Let's imagine this scenario: It’s a Saturday and you and your friends take turns picking where the group will go for the weekend. This time it’s your choice, but for some reason whenever you offer a place, it never seems to be agreed on by the group. After offering tons of different places, you start to get really frustrated and decide to throw in the towel, “Whatever! You guys just choose cause obviously none of my options are good enough” whoa… yeah that right there is what we like to call a triggered inner child and you just let it come to the surface. Now you might be thinking, “Inner child? I’m not a child mentally, I’m very mature and can handle my problems, there's no ‘inner child’ here” but contrary to your own belief, psychiatrist Carl Jung firmly disagrees. He is credited with the finding of the inner child and the childlike archetype (personality attributes) within everyone. Whether you choose to believe there's an actual incarnation of our child selves or you rather believe it’s just a name for our childlike tendencies, it's a part of who we are that gets constantly neglected. Our inner child is created through our childhood experiences. These experiences influenced our decision-making, emotional intelligence, and even cognitive development. It is understood that the most influential developmental ages of life are 0-3, where the brain is most malleable and constructs core beliefs. When a child reaches 5 years old, almost 90% of their brain is fully developed, meaning ages 0-5 are most impressionable and the way we are treated and made to feel about ourselves plays a huge role as to how we treat ourselves and others, even as adults. When you were a kid, did you ever notice how adults spoke to you? Maybe you didn’t have the nicest parents or maybe you grew up in the rougher side of town where you had to learn to be tough for survival at a very early age. The words we have heard, all of the descriptions others attached to our being before we had even truly developed a unique personality are the ways we carry ourselves as adults before we start to heal our inner child. Have you ever noticed when things don’t go as planned, you take your anger and frustration out on yourself? Maybe you do this by withholding food from yourself even though, at the core of your being you understand everyone deserves food. Or perhaps you feel like you are not worthy of anything good in life so you are constantly sabotaging yourself. These can all be looped back to an experience during childhood. Maybe your parents would send you to bed without dinner as a punishment when you were deemed ‘bad’ or were held responsible for the adults' emotions. This could have integrated into your being and now you punish yourself the same way because your inner child thinks that is the correct punishment because it knows no better. There is always an explanation for your behaviors. Behaviors are only ever learned and you were only a child when you learned it. Let's discuss some common emotions or personality traits that are experienced when your inner child is trying to desperately reach out and ask for help. Common Traits
Low Self Esteem
Repressing emotions
Social Anxiety
Insulting or being aggressive to others
Triggered easily
Unexplainable anger
Commonly seeks approval from others
Constantly feeling like there is something wrong
Trust problems
Ashamed of body
Closed of sexually
Avoids conflict
If you feel if you have any of these personality traits your inner child is trying to tell you something important! There was something that happened to them and they couldn't understand it. Since they were too younger to make sense of it, too young to understand that that wasn’t something they should have experienced, they integrate it and assume that it was right. Take some extra time next time your triggered, ask your inner child, what is wrong, ask them why that specific action triggers them and start to build a relationship with them so you can reparent and heal them and yourself at the same time.
Still have questions? Book a free consultation with me and we can discuss if inner child healing is right for you!