A Mans Guide To Inner Child Work in Brief

All right, team, welcome back to the mantalk Show. Connor Beaton here. And today, this is actually a video that so many of you requested. Because I mentioned it in a previous video about disorganized attachment. I'm going to be doing a man's guide to inner child work. What actually is that? Now, for the purpose of today's conversation, I'm going to be talking and referring to this as fathering yourself, fathering the boy that exists inside of you. And. And there's a great quote by Friedrich Nietzsche who said that what is hidden in the father is revealed in the son. What's hidden in the father is revealed in the son. And that quote is going to be important for some of the stuff that we're going to talk about later on. But one of the things I'll just say right here is that it's very common that the thing or the things that your father lacked are the things that the boy in you is actually needing for you as a man to contribute and give to him. So I'm going to say that again, because it might sound a little like, what? But I want you to write this down and give you a question in a second. The boy in you, the things that your father lacked are the things that the boy in you, the younger version of you, that younger subconscious part of you, is looking for from you. Okay? This is why inner child work is important. What happens in relational conflict, Right? So, for example, my good friend and mentor, Dewey Freeman, has this great saying, we're wounded in relationship. We have to heal in relationship. What that means is that in your adult relationships, the conflicts, the challenges that you go through in your marriage, in your relationship with your girlfriend or your boyfriend, those challenges are oftentimes, not often, always, but oftentimes those challenges are connected to a pain, an obstacle, a hurt that you felt early on in life, in one of your early attachments as a child, your relationship to your mom, your relationship to your dad. So another example on this front, if you keep getting into arguments with your partner and you think that they're, you know, they're too harsh, they're too critical, uh, and then you really start to sit with it. And you were a boy who was criticized a lot by his mom, you probably have a high level of sensitivity to that. And maybe as a boy, you never felt like you could stand up to her. And so you didn't develop the boundary and the skill to be able to stand up to your mom. And how that shows up in your adult relationships is you still don't stand up to your partner and you develop a ton of resentment towards them and. And you have a high level of sensitivity towards their disappointment, their frustrations, if, you know, if they want anything done differently, their criticisms, there's just a high level of sensitivity to that. So being able to develop the skill of standing up to them, setting a boundary, being able to receive disappointment sometimes from your partner, which is absolutely necessary in relationships, is going to help you parent that younger self that that comes online. Because a lot of the times, and this is the last thing I'll say about this part, and I'll move into, you know, what do we actually do? A lot of the times you regress developmentally when you get into conflict with your partner. This is a picture that I have on my desk, and this is a picture of me as a boy sitting in a bucket having a bath on the balcony after digging in the dirt endlessly. So what I want you to do is to find an ideal photo of your younger self and a photo that represents the deepest part of your younger self that you loved. So for me, I love this picture because I look so happy, I look free. There's innocence there. You know, it's very, very playful. I'm like sitting in a bucket. I got a band aid on my knee. So I want you to go and find and just connect to a picture of your younger self. So you might need to connect with your parents and, you know, get some photos and whatnot, but find a photo that really resonates with the highest version of your younger self. Or the is sort of embodies the. The most beautiful or innocent or playful or loving or kind version of your younger self. Where when you look at that picture, you're like, oh, that kid was. Wasn't effed up, you know, like he wasn't so upset. And just try and find a photo that you can connect with. And maybe it's not so much about, you know, that kid wasn't effed up, but that kid, you know, was in a good space. And I really love and can connect to that child. So find a photo. And that's step number one. The next thing is about really re parenting. Now, you've probably heard this word a lot. I like to call it fathering yourself, right? Fathering yourself that you are fathering that younger boy inside of you that needed attention, that needed validation, that needed whatever it was that you needed growing up. So fathering yourself really is about identifying what that younger version of you needed and then being able to create a system and a strategy to support that younger self. Now, some of this is going to be very clear and direct, and some of it's going to be much more vague and ambiguous. So, for example, if what your younger self needed in.