WHO IS YOUR INNER CHILD AND WHY SHOULD YOU CARE 🦄

I earlier wrote about the golden child syndrome and I’m a strong believer that our experiences shape who we are today - our personalities, our strengths, our weaknesses, our fears, our beliefs, our shame that we stow away in the presence of others, our conduct of relationships etc. But sometimes, we may forget these experiences or the impact that these experiences had/have on us.

Cue the inner child - the part of yourself that got frozen in your child/teenage years, still holding on to her beliefs, fears and memories of that time. She still exists today and shows up sometimes in moments you don’t expect. Think of a time you reacted disproportionately to a seemingly small event, for e.g., crying when you forgot to pick up a cake to celebrate your colleague’s birthday at work. Aside from the fact that it might have been a bad week, it’s also likely that your wounded inner child is being activated because she remembers being shamed and rejected by say.. her parent, for being an unhelpful sister when she’d refused to deliver the homework that her sister left at home.

For me, I sometimes tear up when I see children having fun and playing messily. And for the longest time, I’ve been puzzled as to why. Doing the inner child work has made me realised that I perhaps have been made to grow up earlier than my time due to expectations that I have grown to internalise over time. My inner child sometimes feels like she’s been shortchanged of the fun that children deserve to have. Of course she would be sad! In such moments, doing the inner child work looks like closing my eyes and envisioning a child, her posture (is she hugging her knees and feeling subdued, is she stomping her feet in anger?), her emotions and why she’s feeling so, followed by validating her emotions like how her ideal parent would have.

You could do it in ANY WAY that works for you. The gist, really, is about gaining awareness of the child that resides in everyone of us, her needs, and then validating her needs and providing her the reassurance that she is now safe. I see this as a process of reparenting the inner child in us and giving her the safety and assurance she only could dream of in her childhood.

Note: this post is not meant to be therapy or a therapy substitute. If you feel inspired by this post to reconnect with your inner child, do consult a professional who can do this with you! Trust me - that would be the best self-investment.

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