5 steps on how to liberate yourself from past pain through work with your Inner Girl?
Do you feel that you don't know who you are anymore? In today's article, we will cover a topic that is very important in everyone's life and I believe that it is a breakthrough. Namely, how to liberate yourself from past pain through work with your Inner Girl? I will present you with the 5 ways how to do this.
How and where to look for it?
You feel its presence, but you don't fully realize it, you hear it but you don't know who is talking to you. You think it's just a flurry of thoughts that you can't control. You got into an argument with your mother again, and you are angry with your friend, but you don't quite know why. Why am I so frustrated...
If this reminds you of your behavior and feelings then it's time to get to know the person behind it - your inner child.
The inner child... we all have it inside us, but not all of us realize it. Before we delve into the so-called "Little Girl," I want to mention trauma, which has a lot to do with the presence of the inner child.
No matter how small or large, each of us has experienced some kind of trauma in our lives. It could be by having your favorite teddy bear thrown in the trash, being treated badly by your classmates at school, being abandoned by your parents because you had to stay in the hospital, all the way to physical or emotional abuse by your caregivers. There are as many examples as there are many of us. Each of us carries some secret, an event from our childhood or past that we have never told anyone about. Am I wrong?
The inner child we are going to talk about is not literal, it is the metaphorical "Little You" as Susan Anderson writes in her book "The Journey From Abandonment to Healing". It is the part of your psyche that is an innocent child, abandoned, hurt, but also full of wonder and curiosity.
This concept is not new, already well-known to all, Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung wrote about the "Divine Child" the divine child who represents "the pre-conscious, childlike aspect of the collective psyche" (Jung 1959b). And in the 1970s, Lucia Capacchione, who was involved in art therapy, launched a movement to so-called "re-parenting" our inner child.
Working with Inner Girl is an essential element on the path to spiritual awakening. This practice allows the Adult you are now to connect with the "Small" and usually a very wounded version of you.
When this moment of recognizing that we have our Inner Girl within us, we begin to discover the source of many fears, phobias, insecurities, and sabotages in our lives. This is where true healing and liberation happen!
This is an extremely influential technique in the process of "growing". Many well-known authors and psychologists talk about how important it is that instead of just looking at the symptoms of one's pain, and trying to heal them, one should delve into the root of the cause, to reveal when the fear, the phobia began. And this is where working with the inner child helps.
By connecting with oInner girl, we gain access to new information about ourselves about our unhealed wounds and needs that may not have been met when we were children.
Consequently, we become a renewed parent to our Inner Girl and become the parent it never had. Through this process, we satisfy the needs of the inner child and practice self-love so that we can become responsible and happy adults, functional in the adult world.
Susan Anderson's book "The Journey From Abandonment to Healing" helped me gain a deeper understanding of working on the inner child. Anderson shows how working with it is important in healing the trauma of abandonment. She draws attention to the existing within us: Inner Child, Outer Child, Wounded Inner Child, and Integrated Adult. The exercise that Anderson does helps us understand our coping mechanisms and behaviors at a deeper level that we don't always clearly understand. Below, I'll zoom in on these archetypes, as Anderson did, so you can better understand the difference between them.
Inner Child - "Little You" - tender, warm, emotional. Your inner child is the innocent part of you - all about feelings and your primal needs as:
Sensitivity, innocence
Deep feelings
Curiosity, creativity, or being playful
Desires love and recognition
Desires deep relationships and security
Openness
Outer Child - is responsible for bad feelings, suicidal behavior, and self-sabotage. The outer child reacts to the inner child and may try to over-protect the inner child after through action:
Suicidal thoughts
Loss of control over behavior and reactions
Uncontrolled in expressions of anger
Impatient and highly impulsive
Egocentric and focused on satisfying your own needs
Sabotages your inner development, dislikes change
Overly protective of your inner child, pushing love away from you
Hurt Inner Child - this is a reaction to emotional or psychological neglect:
A deep-seated belief that you are worthless
Fear of abandonment and loss of love
Insecurity and low self-esteem
Loss of self for the sake of gaining approval from others
11 typical signs that you may have unhealed wounds from childhood:
1. you have very low self-esteem and a bad body image
2. you have problems with food (a bad, unhealthy relationship with food)
3. you have a sense of shame or regret about something that happened in the past
4. you please people and do not put yourself first
5. you regularly engage in self-destructive behaviors, relationships
6. you feel as if you don't have your sense of identity
7. you have difficulty making decisions (big or small)
8. you are unable to express yourself in front of others
9. you have problems with addiction
10) You are passive-aggressive
11. you have difficulty communicating or confronting others
These are just a few of the many signs of our wounded inner selves.
Now let's look at the Integrated Adult Self - which occurs when a healthy dialogue between the inner child and adult self is formed, we observe this when:
Connecting with the body's feelings and emotions
When she can identify and communicate her emotions
Can recognize needs and send requests without anger or overreaction
Remains true to himself, even in conflict
Respects himself and can set boundaries
Gives the inner child the space to feel great feelings without silencing him, listens to him, and understands him
Exercises self-love and self-care
Well, exactly, but how to connect with our "Little Self"? How to reach the inner child? How to understand it, heal it, and ultimately how create a loving relationship with it?
Below you will find 5 simple practices on how to connect with your Inner Child
1. surrender to the inner journey in his search with the help of meditation. I have found meditation to heal my inner child very helpful. You can find a lot of materials on the Internet in both Polish and English.
Meditation guided in English - https://youtu.be/8779P4rim80
2. journaling and visualization - a conversation between the Big and Little Self - the idea is described in great depth by Susan Anderson in her book "The Journey From Abandonment to Healing" She cites that:
"The Big-Little Dialogue was developed by psychoanalyst Dr. Richard Robertiello and his colleague Grace Kirsten. It is detailed in their groundbreaking book Big You Little You: Separation Therapy. The book discusses the theoretical basis of separation techniques and tips for applying them".Anderson offers us several steps on how to do this:
Step 1: "create a vivid image of your abandoned child, this newly awakened part of yourself. Recall how you were a small child when you were 4 years old. Use the image to recreate an emotional picture. Imagine that you, the adult, can step back and observe that child as if it were a separate being, standing outside of you.
Step 2: "involves visualizing your adult self that you want to become... "To create a mental picture of your higher adult self, you can start by imagining yourself doing something you know you are reasonably good at."
Step 3: "create a dialogue between your inner child (Little Self) and your adult self (Big Self). By creating an image of yourself as a child and a potential adult self, you have created a triangle.
The role of your adult self is to affirm your inner child's feelings and provide him or her with everything he or she needs, such as a sense of belonging, love, being admired and listened to, and freedom from guilt and burden. Your adult self should address its inner self like a good parent. The child's role is to express feelings and seek help. When you begin to see your child as a separate character, it reveals its most basic needs, fears, hopes, and dreams. Many of these things have been buried for a long time. This exercise is designed to draw them out "
An example of dialogue from Susan Anderson's book between the Big Self and the Little Self:
Big Me: What's the matter, Little One?
Little Me: I am sad.
Big Me: Tell me what's bothering you. I want to help you.
Little Me: I think you made a mistake at work yesterday and I'm afraid your boss will be angry with me. I don't like it when someone yells at me. I am afraid.
Big Me: I'm sorry that you are afraid. If my boss yells, I will stay close to you and that will help me deal with it better. I will take care of you no matter what happens. From now on, I will do my best to protect you, so that the boss will not make you feel so bad
Speak to yourself, using daily affirmations, to nurture your inner child. Below you will find some examples:
I am good enough.
I am perfect just the way I am.
I deserve love just like everyone else.
I can make mistakes.
My feelings are important.
My experiences are important.
I am whole and complete.
I am safe.
I am beautiful.
4. Recreate what you loved to do when you were a child - painting, singing, walking barefoot on the grass, lying down and counting the stars in the sky, dancing, or maybe just laughing until you run out of breath? I for one loved dressing up, wearing my mother's clothes, and walking in front of the big mirror like a model. Reach into your memory and recreate yourself from before those years, from before the trauma, that version of yourself from before those unpleasant days. Find yourself.
5. Forgive yourself and those who have wronged you in some way - write a letter to your "Inner Child". Be open and honest, tell yourself all that you would want to hear from a responsible, loving parent. Offer yourself compassion and boundless love.
It's never too late to have a great childhood. The thing is that now you can become your best loving parent - the one you always wanted to have.
