43 - INNER CHILD - CONNECTING TO YOUR INNER CHILD CAN HELP YOU WITH YOUR TRAUMA HEALING JOURNEY

Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darcza, author, psychologist and founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. Have you been hearing about inner child and inner parenting? Let's talk about that today. What is inner child and what do they mean when they talk about you have to nurture or take care of your inner child or you have to talk to your inner child? So a lot of the people that I work with actually get quite surprised in the beginning. I was one of them myself. When I was introduced the concept of inner child, when they were telling me, okay, here's your 8 year old self or your 10 year old self, my first reaction was no, I'm an adult and I don't have different parts of me. This is not like a multiple personality disorder that we're talking about, which a lot of people have a reaction to that because of this. But this is really about you yourself experiences that you had as a child and how they, especially if they were stressful and traumatized, how they sort of get stuck in different time frames and then they show up. When you're an adult and you're dealing with life stressors, the inner child's issues often show up. If you're feeling rejected, if you're feeling abandoned, or if you have some issues with really a lack of nurturance in romantic relationships or in any other relationships as well, you might say to yourself, sometimes things like, oh my God, I acted like a two year old, or I was feeling like a baby, I cried like a toddler. Especially if you say things like this, it's actually, even though yes, you're an adult, the part of you that reacts is the inner child that we're talking about. So why is that important? Why are we talking about that? Because if you try to help yourself talking to yourself as an adult like, okay, just don't be afraid or you'll be fine. You know, that kind of a consoling kind of wording. You might really miss an opportunity to talk to that child of inside that is actually still feeling that hurt or that's still feeling that fear or anger that's really is a leftover from a past experience. So I hope that makes sense because it's very important for you to really recognize that and to start directly talking to that young part. So let's think of an example. A very common one is, is a fear of rejection. So if you are struggling with that fear, the first question that you have to ask is when you notice that fear of rejection or when you feel rejected by someone and you find yourself highly emotionally activated is to ask, how old does that feeling feel like? Does that have a remembrance of an earlier time? Be careful when you do that because if you do it with more severe feelings, it could actually trigger some memories that you may not be ready for. So I would recommend that you maybe start doing that with easier topics that are not that emotionally upsetting for you. So again, going back to that example, let's say you're thinking of rejection and then you have a remembrance of being 10 year old and being rejected by your peers at school. Maybe you are not the most popular person and and they did not want to play with you. So yes, it's easy as an adult to say, oh come on, it's okay, it's just in the past. But that 10 year old inside of you actually really has a completely different need. In fact, my first suggestion is when you get in touch with a younger part of you is to ask how are you feeling? What are you needing and what would you like to say and what would you like to see it happen? So you have a conversation with that inside child and you ask the following questions and really allow a moment of silence to start sort of hearing the answers. So try not to answer them from an adult perspective, meaning okay, it's okay, I'll be fine, that's what it is. But it's like really how it felt as a 10 year old when you were rejected. Actually one of the most effective way to do that is via writing. So I'm a big fan of journaling. You could write that in two ways. Either like okay, me versus the 10 year old or using actually two hands for journal writing, which is called the dominant and the non dominant hand. So let's assume your dominant hand is your right hand. So as an adult you say hey 10 year old, whatever, you might have a nickname at that time or however you want to call hi sweetie or something and so what's happening? What are you feeling? And then you take the pen into your non dominant hand and you write the answer from that H. Don't be surprised if you've never really used your dominant hand. Your handwriting is going to look pretty awful and it will be a slow process, but don't worry about that. It actually really accesses that child part of you much stronger than if you were trying to talk. Especially because with our non dominant hand, when we write we, you'll see that the letters will look like a little kid's letter. And so it could be a very, very powerful dialogue to do between Your dominant hand and non dominant hand to be able to really get in touch with that 10 year old self, see how he or she is feeling. And then after a while allowing the feelings to come forward, then you really want to ask what do you need? Do you need me to comfort you? Do you need to feel accepted? Do you want to have love with others? Do you need to express these feelings to someone else? If it's safe and okay to do so, and if not, how can I help you? So in some way really acknowledging that and allowing those feelings to come forward is actually the opposite of rejection because rejection is minimizing, you don't matter, your feelings don't matter and we don't care. But allowing the expression of feelings and saying what do you need? And in a way I love you will allow the person to really get a sense of being much more accepted. So don't be embarrassed of that process. It might feel a little bit awkward in the beginning if you have a hard time to access really that sense of how did I feel as a 10 year old? You might want to take a picture of of yourself when you were that age and really spend couple of minutes almost meditating, right? Like just really looking at the picture, connecting eye to eye and really just like cultivate feelings of love and compassion for that 10 year old that you might have been judging yourself, which a lot of people do. That's actually really a best way to establish compassion with that part of yourself. As I was saying earlier, it's very easy for people to say oh come on, I was acting like a little kid and grow up, you know, kind of thing. This isn't because you shouldn't grow up doing inner child work doesn't mean you're not an adult or that you're not going to be able to go to work in five minutes and really be a responsible adult or a parent. It's just really about taking care of every feeling, every part of yourself and accepting every part of yourself so that you don't actually live in sort of a broken, fragmented way and that you really just know that you are not perfect, but you like every part of you. Understanding how the feelings and your current behaviors come from different age experiences is a huge part in, in actually really well being and in healing of trauma. So once you do this exercise, you might want to look into really different ages. You might find yourself connecting to your 5 year old or to your teenager or to, you know, so the easy way to do that is actually really looking at your current behaviors and challenges and emotions that really overwhelm you and maybe even do a list. So let's say you have, you get angry a lot, you feel rejected, you are, let's say you want to lie to someone, you want to shut down. So you might just sort of tag all these behaviors and feelings, pair them up with a certain age and then I would recommend you go one by one into different ages and make a connection with each of them. You could almost have, have a different nickname for different part. Like my 15 year old self is called such and such. My 10 year old is, you know, that kind of a thing and asking each part what they need, what they like. How does it work in day to day when you're working and in adult relationship? Like are you, you know, checking in with them all the time even? I mean, you could start with writing first, but then I would recommend that you check in just as you are day to day, just sort of functioning. Maybe take one minute and go, hey, five year old, I know this is a topic that usually triggers you, how you doing today? Just getting that question across from inside will make that part of you feel definitely validated and loved. So I actually have a lot of ideas, so I'm trying to organize it for you, for you guys as you're listening. Because this is a topic that it's, I'm very passionate about. I've done a lot of work on myself. I've really helped a lot of people doing different, you know, inner child work because without that, we're always really missing a sense of completion inside. Another good way to connect with your inner child is actually through fun activities. Think of the things that you really like to do when you were, you were a child. Like, I love to jump rope. So whenever I jump rope I can feel that like I'm doing that as an adult. But my inner child inside is all happy, you know, jumping and so find activities, in fact that could be really an easy way to start connecting with your inner child. If you find that negative emotions are too activating for you, you should probably start with fun, fun activities first because this is more of an honoring thing that you can do for your inner child. But when you do the activity, really feel the child inside. So if you're jumping rope or you're dancing or, or whatever, the, the childhood fun thing that you like to do, playing, play dohs. Just make sure that you're not only playing with that as an adult, but really get in touch with that child inside. See if you can even feel it in your body sometimes when we get really happy or giddy like that, you could feel it in your stomach like butterflies in a positive way. Or your heart might be even beating faster. So this will be an easy way to get in. Please be careful. As I always say, do not retrigger your past traumas. I tend to be very cautious about trauma feelings coming forward. You might need professional help if you have a really difficult time to do this activity. So at Reconnect, we are actually specialized in helping you with the childhood traumas and would be more than happy to help you with the inner child work as well. If you have comments and questions, please write them below. I'm always happy to address them directly or in my next videos. And please remember, trauma equals disconnect and healing equals reconnect. Stay connected. Sam.