Post by M~mosy on Aug 25, 2020 17:25:17 GMT
What to do once your inner child has been triggered
• Acknowledge how you're feeling.
• Take a step back and breathe through the trigger.
• Begin to witness your inner child and how they're feeling in that moment.
Once you're back to a place of witnessing how your inner child is feeling, begin to connect with them. Let them know that you're there for them, that you're protecting them, and that you hear and see them.
• Observe how they're acting.
• Watch their patterns.
• For the moment, allow them to release what's inside of them (this way you will know what to address).
• Listen to their words.
• Hold space for them.
By holding space for them, you're validating that you see them. Once you're able to make this connection with your child, it's important that you, as the adult, give yourself the validation and the acknowledgement for a job well done. It's not always easy to catch ourselves before we slip into our inner child. No one ever said that kids came with an instruction manual. This is true of our own inner child and adult as well.
What Happens When...
You're with other people (e.g., coworkers, family, friends) and you find yourself starting to come from your inner child because you were triggered?
• Stop.
• Listen to the "little you" voice inside your head.
• Excuse yourself from the room if need be and if possible.
• Acknowledge that you hear your inner child.
• Once you've acknowledged and validated that you sense them being upset, take a moment to connect with yourself.
• Have a brief conversation letting your child know you see them, you hear them, and that there's no need for them to be in this situation at all. That you, the adult, will handle it. They can go back to playing and doing what they were doing before. By reassuring they are safe from your adult self, this allows you to walk back into the situation with confidence that you can handle anything that happens now.
By doing this, your adult is taking responsibility, therefore releasing your inner child to return to their appropriate child place. What If Your Child Won't Allow Your Adult In Once They're Triggered?
Our inner child doesn't make the rules. There's no inner child "not letting the adult in" situation. If your adult is present and aware, this won't happen. If it feels like this is happening, it's a red flag for your adult to step up because they're checked out. Your adult is not doing their job and has lost control of the situation.
What Do You Do When You Can't Seem To Find Your Balance
You let the child have the moment. If it's that important to them to be in that space, allow them to be there and don't resist your emotions. Hold space for yourself as you move through what you need to move through. Sometimes being within a difficult space can propel you further into your healing.
When your child is done reacting, have a moment with them. Uncover what was so important to them that they needed to get it out. They may have valid points. As with all setbacks, there are opportunities to learn for next time.
By blocking our inner child from feeling what there're feeling, we're negating their feelings and therefore their worth. Sometimes by allowing our inner child to have the tantrum they need to have, we end up learning more about ourselves as an adult. That is taking adult responsibility.
It becomes unbalanced if you never exchange dialogue with your child and never acknowledge they were hurt. By suppressing our emotions all the time, we end up doing more harm than good. Isn't that what happened to your child in the first place?
The Spiral Effect of Loving Our Child:
• We will never be 100% perfect.
• We will never catch ourselves 100% of the time.
• We will never always be able to come from forgiveness with everything, all the time.
Part of the human makeup is emotion and reactions. Those are the things that also keep us safe, grounded, and human. The point is learning new tools so that when we're triggered we can move things faster.
When we have challenges in life, we learn and we grow. If life was easy and we understood everything, we would have no reason to exist as we do. Emotions and reactions are beautiful. It's learning to use what emotion and when in a healthy way.
The only way to remember what we innately have built into us is to go through the different situations we need to go through to evolve. We evolve when we heal. We heal when we go through situations that are difficult for us. When we heal ourselves, we're able to love and forgive others, hence sending love to them. That is the spiral of love and healing.
Will This Fix All of Your Triggers?
Often when we read books, attend seminars, and take online courses, we believe that once they're completed, we'll be "fixed." You're not broken to fix. You're a living, breathing creature having experiences that enable to you grow. Healing is in a spiral. You heal one level, and then move down to the next one. As you move through, you learn to accept where you are. You learn to let go. You learn to accept others for where they were, and are, in their journeys.
When one level is healed, you slowly move down to the next one. You'll never get to the bottom of a spiral, as there's no bottom. There's only a continuum of opportunities to evolve. As we evolve, we give permission to others to evolve. As you did, they have a choice. It's an endless abyss full of opportunities to experience, remember, and therefore to heal. Why is there no end? If there was an end there would be no existence.
There are infinite possibilities, layers, healings, and opportunities to remember the love and healing that we are capable of. We're a sum of everything we've ever been. We're the good, the bad, the tall, the short, the rich, the poor, the black, the white, and everything in between. By healing one layer of this infinite abyss of life, we're healing all the other layers as well. Every one of these things that you do, may take you one step closer to understanding, therefore remembering, what's needed for your path of healing.
When we're working with our inner child and our adult, we're working within only two parts of us. By healing these two parts, we're healing all the other infinite parts of who we are as well. Don't worry about all the other parts. Only focus on what you can control, and focus on right now. By focusing only on this, you're automatically healing all the other parts of you as well.
Remember, with everything in life, balance is the key to everything. It's never for your child to not feel, or never get triggered; it's for you to learn to grow together, nurturing and loving all the different aspects of who you are.
By learning to accept and have compassion for all parts of yourself, you learn self-love and nurturing for others. Then it becomes easier to send love and compassion to those that have triggered our child in the first place.
Homework:
Here is a simple guided meditation you can do anytime and anywhere introducing you to your child:
• Get quiet. Sit, or lay comfortably, and breathe deeply.
• Inhale through your nose, into your belly, for a count of five. Hold for a count of five.
• Slowly blow out, and away from you, for a count of five.
• Do that a few more times until you feel yourself begin to shift and feel more settled into your body.
Once you're relaxed and present, go to your child and look in their eyes. Imagine seeing them in their third-dimensional little bodies:
• What do they look like?
• What do they smell like?
• What do they feel like?
• What are they wearing?
• What do they sound like?
• Are they clean and tidy?
• Are they dirty from playing outside?
Once you start observing them, I want you to lean in a little closer. When you're comfortable in front of them, I want you to get on a knee and reach out your hands to them. Let them come to you. Allow your hands to be an offering of solidarity and love. Allow them the same space for observing you. Allow them to look at you, feel you, and study you. With your hands reached out in front of you, invite them to take your hands when they're ready. Allow them the time to do this. Children are very trusting and unconditional, yet at times can be unsure. Once they begin to recognize you, they'll forever be a conscious part of you.
Remember, they've not seen you in a long time. You may look older, tougher, wiser, scarier, stronger, bigger, or rougher then they remember themselves to be. That's ok. These are not judgments--these are observations. Observations are the key to them recognizing you and trusting you.
Many children are mad, angry, and distrusting. Remember, as with all children, it takes time and patience for them to trust you again. Bonds have been broken, and you have grown up and left them. You've been away from them for some time. Assimilating back into your energy will take time. Do not judge them for they're not judging you. They're studying you. This is a time of observation, growth, and coming together. It's not until you come together like this that your child will trust you to have their back and to take care of them. Patience is the key.
As you continue to reacquaint yourselves with each other, don't set a time limit. Maybe it will happen today, maybe they need another day. Invite them back to the same place, and the same time tomorrow, and remind them that you'll be there waiting for them whenever they're ready.
Another tip is to explain to them that you understand they may not be ready today, but they can just clap their hands, whistle, or maybe you can have a supersecret code word. Use this so they know when they call you, you'll be there for them right away.
This is about building trust. You can't bridge any relationship if the foundation is not built on trust and respect.
As you begin to get reacquainted, remind your child that you will always be there for them whenever they need you. As you wrap up this observational time together, slowly stand up and tell them it is okay to go back to whatever they were doing: playing, drawing, climbing a tree. Tell them that you love to watch them and maybe you can play with them sometime soon. Explain to them that just because you're As you begin to get reacquainted, remind your child that you will always be there for leaving this meeting, it doesn't mean that you are gone. Remind them of their special calling card just between the two of you. If you want, give them a hug or a fist bump or a little nod goodbye. Trust yourself that you know what they need, and you respect that within them.
When you're ready, open your eyes, look around, and just be where you are now. There's no hurry to get up. There's nowhere to be. Just be where you are now. When you're ready, breathe in deeply through your nose, and blow it all out through your mouth slowly and gently. Do this until you are ready to open your eyes.
Take a moment before standing up. Brush yourself off and smile. You just crossed the bridge to yourself.
Breathe
Discovering What Age You Were When Your Child Started to Feel a Certain Way
• Why is your age important? It's only important because it gives you a rough estimate and visual for you to work with. It also helps your adult to better understand why your child is feeling the way they feel. It allows your adult to say, "Oh, now that makes sense as to why I feel _______________." By giving ourselves milestones, we are better able to associate and connect with that part of our lives, therefore ourselves.
• Once your inner child is hurt, it's often hard for them to trust again. Although they're very loving and unconditional, a wound is a wound. We carry those wounds with us throughout our lives. We carry them because it was often the first time we felt different than we did the day before.
• As children, we come into the world with an innocent, playful, and curious spirt. We're loving, open, and kind. We learn about ourselves, and others, by observing our surroundings and our world. No matter how wonderful your life may have been, there will always be something that caused that wound.
• All seven billion of us carry a wound of some sort or another; this is part of life. The things that hurt us the most are often the very same things that help us learn the most. As children, we look at things as good and bad. As adults, we're able to understand that maybe it's not good or bad; it was, or just is, different. Yes, people do bad things, and yes, bad things can happen, but we don't have to let those things define all of our experiences throughout are entire lifetimes. As children, the things we witness and feel in the world around us are how we shape our paradigms for the future. As adults, we're able to take our healing into our own hands and choose to release what no longer serves us.
• All of us have wounds. They are a part of life. If you're reading this then you have an inner child wound of some sort that needs to be connected to and healed. No matter how wonderful your parents were, and no matter if you are or were the world's best parent, there will be something we take away from situations that we observed, and our own children will take away from what they observe that will shape their reactions and experiences in their world. Many of us don't remember our childhoods, let alone remember painful times. What we do remember is the first time we remember feeling a certain way.
• It's not always easy to do this work, but it's important to have a rough estimate of your age when you first felt the pain. Was it 3, was it 4, maybe you were 5 or 6? You don't need to have the exact age, but an estimate of that time is important so that you have a visual of the energy you're connecting with.
• The homework assignment for this lesson will help you understand more of when your wounds first started. These are some important things you can ask yourself as you go into this part of yourself. Remember, take down notes on how old you were when certain things happened in your life. If you don't remember, maybe you can ask a family member and family friend when certain things happened. By being your own detective, you start the process of self-discovery and healing.
• Homework:
• By exploring the sensations, you had in the house and family you grew up in, you're able to get a more complete picture of what it looked like.
• Often, we just try to remember memories without looking at all the layers that made up those memories. Our senses are an amazing tool that help us to remember certain memories and times in our lives that we might have forgotten. For some people, it's too painful to go back. Know that even if it's painful and your inner child is afraid of being triggered, remind your inner child that they are safe now.
• Write below:
• "Today, I am _______ years old.
• I live at this address ________________________________
I am in control of my own life. I am safe now and nobody can hurt me." By telling yourself this, you're telling your inner child that they are safe, and you have them protected. Remember, it's your inner child that needs to know they are safe, not your adult. Your adult already knows they're safe. If you're feeling unsafe, that's a red flag that your child needs nurturing. This is a great exercise, within an exercise, to recognize the difference between your adult and inner child energy.
Start taking notes.
Think back to when you were little:
• What did your house sound like?
• How did the people talk to each other in your house?
• What were they saying to each other?
• How did they say it?
• Did it feel safe?
• What did it smell like?
• Do you remember what the kitchen looked like?
• What about your room?
• Were you the oldest or the youngest?
• Maybe you were in the middle?
• Did your mum work?
• Did you like your house?
• What did your room feel like to you?
• Maybe you felt a change when a sibling was born?
• Maybe you felt like you were not being heard?
• Maybe you felt like you were not being seen?
• Maybe the house you grew up in was loud?
• Maybe you had a parent (s) who suffered from an addiction of some sort?
• Maybe you remember when there was a loss in your life of a loved one or pet?
As you start to take notes, and go into this space within yourself, think about the age you might have been when you first started to notice a shift in what you started to witness. Remember in a detached place and only as a witness. No matter what age you were, you were still only witnessing. You took those experiences and built your narrative around what you saw.
Examples of how to write this story:
I was __________years old when things started to look different to me.
At __________________ years old, I started to internalize the world as _________________________.
When I was __________ years old, I started to feel_________________________ and I didn't understand it.
When I was __________________________ everything changed because of _____________________.
I started to feel ___________________about _______________________ and this ___________________me.
I can see now how when __________________________happened, it set the stage for my story around _________________________. Now that I know __________________________, I can accept it and let it go because I know now ________________________________ and that makes me feel ___________________________. I also know that I reacted _________________because I was ______________________ and I didn't know what else to do. Now that my child knows they are safe and I will take care of ___________________________ they don't have to be _____________________and they can go back to being _______________________. As the adult, I will _____________________________________.
Examples of how to write this story:
I was __________years old when things started to look different to me.
At __________________ years old, I started to internalize the world as _________________________.
When I was __________ years old, I started to feel_________________________ and I didn't understand it.
When I was __________________________ everything changed because of _____________________.
I started to feel ___________________about _______________________ and this ___________________me.
I can see now how when __________________________happened, it set the stage for my story around _________________________. Now that I know __________________________, I can accept it and let it go because I know now ________________________________ and that makes me feel ___________________________. I also know that I reacted _________________because I was ______________________ and I didn't know what else to do. Now that my child knows they are safe and I will take care of ___________________________ they don't have to be _____________________and they can go back to being _______________________. As the adult, I will _____________________________________.
Okay, you're turn:
I was _______years old when things started to look different to me.
At _____ years old, I started to internalize the world as _____________
When I was _____ years old, I started to feel __________________
and I didn't understand it.
When I was _____________ everything changed because of _______________
I started to feel _____________about _____________and this __________ me.
I can see now how when ____________happened, it set the stage for my story around ______________.
Now that I know ________________I can accept it and let it go because I now know _______________and that makes me feel ______________.
I also know I reacted ______________because I was ________and I didn't know what else to do.
Now that my child knows they are safe and I will take care of ____________they don't have to be __________and they can go back to being___________.
As the adult, I will __________.
Once you're done with this exercise, set it aside. Allow the energies to come in and witness them, as they're only memories and not able to hurt or affect you today.
If you feel anxious or nervous, know that it's coming from your inner child. This is the perfect opportunity for your adult to step up and nurture your inner child. Once again, reassure them and let them know that you have them now, and all is okay. Tell them you will handle what hurt them. They can feel safe, and they can go back to doing what they were doing. Reassure them that this is grown-up stuff, and let them know you've got this.
• Acknowledge how you're feeling.
• Take a step back and breathe through the trigger.
• Begin to witness your inner child and how they're feeling in that moment.
Once you're back to a place of witnessing how your inner child is feeling, begin to connect with them. Let them know that you're there for them, that you're protecting them, and that you hear and see them.
• Observe how they're acting.
• Watch their patterns.
• For the moment, allow them to release what's inside of them (this way you will know what to address).
• Listen to their words.
• Hold space for them.
By holding space for them, you're validating that you see them. Once you're able to make this connection with your child, it's important that you, as the adult, give yourself the validation and the acknowledgement for a job well done. It's not always easy to catch ourselves before we slip into our inner child. No one ever said that kids came with an instruction manual. This is true of our own inner child and adult as well.
What Happens When...
You're with other people (e.g., coworkers, family, friends) and you find yourself starting to come from your inner child because you were triggered?
• Stop.
• Listen to the "little you" voice inside your head.
• Excuse yourself from the room if need be and if possible.
• Acknowledge that you hear your inner child.
• Once you've acknowledged and validated that you sense them being upset, take a moment to connect with yourself.
• Have a brief conversation letting your child know you see them, you hear them, and that there's no need for them to be in this situation at all. That you, the adult, will handle it. They can go back to playing and doing what they were doing before. By reassuring they are safe from your adult self, this allows you to walk back into the situation with confidence that you can handle anything that happens now.
By doing this, your adult is taking responsibility, therefore releasing your inner child to return to their appropriate child place. What If Your Child Won't Allow Your Adult In Once They're Triggered?
Our inner child doesn't make the rules. There's no inner child "not letting the adult in" situation. If your adult is present and aware, this won't happen. If it feels like this is happening, it's a red flag for your adult to step up because they're checked out. Your adult is not doing their job and has lost control of the situation.
What Do You Do When You Can't Seem To Find Your Balance
You let the child have the moment. If it's that important to them to be in that space, allow them to be there and don't resist your emotions. Hold space for yourself as you move through what you need to move through. Sometimes being within a difficult space can propel you further into your healing.
When your child is done reacting, have a moment with them. Uncover what was so important to them that they needed to get it out. They may have valid points. As with all setbacks, there are opportunities to learn for next time.
By blocking our inner child from feeling what there're feeling, we're negating their feelings and therefore their worth. Sometimes by allowing our inner child to have the tantrum they need to have, we end up learning more about ourselves as an adult. That is taking adult responsibility.
It becomes unbalanced if you never exchange dialogue with your child and never acknowledge they were hurt. By suppressing our emotions all the time, we end up doing more harm than good. Isn't that what happened to your child in the first place?
The Spiral Effect of Loving Our Child:
• We will never be 100% perfect.
• We will never catch ourselves 100% of the time.
• We will never always be able to come from forgiveness with everything, all the time.
Part of the human makeup is emotion and reactions. Those are the things that also keep us safe, grounded, and human. The point is learning new tools so that when we're triggered we can move things faster.
When we have challenges in life, we learn and we grow. If life was easy and we understood everything, we would have no reason to exist as we do. Emotions and reactions are beautiful. It's learning to use what emotion and when in a healthy way.
The only way to remember what we innately have built into us is to go through the different situations we need to go through to evolve. We evolve when we heal. We heal when we go through situations that are difficult for us. When we heal ourselves, we're able to love and forgive others, hence sending love to them. That is the spiral of love and healing.
Will This Fix All of Your Triggers?
Often when we read books, attend seminars, and take online courses, we believe that once they're completed, we'll be "fixed." You're not broken to fix. You're a living, breathing creature having experiences that enable to you grow. Healing is in a spiral. You heal one level, and then move down to the next one. As you move through, you learn to accept where you are. You learn to let go. You learn to accept others for where they were, and are, in their journeys.
When one level is healed, you slowly move down to the next one. You'll never get to the bottom of a spiral, as there's no bottom. There's only a continuum of opportunities to evolve. As we evolve, we give permission to others to evolve. As you did, they have a choice. It's an endless abyss full of opportunities to experience, remember, and therefore to heal. Why is there no end? If there was an end there would be no existence.
There are infinite possibilities, layers, healings, and opportunities to remember the love and healing that we are capable of. We're a sum of everything we've ever been. We're the good, the bad, the tall, the short, the rich, the poor, the black, the white, and everything in between. By healing one layer of this infinite abyss of life, we're healing all the other layers as well. Every one of these things that you do, may take you one step closer to understanding, therefore remembering, what's needed for your path of healing.
When we're working with our inner child and our adult, we're working within only two parts of us. By healing these two parts, we're healing all the other infinite parts of who we are as well. Don't worry about all the other parts. Only focus on what you can control, and focus on right now. By focusing only on this, you're automatically healing all the other parts of you as well.
Remember, with everything in life, balance is the key to everything. It's never for your child to not feel, or never get triggered; it's for you to learn to grow together, nurturing and loving all the different aspects of who you are.
By learning to accept and have compassion for all parts of yourself, you learn self-love and nurturing for others. Then it becomes easier to send love and compassion to those that have triggered our child in the first place.
Homework:
Here is a simple guided meditation you can do anytime and anywhere introducing you to your child:
• Get quiet. Sit, or lay comfortably, and breathe deeply.
• Inhale through your nose, into your belly, for a count of five. Hold for a count of five.
• Slowly blow out, and away from you, for a count of five.
• Do that a few more times until you feel yourself begin to shift and feel more settled into your body.
Once you're relaxed and present, go to your child and look in their eyes. Imagine seeing them in their third-dimensional little bodies:
• What do they look like?
• What do they smell like?
• What do they feel like?
• What are they wearing?
• What do they sound like?
• Are they clean and tidy?
• Are they dirty from playing outside?
Once you start observing them, I want you to lean in a little closer. When you're comfortable in front of them, I want you to get on a knee and reach out your hands to them. Let them come to you. Allow your hands to be an offering of solidarity and love. Allow them the same space for observing you. Allow them to look at you, feel you, and study you. With your hands reached out in front of you, invite them to take your hands when they're ready. Allow them the time to do this. Children are very trusting and unconditional, yet at times can be unsure. Once they begin to recognize you, they'll forever be a conscious part of you.
Remember, they've not seen you in a long time. You may look older, tougher, wiser, scarier, stronger, bigger, or rougher then they remember themselves to be. That's ok. These are not judgments--these are observations. Observations are the key to them recognizing you and trusting you.
Many children are mad, angry, and distrusting. Remember, as with all children, it takes time and patience for them to trust you again. Bonds have been broken, and you have grown up and left them. You've been away from them for some time. Assimilating back into your energy will take time. Do not judge them for they're not judging you. They're studying you. This is a time of observation, growth, and coming together. It's not until you come together like this that your child will trust you to have their back and to take care of them. Patience is the key.
As you continue to reacquaint yourselves with each other, don't set a time limit. Maybe it will happen today, maybe they need another day. Invite them back to the same place, and the same time tomorrow, and remind them that you'll be there waiting for them whenever they're ready.
Another tip is to explain to them that you understand they may not be ready today, but they can just clap their hands, whistle, or maybe you can have a supersecret code word. Use this so they know when they call you, you'll be there for them right away.
This is about building trust. You can't bridge any relationship if the foundation is not built on trust and respect.
As you begin to get reacquainted, remind your child that you will always be there for them whenever they need you. As you wrap up this observational time together, slowly stand up and tell them it is okay to go back to whatever they were doing: playing, drawing, climbing a tree. Tell them that you love to watch them and maybe you can play with them sometime soon. Explain to them that just because you're As you begin to get reacquainted, remind your child that you will always be there for leaving this meeting, it doesn't mean that you are gone. Remind them of their special calling card just between the two of you. If you want, give them a hug or a fist bump or a little nod goodbye. Trust yourself that you know what they need, and you respect that within them.
When you're ready, open your eyes, look around, and just be where you are now. There's no hurry to get up. There's nowhere to be. Just be where you are now. When you're ready, breathe in deeply through your nose, and blow it all out through your mouth slowly and gently. Do this until you are ready to open your eyes.
Take a moment before standing up. Brush yourself off and smile. You just crossed the bridge to yourself.
Breathe
Discovering What Age You Were When Your Child Started to Feel a Certain Way
• Why is your age important? It's only important because it gives you a rough estimate and visual for you to work with. It also helps your adult to better understand why your child is feeling the way they feel. It allows your adult to say, "Oh, now that makes sense as to why I feel _______________." By giving ourselves milestones, we are better able to associate and connect with that part of our lives, therefore ourselves.
• Once your inner child is hurt, it's often hard for them to trust again. Although they're very loving and unconditional, a wound is a wound. We carry those wounds with us throughout our lives. We carry them because it was often the first time we felt different than we did the day before.
• As children, we come into the world with an innocent, playful, and curious spirt. We're loving, open, and kind. We learn about ourselves, and others, by observing our surroundings and our world. No matter how wonderful your life may have been, there will always be something that caused that wound.
• All seven billion of us carry a wound of some sort or another; this is part of life. The things that hurt us the most are often the very same things that help us learn the most. As children, we look at things as good and bad. As adults, we're able to understand that maybe it's not good or bad; it was, or just is, different. Yes, people do bad things, and yes, bad things can happen, but we don't have to let those things define all of our experiences throughout are entire lifetimes. As children, the things we witness and feel in the world around us are how we shape our paradigms for the future. As adults, we're able to take our healing into our own hands and choose to release what no longer serves us.
• All of us have wounds. They are a part of life. If you're reading this then you have an inner child wound of some sort that needs to be connected to and healed. No matter how wonderful your parents were, and no matter if you are or were the world's best parent, there will be something we take away from situations that we observed, and our own children will take away from what they observe that will shape their reactions and experiences in their world. Many of us don't remember our childhoods, let alone remember painful times. What we do remember is the first time we remember feeling a certain way.
• It's not always easy to do this work, but it's important to have a rough estimate of your age when you first felt the pain. Was it 3, was it 4, maybe you were 5 or 6? You don't need to have the exact age, but an estimate of that time is important so that you have a visual of the energy you're connecting with.
• The homework assignment for this lesson will help you understand more of when your wounds first started. These are some important things you can ask yourself as you go into this part of yourself. Remember, take down notes on how old you were when certain things happened in your life. If you don't remember, maybe you can ask a family member and family friend when certain things happened. By being your own detective, you start the process of self-discovery and healing.
• Homework:
• By exploring the sensations, you had in the house and family you grew up in, you're able to get a more complete picture of what it looked like.
• Often, we just try to remember memories without looking at all the layers that made up those memories. Our senses are an amazing tool that help us to remember certain memories and times in our lives that we might have forgotten. For some people, it's too painful to go back. Know that even if it's painful and your inner child is afraid of being triggered, remind your inner child that they are safe now.
• Write below:
• "Today, I am _______ years old.
• I live at this address ________________________________
I am in control of my own life. I am safe now and nobody can hurt me." By telling yourself this, you're telling your inner child that they are safe, and you have them protected. Remember, it's your inner child that needs to know they are safe, not your adult. Your adult already knows they're safe. If you're feeling unsafe, that's a red flag that your child needs nurturing. This is a great exercise, within an exercise, to recognize the difference between your adult and inner child energy.
Start taking notes.
Think back to when you were little:
• What did your house sound like?
• How did the people talk to each other in your house?
• What were they saying to each other?
• How did they say it?
• Did it feel safe?
• What did it smell like?
• Do you remember what the kitchen looked like?
• What about your room?
• Were you the oldest or the youngest?
• Maybe you were in the middle?
• Did your mum work?
• Did you like your house?
• What did your room feel like to you?
• Maybe you felt a change when a sibling was born?
• Maybe you felt like you were not being heard?
• Maybe you felt like you were not being seen?
• Maybe the house you grew up in was loud?
• Maybe you had a parent (s) who suffered from an addiction of some sort?
• Maybe you remember when there was a loss in your life of a loved one or pet?
As you start to take notes, and go into this space within yourself, think about the age you might have been when you first started to notice a shift in what you started to witness. Remember in a detached place and only as a witness. No matter what age you were, you were still only witnessing. You took those experiences and built your narrative around what you saw.
Examples of how to write this story:
I was __________years old when things started to look different to me.
At __________________ years old, I started to internalize the world as _________________________.
When I was __________ years old, I started to feel_________________________ and I didn't understand it.
When I was __________________________ everything changed because of _____________________.
I started to feel ___________________about _______________________ and this ___________________me.
I can see now how when __________________________happened, it set the stage for my story around _________________________. Now that I know __________________________, I can accept it and let it go because I know now ________________________________ and that makes me feel ___________________________. I also know that I reacted _________________because I was ______________________ and I didn't know what else to do. Now that my child knows they are safe and I will take care of ___________________________ they don't have to be _____________________and they can go back to being _______________________. As the adult, I will _____________________________________.
Examples of how to write this story:
I was __________years old when things started to look different to me.
At __________________ years old, I started to internalize the world as _________________________.
When I was __________ years old, I started to feel_________________________ and I didn't understand it.
When I was __________________________ everything changed because of _____________________.
I started to feel ___________________about _______________________ and this ___________________me.
I can see now how when __________________________happened, it set the stage for my story around _________________________. Now that I know __________________________, I can accept it and let it go because I know now ________________________________ and that makes me feel ___________________________. I also know that I reacted _________________because I was ______________________ and I didn't know what else to do. Now that my child knows they are safe and I will take care of ___________________________ they don't have to be _____________________and they can go back to being _______________________. As the adult, I will _____________________________________.
Okay, you're turn:
I was _______years old when things started to look different to me.
At _____ years old, I started to internalize the world as _____________
When I was _____ years old, I started to feel __________________
and I didn't understand it.
When I was _____________ everything changed because of _______________
I started to feel _____________about _____________and this __________ me.
I can see now how when ____________happened, it set the stage for my story around ______________.
Now that I know ________________I can accept it and let it go because I now know _______________and that makes me feel ______________.
I also know I reacted ______________because I was ________and I didn't know what else to do.
Now that my child knows they are safe and I will take care of ____________they don't have to be __________and they can go back to being___________.
As the adult, I will __________.
Once you're done with this exercise, set it aside. Allow the energies to come in and witness them, as they're only memories and not able to hurt or affect you today.
If you feel anxious or nervous, know that it's coming from your inner child. This is the perfect opportunity for your adult to step up and nurture your inner child. Once again, reassure them and let them know that you have them now, and all is okay. Tell them you will handle what hurt them. They can feel safe, and they can go back to doing what they were doing. Reassure them that this is grown-up stuff, and let them know you've got this.
