HEALING THE INNER CHILD

Even though our conscious mind knows we should not behave or react in a certain way to certain people or situations, we often do it anyway! We know we shouldn’t turn red in the face and sweat when we have to talk to our boss, we know we shouldn’t procrastinate getting our assignment done and we know we shouldn’t keep attracting the same kind of inappropriate partners, but we don’t seem to have any control over our actions. The truth is that in these examples it is not the adult self running the show, but a number of our wounded child selves that keep replaying the same programming set into the subconscious mind at the time of the original traumatic event. For instance, the person who gets extremely nervous around “authority” figures is often just replaying how they acted in front of their school teacher; the procrastinator will often be scared to start something from childhood fear of his effort being ridiculed by teachers or students; and the person who keeps attracting the wrong kind of partner may have a child part still desperately seeking a good relationship with the opposite sex parent who shares similarities with the unsuitable partners.

Each of us has many wounded inner child parts of different ages that still continue to run our behaviours and beliefs, even as adults. Commonly when these inner child parts are accessed during hypnotic regression they are fearful, angry, sad or feel abandoned. Without hypnosis you will probably also be able to recall clear memories from your childhood when you felt afraid, sad, alone, angry or other negative emotions.

In order to resolve these hurting inner child parts you need to help them take back their power from any “persecutor” figures and/or to find love. This can be done in a number of ways. Try to vividly imagine/revivify the traumatic scene with your traumatised child part and bring into the scene your adult self for comfort and strength. (Obviously if the trauma has been extreme, such as childhood sexual abuse, do not try to do this on your own, but seek professional help.) Get the adult self to cuddle and talk to the child part and tell her that she knows her better than anyone else and loves her completely. Feel that child part starting to relax a little as she feels safer. Allow the child part to draw upon the adult strengths and resources of the adult part until she is empowered enough to confront her “persecutor”, if there is one. The child part should then tell the persecuting person, often a parent or teacher, how his actions or words have made the child feel and how much it has hurt her. Often the “persecutor” will not realize the harm he has caused and will readily apologise, otherwise get the child to demand an apology and settle for nothing less. If the child part accepts the apology, get the child to reinforce to the persecutor that he must never treat her that way again and order the persecutor to leave or imagine shrinking that person down to the size of an ant, so there is no longer any threat.

With the danger now gone, allow the adult self and the inner child part to give each other a really big hug and feel the unconditional love flowing heart to heart, then allow the child part to flow into the heart of the adult where she is free to be a happy, carefree child. Ask the inner child part, now safely nestled in the adult heart, if there is anything else she still needs in order to feel safe, loved and protected. If anything else is required, call upon an adult part within (ego state) displaying those qualities that would be happy to support the child part from this point forwards. Usually there will be ego states like Nurturer, Courage, Strength and Protector that are happy to assist. Keep checking back with the inner child part until she doesn’t require anything else to feel safe, loved and happy and therefore she can release her previous behaviour pattern that had been adversely affecting the adult. You will feel a warm glow in your heart from the contented child. Remember to talk to your inner child often and reassure her of just how much you love her and how she need never try and protect you again. From this point onwards you are here to protect her and she is free to be a carefree child.

Often your collection of inner children just need to get out and play and have fun and be joyous. How often have you resented having to go to work on a beautiful sunny day or needing to get the housework done when you would much rather be out having some laughs with friends? Does that swing in the playground you are driving past look really tempting? Often we just get so caught up in the busy-ness of our adult lives that we suffer from “deferred happiness syndrome” when we put all our “should do’s” on the top of our priority list and we keep putting off the fun things to some point in the future that we never quite get to. Stop! What fun thing are you going to do within the next 6 hours today? Make sure this fun thing becomes your number one priority!

Our inner child parts tend to yell at us in frustration, sadness, loneliness or depression when we constantly ignore their needs to be let out for playtime on a daily basis. Is it any wonder so many busy adults feel so stressed, burnt-out and depressed when they do not factor regular playtime into their lives? Make sure you are not one of them……

I had an interesting Stop Smoking client that even after a couple of hypnotherapy sessions with me could not give up those last few cigarettes. We isolated the problem part, an inner child part that wanted to play and was using the remnant smoking behaviour to get my client’s attention! As soon as the client reassured her inner child she would make a point of playing more with her in certain ways they both agreed upon, my client stopped smoking completely without any further thoughts or cravings for cigarettes! Never underestimate the power of our wounded inner child parts in controlling our adult behaviour.