The Other Side Of The Inner Child

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

I have a good friend. For the past year, she has been planning a pregnancy. Pregnancy in her imagination seemed to be an unusual, wonderful state … When you flutter in a light dress, you are proud of your tummy, the people around you come to exceptional affection, and the expectant mother herself is constantly at rest and at peace. Yes, it happens. Psychologists call this type of pregnancy experience "euphoric" and, I must say, they are afraid of such a condition, because it is these expectant mothers who often find themselves at risk for postpartum depression. But my friend was not in danger. As soon as the pregnancy began, she developed severe toxicosis. And when I met her two months after the onset of pregnancy, she told me: “Yes… I thought dresses, flight, creativity… that this is how pregnancy looks like. Instead, I have been in the toilet for at least an hour in the morning. And I feel sick for half a day … And how different it all looks like what I imagined. And then there is toxicosis and hemorrhoids. And there is still childbirth ahead … ".

This is just one of life's examples. In my art therapy study groups, the participants are also sometimes surprised. They think that we will come to the children with paint brushes, how we start to draw with them … And there will be flowers, butterflies and other cute drawings. Instead, in the drawings of children suddenly appear "poop" and "pipis", monsters and monsters. Or something even more terrifying. And suddenly art therapy classes turn out to be not only about the joy of creativity. But also about the release of heavy emotions, long-suppressed states, for example.

So it is about the Inner Child. Those interested in psychology know that it is a long-established term in a number of approaches. And at the same time … At the same time, the Inner Child is most often perceived by people as a very nice creature. Even if we are talking about the subpersonality that bears the name "Wounded Child". That this is a very sweet girl or cute boy who cry, yes, but at the same time they do not cause rejection with all their appearance, behavior and other things.

Now let's remember at what moment a person in childhood is faced with rejection and the same Inner wounded child appears. This is a child who is hysterical on the floor of a store. Who jumps through the puddles, and all his clothes, as well as his face, hands and feet in the sticky nasty mud. This is the one who got scared and cannot say a word. This is the one or the one that was written at night, and brought various inconveniences to parents. I was sick. Disgusted. Who could have drool and snot. Who sobbed to the point of hiccups. And this part is still alive in us. And is it not for this reason that the authors of some strange books - and I have met such - recommend not to accept and “love” such an unattractive and at first glance not arousing love, but, for example, to bury it?

This Inner Child is activated when you push yourself to work and don't give yourself extra rest. When you yell at your children, spouses or coworkers or employees. When you again get involved in a strange love affair and do not understand, how did you get into such an adventure again, because so many times you vowed not to repeat this? When you are excruciatingly experiencing rejection. When you are drowning in a constant feeling of guilt - for your behavior, for the behavior of your child, for the fact that you cannot pay your parents the very debts that are demanded of you - sometimes the parents themselves, and sometimes the environment. When almost any external authority seems more important to you than your own, that very innermost voice. Because sometimes she gives an inner voice - a terrible, ugly, unsightly part of our child … This is exactly the case about which there is a well-known saying: "A child needs your love most of all when he least deserves it." This also applies to our Inner Child. This part also needs love the most when it feels like you least deserve it right now. And how many times have I observed in my practice - instead of stopping, looking at myself carefully, if not with love, then at least kindly - a person takes it and begins to emotionally beat himself up. You can do visualization a hundred times by loving and accepting the Inner Child, imagining him there as cute, wonderful. And then beat yourself a thousand times for any wrong step … And this will definitely not be an act of love.

What to do?

Try to remember all those moments, if, of course, you remember your childhood - in which you faced rejection. Can you remember the clothes, the furnishings, what you looked like?

Remember all those moments during which you have what is called a "visor falls" or "a veil obscures your eyes" and "carries you" when your real children or partners do something that makes you either lose your temper, or you are hiding so that you are practically inaudible and invisible.

Remember those moments of your already adult life, because of which you still experience unconstructive and incomprehensible shame, guilt, a desire to rewind everything and do, act, say something differently.

And when you remember all this - try to look at this child with someone's loving eyes. I know that it is not always possible to look at my childish part with my own eyes. Because if you look with hatred and rejection for so many years, you may not be able to look with love the first time. And even from the second or tenth. But if we remember that first we look at ourselves through the eyes of our parents, and then we assign this look - loving or not - then in the same way we can look at our Inner Child, to begin with, not with our own eyes. Imagine who it could be and look at you, your childish part with love? A real person who once were or is in your environment, a fictional character, a hero of a fairy tale, a film? Look at yourself lovingly first through the eyes of that person or character. And make a commitment to yourself not to beat yourself up emotionally again for being just a child, small and vulnerable.