Each of us has a child within, a part of us that is sensitive, vulnerable, playful, sweet, innocent, giggly, squirmy, creative, lovable, curious, smiling, and filled with wonder. Even if you don't allow yourself to express this part, your inner child is still there— wanting and needing attention, recognition, acceptance, love, nurturance, and joy.
How do you experience joy? Do you allow yourself to get excited? Feel silly? Laugh? Do you ever take your shoes off and wiggle your toes in the water? Blow bubbles with bubble gum? Buy yourself balloons? Swing on a swing? Slide down a slide? Run through the sprinkler? Roast marshmallows on a stick over the fire? Go to an amusement park and allow yourself to see through your inner child's wondering eyes? When was the last time you flew kites or a balsawood airplane? Or colored a picture with crayons? It doesn't matter what age you are today. The child within is still there. It needs to be recognized in order for you to feel whole and complete.
Many of us didn't get our needs met as children. We were never acknowledged for who we were. Rather, we were told who we were supposed to be. Some of us were told not to be playful, imaginative, creative, curious, giggly, or wondering. Others lost their innocence through abuse or neglect. When our childhood needs for love, nurturing, and acceptance aren't met, we grow up feeling as if there is something wrong with us. We feel lopsided. Empty. Full of holes, like Swiss cheese.
Developing a relationship with your inner child is very important for your healing process. In doing so, you will learn about yourself and will feel much more complete and whole. Whether you acknowledge your inner child or not, the fact remains that it continues to exist, influencing how you feel and what you do in your everyday life.
John Bradshaw, author of the best-selling books Bradshaw On:The Family and Healing the Shame That Binds You, stated in New Realities magazine (July/August 1990): “The neglected wounded inner child is the major source of human misery,” and that this is “the major cause of addictions and addictive behavior. When our inner child is wounded, we feel empty and depressed. Life has a sense of unreality about it; we are there, but we are not in it. This emptiness leads to loneliness. Because we are never who we really are, we are never truly present.”
If your inner child was wounded, not getting love or positive recognition, there's a very good chance that this same inner child is still very needy today. This neediness will affect your relationships with nearly everyone around you. Maybe the only time you were ever recognized as a child was when you were playing a trick on someone or hurting someone in a kidding way. Maybe you were noticed by getting yelled at or even punished, but at least you were noticed! As an adult, you may still be getting attention in similar ways. The problem is that people can't trust you. They're always on their guard because your inner child doesn't know how to ask for attention or affection in ways that are mutually satisfying.
Perhaps as a child, you were never allowed to talk about your feelings. Twenty-five years later, your boss calls you into her office to tell you about a mistake you made. Your inner child takes over. “Nobody appreciates me! Everyone hates me,” it cries. You feel so full of rage that you could easily do something self-destructive— quit your job, or get drunk, or get into your car and drive it off the road. These are the kinds of self-abusive acts that will continue to occur until you are able to give your inner child the love and attention it needs.
You may have been sexually abused as a child and kept it all inside, not knowing how to talk about it or not having anyone you could trust to share what you were feeling. This made you feel powerless and confused. As an adult, you may act out these feelings by being very aggressive or promiscuous, desperately trying to feel sexually powerful. The inner child, in an effort to get back at the perpetrator for being made to feel so full of shame, now uses its sexuality to hurt everyone possible.
Maybe as you were growing up you felt no sense of protection from those around you. The only way you felt safe was by surrounding yourself with layers and layers of protection. You developed a weight problem. And now, no matter how many diets you try or how much weight you lose, that weight comes right back. It will continue to do so until your inner child can feel safe.
Perhaps when you were small, no one listened to you. So you learned to make your stories more interesting by lying or exaggerating. As an adult, you are still lying and exaggerating your stories in order to get people to listen to you. The problem is that eventually people will catch onto your lies and won't listen to you anyway!
Maybe when you were young, you only received physical affection when you were sick. That same effort to get affection can carry over into adulthood, this time becoming the source of illnesses that are life-threatening.
Are you wondering how to recognize the cries of your own inner child? My therapist gave me an excellent suggestion for doing this. Whenever you are in a situation that has brought up feelings such as fear, anger, rage, sadness, confusion, despair, hopelessness, or terror, ask yourself how old you feel. That's right! How old do you feel at the time you are experiencing these emotions? You may feel three, six, or twelve years old, or you may even feel as if you are an infant who can't speak and is totally dependent on others. This is very helpful in knowing if you're reacting from the child's or the adult's feelings.
In my own effort to understand more about how to feel, know, and embrace the inner child, I discovered Lucia Capacchione's book, Recovery of Your Inner Child, which helped me learn to access my inner child in a wonderfully simple way. For those of you who are intellectual, these exercises may be difficult, but I ask you to open your mind to these ideas.
Capacchione suggests having a dialogue with your inner child. First take yourself somewhere that children like to go and begin the dialogue by letting the child within draw a picture, similar to the ones you may have drawn in kindergarten. After your inner child has drawn a picture, start dialoguing by writing a question to it with your dominant hand. For instance, ask your inner child, “How are you today?” Let the child respond by writing with your nondominant hand. Here is an example of what my inner child wrote:
Capacchione warns that we all have within us a critical parent who may try to sabotage this experience. Your critical or shaming parent may say things like:
“Hurry up, you're too slow!”
“Your penmanship is messy.”
“That's a stupid thing to say.”
“You're dumb.”
“Your opinion is stupid.”
“I have more important things to do than listen to you.”
“I'm in a hurry, let's go.”
“You're just a child, what do you know?”
Listen to your inner parent with the realization that the way it parents your inner child reveals something to you about how you were parented as a child. Without feeling that you have to act on what this inner parent is saying, simply take note of what it is saying. Go beyond this critical voice by paying attention to your inner child's own needs for affection and recognition; right now, these are more important than meeting the needs of the inner parent.
Remember that it's important to allow the child to come out at its own pace. When we meet a small child, we are gentle in our conversation with him. We don't push the child or force him to have a relationship with us. By the tone of our voice and mannerisms, we are trying to convey that he is cared for and safe. We need to treat our own inner child in the same way.
Tell your inner child that you recognize that it may not have felt protected but that now, as an adult, you will provide that protection. You will create a safe environment. The inner child needs to feel safe in order to talk with you about its feelings. It is up to you, as the adult, to give that child the safety, the protection, the reassurance, the attention, the acknowledgment that it (you) did not get earlier. Your inner child deserves to have all of these!
If you are wondering how you are going to do this, think about any small children you may know right now. If any of these children came to you needing to feel safe, loved, and acknowledged, how would you provide that support? You are going to have to learn how to do the same for yourself.
I would like to suggest that you buy some big crayons or markers that will help you and your inner child dialogue in your journal. Once I began dialoguing with my inner child, we went on for pages and pages!
If you have children of your own, don't use their tablets or crayons. Get a set for your own inner child! I took myself to a park that I went to as a child. I had no specific memories, but I felt childlike sitting in a park on a blanket. I immediately began drawing trees. The feeling I had was familiar, even though I hadn't experienced it for a long time. It was an excited feeling. My mind filled with ideas for my picture: the sun, the sky, a house. My imagination overtook my intellect. I switched crayons two or three times. It was fun.
Of course, my critical parent was there saying, “Oh, this is ridiculous. I should be home cleaning the house or doing laundry.” I jotted down these critical comments on a separate piece of paper (with my dominant hand to save time) and continued on with my picture.
Suddenly, I became bored with my picture and wanted to do something else. I grabbed a pen with my dominant hand and wrote out a question to my inner child.
Adult: Are you really there?
My nondominant hand grabbed a blue crayon and said, Yes!
Adult: How are you today?
Inner Child: Happy.
Adult: Why are you happy?
Inner Child: Because we're at the park.
Adult: How old are you?
Inner Child: Four.
I asked my inner child simple questions about its feelings on different topics. Some of its replies were a single word. Others were more elaborate. Capacchione suggests asking the inner child what it would like to be called. Mine came up with “Little Echo,” a name my dad still calls me at times today.
When you are ready to finish a dialogue with your inner child, tell it that you want to become more aware of it throughout your daily life. Ask for a code, a way to let you (the adult) know that it wants or needs to talk with you. Little children love codes, remember? Mine said it would think of the color red. This has worked very well. Whenever I hear or sense an inner nudging of red, red, red, I grab my tablet and ask my inner child, “What's up?” It always has something to say.
As you come to the end of this chapter and read the journal exercises I've included there, you may think at first that they are pretty dumb! But as silly as these exercises may seem, they are wonderfully freeing.
By doing these exercises, you will meet a very important person in your life: your own inner child from your past, the child that still exists within you. Allow yourself to feel excited about this wonderful new relationship. This child is brimming over with love for your adult self.
Love this inner child. You're the adult now. You can give your inner child everything it ever wanted or needed—love, recognition, acceptance, someone to listen to it. Acknowledging this inner child, nurturing this relationship, can fill up those empty spaces inside. You will feel more complete. The unmet needs of your inner child will no longer control your life. You will feel in control of yourself and will be able to choose the way you want to live. You won't continually embarrass yourself with actions that you don't understand.
If you have not previously looked at the wounds of your inner child, it may not be very happy when you first make contact. Your inner child may feel very hurt, neglected, mistrustful, sad, alone, ashamed, or unwanted. Your child may want to tell you how lonely it has been or how hard it was when you were little. Allow the child to say anything that it needs or wants to say. Give it all the time and space it needs.
This inner child is not separate from you. This child is an important part of you!
As you start this work with your inner child, you may want to consider keeping a box of paper, crayons, and pencils set aside for your inner-child work. This would be in addition to the journal you will be keeping. Let your inner child help you choose these materials, making certain there is enough so that it can fill up many pages with drawings or dialogue.
Think about the way small children draw and write. With your nondominant hand you will do the same, and if you only have your journal available for this you may feel somewhat reluctant to fill as many pages as you might want to do.
Exercise 1
Draw a Picture
On a separate sheet of paper, or in your journal, ask your inner child to draw a picture. Use your nondominant hand to express your inner child. Let the child pick out whatever color crayon it wants.
If your inner child is angry, it may draw an unhappy or angry picture, a mean or scary picture. Assure your inner child that it is okay to express itself in any way it chooses.
Exercise 2
Dialogue with Your Inner Child
After you are done drawing a picture, ask your inner child any questions that you would like. You can write these questions out with your dominant hand. Then turn the pen or crayon over to your nondominant hand so that your inner child can write the answers.
Exercise 3
What Is Your Inner Child's Name?
Ask your inner child what it would like to be called. The name your inner child comes up with may surprise you, or it may be a name you were called when you were a child.
With your nondominant hand, have your inner child record this name in your journal.
Exercise 4
Record Messages from Your Critical Parent
Remember to watch for your critical parent. When you hear or feel its critical messages, make a mental note of them. Then, using your dominant hand, record them in your journal.
Exercise 5
Your Inner Child's Secret Code
With your dominant hand, ask your inner child for a code that will let you know when it wants to communicate with you. Then let your inner child choose a pen, pencil, or crayon to record its code in your journal.
As you come to the end of a session with your inner child, thank it for its picture and for sharing its feelings. Assure the child that you will continue to listen to it and that its opinion is very important to you. End your conversation in whatever way seems most comfortable to you.