Superconnections: Episode 9, Inner Child Work

Welcome to Super Connections. I am your host, Jennifer K. Hill, helping you with the Golden Triangle of Connection, where you will super connect to yourself, others, and your purpose. Join me each week as I will share from some of my favorite tips and tools for super connecting, and I'll bring in some of my favorite friends and thought leaders To help support you on your journey to super connecting to the life of your dreams. Hello friends, and welcome back to episode 9 of the Super Connections Podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer K. Hill, here to take you on a journey of super connecting to yourself, others, and your purpose. Twice a month, I join you here to offer tools, my favorite tools for Super connecting with yourself, others, and your purpose. And the other 2 times a month, I bring in some of my favorite thought leaders and teachers. And so today we're gonna deep dive into one of my favorite tools of all times when it comes into super connecting. You ready, Feri? All right, this is a fun one. So I have about 183 tools that I use on a daily basis with myself or with coaching clients that I work with. And throughout various episodes, I'm going to be sharing some of these tools with you. So today's tool, inner child work, is going to tie into an earlier tool I talked about in episode 1 called HeartFocus Breathing by HeartMath. And we always like to do that before inner child work to put our bodies into a state of what's called coherence. Now, inner child work was only introduced to me about 8 or 9 years ago. And when I first heard about it, I was like, what? Inner what? I had no idea what it is. Before I take you into the steps of how to do inner child work, I'm going to tell you why it's so important and why it's changed my life, and I'm intending it's going to have an incredible impact for you as well. So why do we do inner child work and what is it? First, let's start with what it is. It's a theory that we have a version of ourselves, a little girl, little boy, a little they, a little them, and every one of us has this version of ourself at all different ages, at 2 years old, 5 years old, 10 years old, 19 years old. I've done work with myself at this level at all different ages. So there is no right or wrong age. Now here's my fun theory about this. Years ago, I used to teach a class called How to Deal with Office Jerks. And sit with me on this, 'cause it's a funny one. What if when you're upset or you're fighting with your boss, your colleague, your brother, your best friend, your whomever it might be in your life, your spouse, that you're not actually fighting with an upset 25-year-old, 45-year-old, or 50-some-odd-year-old? You are fighting with an upset 4-year-old, and your 4-year-old is responding to their 4-year-old, which is why we have so much conflict in the world. All right. You can actually find an article I wrote about this on LinkedIn called The Inner Child in the Boardroom if you wanna go deeper on this topic. So what happens is that most of us in life, at some point or another, we went through trauma, hardship, harm. Maybe we were bullied, whatever it is. I'm not here to say that's okay. I'm here to say it happened, and we cannot control the past. The past is what the past was, and our only choice going forward is to choose whether we react or respond to people and situations going forward. Now, when we talk about super connecting to ourself, others, and our purpose, what I mean by that is the more deeply and more super connected you are to yourself, The more your ability to be resilient and to handle any obstacles, any upsets, any potential arguments with anyone in your life. The more that we, number one, do the heart-focused breathing I mentioned in episode 1 to put our nervous system into a physiological state that's measurable by science called coherence, and number two, the more we proactively uproot our triggers, figure out what we need help with and ask for that help and tend to our own needs rather than getting our mess all over other people, the more healthy, happy, productive relationships we're going to have, not only with ourself, but with everyone else around you. In fact, one of my favorite things that I like to share about this work of inner child work is that when you learn to love, accept, cherish yourself, wholly and fully, you become the sexiest person in the world. You are the sexiest potential date. You become the most desirable job seeker when you're interviewing for a job. You become the most successful entrepreneur, whether it's clients who want to work with you or investors who want to invest in you. Love, accept, and cherish yourself, and then the rest will sort itself out. So when I first started learning about this, I had 2 different friends at the same time who started teaching it to me. I was in an unhappy marriage, and I certainly did not love or cherish myself. In fact, it was one of my best girlfriends around that time who said to me something really profound that stuck with me. She said, Jen, I love you, and you deserve to find someone who will cherish you. This is after I decided to leave my ex-husband. And she said, you deserve to find someone who will cherish you, though first you need to learn to cherish yourself. In that moment, it was like a light bulb went on, like that exploding head emoji, right? Cherish myself. What does that even mean? And it was around that time that my business partner was at a home we had up in the mountains with my ex-husband and I, where I was going through this process of, are we going to stay together? Are we not? And my business partner said, Jen, you need to ask for what you need and to be able to hold healthy boundaries with people. I just wrote an article about this the other day on LinkedIn as well, about a rainbow boundary board and how we can And hold healthier boundaries. And in the relationship with my ex-husband, I was replaying the same relationship that my mom and dad had, where sometimes my ex-husband would say things that were unkind, and I certainly didn't always say the kindest things to him either. And I remember one time asking him to speak kindly to me, and he said, you can't tell me how to talk to you. And I realized that I didn't love myself. I didn't know how to hold boundaries or how to even speak kindly to myself. I think That was really a contributing factor to the demise of my 14-year first marriage with my ex-husband, is I didn't know how to speak kindly to myself, let alone how to speak kindly to somebody else in a relationship. So that's why this is one of my favorite techniques and tools for deeply connecting to yourself, which allows you to have more meaningful connections with the people in your life. Does that sound worth it? Does that sound like it'd be worth us spending a few minutes together, how to learn this technique? Okay, cool. So now I'm going to teach you the how-to of this. You can also find @JenniferKHill on my YouTube channel. I have an inner child meditation there that's a longer one, about 11 minutes, that I created for a class I was teaching a couple of years ago, though I'll do an impromptu one here for you right now. So if you're driving and you want to listen to this inner child meditation and participate with us, I would encourage you to pause this episode and come back and listen later. Okay. If you're seated somewhere and you can do this, we're going to do this for about 5 minutes, nothing too long. Though I promise you, when you learn this technology of how to do inner child work, it will be like that exploding head emoji thing. In fact, I'll tell you something funny is here I am, 44 years old, right? And oftentimes 44-year-old Jennifer will not know how I'm feeling. Like 44-year-old Jennifer, I'll think I'm happy on the outside, but every morning I do this inner child work and have done it for about 8 or 9 years now. And it constantly boggles my mind that I'll put my hand on my heart to check in with my inner child, which I'm going to teach you in a moment. And I'll say, how are you doing, sweetheart? And she'll say, I'm sad, or I'm angry, or upset. And the funniest thing is that 44-year-old Jennifer at the conscious level did not realize that I was sad, angry, upset, hungry, whatever it is. But by doing this work and attending to your own needs, You stop trying to take energy from your spouse, from your boss, from your colleague, from your friends, and you give what you need to yourself. And then you can meet your own needs and show up whole and complete for the people in your life. Everybody ready? All right, cool. So again, pause if you're driving right now and come back and finish this later. And otherwise, if you're in a place that you can, I invite you to gently close your eyes. So go ahead and close your eyes. And this first time we're going to do it, I'm going to ask you to envision yourself at any age that you want. Now, if you find this challenging, you can again pause the episode and see if you can find an old photo, text your dad or mom or a family member to see if they have an old photo of you at whatever age you might want to connect to yourself right now, just so you can take a quick look at it before you dive into this exercise. So for those of you who feel ready, I'm going to go ahead and invite us all to shut our eyes now, place our feet firmly on the floor. And I invite you to put your right hand on your heart and your left hand on your abdomen. Now, you can do both of these, or you could do one or the other— left hand on the abdomen, right hand on the heart. Either or both is great. And I invite you, as we did in episode 1 in Heart-Focused Breathing by HeartMath— this is how I always begin my inner child work, is with A minute or two of heart-focused breathing to put your body in that state of coherence that we've talked about. So go ahead and begin to breathe with your eyes shut, a little slower and a little deeper than usual, finding an easy rhythm that's comfortable for you. Imagine that your breath is flowing in and out. Right through the center of your heart or chest, as though your heart is doing the breathing. Try and play with your breath a little bit and see if you can maybe breathe into the count of 5, right through the center of your heart, and out to the count of 5. And again, into the count of 5. And out to the count of 5. Now go ahead and allow your breath to find its own natural rhythm as you continue slow, deep, heart-focused breaths, finding whatever rhythm that works for you as we continue this inner child work. Right now, I want you to imagine a version of yourself at whatever age you want to imagine. I tend to work most often with a 5-year-old version of myself. Whatever age they are is perfect. So just see who naturally comes to the surface. Now, visualizing in your mind's eye that version of yourself at whatever age they are, begin to just notice where they are in proximity to you. Are they close to you? Maybe they're holding your hand or sitting next to you. Are they far away? They might be hiding, and that's okay too. Sometimes they can be shy when you first go to connect with them. Wherever they are, just allow them to be wherever they are. And imagine introducing yourself as you would to a 5 or 10-year-old child and say, hey there. You can repeat after me even if you want. Hi there. It's me. I'm an older version of you. I wanted to say hello and see if we could develop a relationship. And they might say yes and they might say no. And whatever they say is okay. Sometimes I've seen this work where you might need to check in 5, 10, 20, 30 times before they're willing to work with you, because often we've neglected this part of ourselves for so long. There is no good or bad or right or wrong in this. Just allow them to be exactly where they are. And then you want to ask them, Hey there, what do you want to be called? Hi, my love. My inner child loves being called my love or sweetheart or young lady. So go ahead and just find out right now. Say, hey there, buddy, what do you want to be called? Sweetheart? Do you have a particular nickname maybe you were called as a kid? Or maybe there's just a particular name they always wanted to be called but never got called. It's okay, and I'll give you a moment to find out what that is. So now that you have a name to call them by, and wherever they are in proximity to you, just go ahead and give them a little wave and say, hi there. In my case, sweetheart. Hi there, sweetheart. We're going to ask them right now how they're feeling. So go ahead and use whatever name you want to call them by and say, hi, sweetheart. How are you feeling today? Oh, wow. So see if a word or an image comes to you. My little girl just told me that she's feeling a little scared today, and I didn't even know that, and I've done inner child work twice today. So then you can ask clarifying questions and get curious. And just say, okay, sweetheart, I got it. I understand that you're feeling a little bit scared right now. Do you want to tell me about it? Oh, I get it, my love. So depending on what your inner child says, whether they say anything or not that they might need support with, at different points during inner child work, I like to give myself a hug. So because she was just vulnerable and told me she was— what she was scared about, which I'll share with you in a moment, I invite you to give yourself or your own little child a hug. Go ahead and wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself a little squeeze. Scientifically, this has been shown to release endorphins and to help us connect more deeply to ourselves. So I'm giving my little girl a hug right now, and she shared with me she's scared. We're getting ready to travel for a couple weeks, and she hates being away from my husband when we travel because she doesn't feel as protected. So I'm just going to ask her what she needs about that. So step 1 is we're going to ask, how are you feeling? And then ask any clarifying questions. And step 2, I'm going to ask her what she needs. Hey, my love, what do we need, sweetheart? Okay. So you acknowledge, you listen to whatever they need, and then you acknowledge it and ask them if there's anything else. Is there anything else you need, my love, to feel safe? Okay, so she's saying she needs me to protect her while we're traveling and just to know that she's going to be kept safe. And so I'm just making that promise to her. In fact, I'm going to imagine like giving her a little pinky promise right now. I pinky promise I'm going to keep you safe. And so I'm going to go ahead and do that in this moment. And I'm going to ask her, is that enough, sweetheart? Do you trust me to keep you safe? Oh, she's so sweet. She's throwing her arms around me. See whatever your little boy or girl or they or them is telling you right now and just acknowledge them. Acknowledge and be empathetic and compassionate with whatever they need right now in this moment and give yourself another little squeeze. And then go ahead and back to your hand on your heart and your hand on your abdomen and just ask, is there anything else you need? Okay. So she just said she's complete. And I invite you to do that with each one of your little inner children that you're talking to and just ask if there's anything else they need. And then the last step, we're just going to give them a nice tight little squeeze, and we're going to say, "You are loved. You are cherished. You are extraordinary, and I believe in you. I love you. You are amazing." Just tell yourself how beautiful, extraordinary, handsome, amazing, intelligent you are, and give yourself a nice little squeeze whenever you're ready. You can allow a few slow, deep breaths, begin to wiggle your fingers and your toes, and come back into the here and now. So that, my friends, is inner child work. That is one of my favorite tools that I do every day and have done every day for about 8 or 9 years now. Sometimes I do it multiple times a day. And truly, if you can master this practice, even if you just do it for a minute or two every morning, check in with yourself. See how you're feeling, ask if you need anything. A lot of times at the conscious level, we're not aware of what we need, but at the subconscious level, which in some ways is what we're tapping into when we do inner child work, we're able to better ascertain what we need that we might not be aware of in this moment. So thank you. Thank you for playing in the space of working with your inner child with me. Thank you so much for your trust and your listening. And my intention is, as you deepen your relationship with yourself, as you super connect to yourself, that all of your relationships, not just with yourself, but all of your relationships— romantic, professional, friendship— exponentially increase. Because now you've learned the tools to love, cherish, and accept yourself. So the rest is just the cherry on top. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Thank you.