. He went on and on, with a gloomy and angry expression on Katya's face, recalling various stories from her life. Deeper into adolescence, adolescence and early childhood, describing in detail the blunders and mistakes for which the one to whom it was all addressed received completely childish verbal slaps in the face.

"You will sit alone, no one needs you like that!"

Words flew out, cutting the cozy atmosphere of the psychological office, "rraz-rraz-rraz", chopping the culprit into small pieces, leaving her no chance …

“You idiot! Just a brainless idiot. Didn't see the dog! You're not capable of anything!"

Katya's inner parent was merciless. It seemed that his words would last forever.

“Who eats like that ?! Who eats like that, I ask ?! This stupid messy girl has smeared all her dress … So you go to kindergarten, let you be ashamed!"

A pink hare was sitting in the chair opposite. Our office fluffy pink bunny is a soft toy that is often useful in psychological work. Today the hare has been assigned by Katya to the role of her inner child. The very addressee to whom all these messages were intended.

Katya talked and talked, and the pink hare sat motionless and seemed to listen to all this scolding, carefully following her with her black plastic eyes-buttons.

Finally Katya stopped.

Glancing at me, she covered her mouth with her hand in fear. The hare continued to stare at her in silence, spreading his pink paws on the armchair.

Katya had to switch roles and sit in the chair of her inner child, finally freeing the lop-eared one from this mission. And already feel with your human body all the barbs that she sent from the chair opposite …

Once upon a time we were all children

And our parents talked to us. Someone spoke to us quietly, and someone loudly. Someone shouted, and someone was silent. Someone left and did not speak for a long time. And someone sent taunts, reproaches, curses, threats.

And some of us had to sit, perhaps on a wooden highchair, perhaps in some kind of pink or light yellow tights, perhaps just in socks. To sit and watch what this close and very significant adult is doing to us. And be the pink hare from my office …

Look carefully, capturing every breath, every word of mom or dad, every gesture, intonation, facial expression. After all, that's all we have - mindfulness. In the future, it will help predict, anticipate the parent's behavior, it will help to influence, adjust, wait. She will help you survive.

And even later, we ourselves will become our parents

As adults, we will berate ourselves. Exactly for what they once "received", sitting on a wooden chair, now - sitting at a desk in the classroom, driving in a car, at a table in the workplace …

We will scold ourselves inside, using the same phrases and words that were used by those who called themselves our mom and dad.

We may even forget these words, but the experiences and feelings that envelop our body at the moments of "punctures" will imperceptibly return to us from the past, like the shadows of forgotten ancestors …

We will feel unhappy, abandoned, incapable of adults.

After all, the level of satisfaction with life in an adult is directly determined by the quality of "communication" between his inner parent and the inner child.

Think for a minute, how do you feel about yourself when an undesirable situation occurs? What words do you use to speak to yourself? Scolding or comforting? Do you edify or regret? How does your inner parent take care of your inner child - so that he can live warmly, well, comfortably?

If your inner child suffers deprivation, and the inner parent does not pay enough attention and support, it can be unkind, rude, merciless - you cannot be satisfied with life. You are unhappy

There is no one to caress you. You have become your own executioner. You are killing yourself, your life, your well-being, suffering every day and every minute from dislike, underrun, insecurity. Playing the same scenario on my own.

And if you notice something like this in yourself, then it is important to restore the internal function of the supportive parent. Warm up your own exhausted inner child, wrap him up in a blanket, give him milk, tell bedtime stories. Forgive. To regret. Support and protect.

Only in this case can you feel contentment, joy, happiness. If your inner child is well fed with affection, tenderness, faith and admiration.

He will live - not in fear and anxiety, shame or guilt, but with interest and curiosity for the world around him, with joy from the new coming day, with the anticipation of new opportunities!

In personal counseling and psychotherapy, we first of all learn to resolve our internal conflicts. There is no time when it was so important to adapt to others - parents. Now it is important to agree and listen to only one person - himself, the only one whom we always and everywhere take with us.