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What is known as the “inner child” nowadays is the archetypal Jungian notion of the “puer aeternus” or “puella aeterna”, when the subject is a female.
It is the part of our self that has never grown up, it is the child we once were and it holds all our disappointments, loneliness, sadness and pain. It is the child still existing within us, retaining most of the habits that has learned in childhood and that were useful for its survival. It is the child who accepted, without questioning, the opinions and beliefs of its parents and its general environment in an effort to be accepted and belong.
As children, we learned about love from our parents, from people who, in most cases, were not free and healthy emotionally, who were not capable of loving in a healthy way because of their unhealed childhood wounds. We learned about truth from people who were not truthful with themselves or others. We learned about freedom from people who were captives of social conventions, both in internal and external level. We learned about authenticity and acceptance from people who had never accepted their true self and lived their lives hidden behind masks. The environments we were raised in taught us that it was not proper to feel our emotions, that there are emotions we shouldn’t have and thus we found ways to control and hide those emotions that were not accepted. Through this process though, the most beautiful part of our authentic self was exiled to the darkness of our subconscious.
As children, when something went wrong, we tended to believe that it was our fault, that we did something wrong. We created the belief that they didn’t love us because we were not good enough or quite enough or smart enough. We learned to reject our self and feel guild for the mistakes we made and shame for who we were. Unfortunately, as we grow older and live our life in an automatic way, without awareness, not only we preserve but we also empower, unconsciously most of the time, those beliefs about ourselves.
As children, we were not able to perceive the reality and say “My father is a violent person and vents his anger on me and my mother is so weak that she doesn’t dare to protect me. I think it’s a good idea to find another place to live”. So we adapted specific behaviors and we created defense systems in order not to be so vulnerable. Obeying to do’s and don’ts of our parents and our teachers we shaped our personality in such a way so as to become “normal” and we created our own mask, one that would fit to social norms.
In this way we have been conditioned, exactly as the past generations had been conditioned, to see life as a random act of happenings, to blame others for whatever doesn’t work and feel victims, feel left in the lurch… We have been conditioned to follow the herd, not to differ, not to question authorities… After all, is there a stronger form of authority than the one parents exercise over their children?
As adults, our reactions are based on the conditioning we sustained during our childhood and we obey to our inner judgmental voice. There is a parent inside each of us, as well as a child and, how surprising, the parental voice is scolding the child relentlessly… The thing is that most of us, the so-called adults, we are not truly adults at all. Yes, of course, time passes and we grow older and we age, but, psychologically speaking, true adulthood is reached when we are able to recognize, accept, embrace, love and accept full responsibility for our inner child. Most of us, not only we never do these things but, on the contrary, we deny and reject the innocence, the joy and the sensitivity of our inner child.
However, the emotional energy of all our experiences during our childhood doesn’t disappear just because we deny it; it remains trapped in our bodies. Our wounded, inner child is always within us, trying to get our attention and demanding the safety and love that hasn’t received. In every emotional or psychic issue we face, there is a message from our inner child regarding our past, regarding something painful that immobilizes us, holds us back or keeps us stuck. Whatever it is, our inner child longs for us to understand it.
It only takes love and acceptance for our inner child to be healed. It just needs to be heard, to feel appreciated, to know that it is important, that we accept it and value it just the way it really is. We can offer all these by nurturing it as a “parent”. To gain its trust, it needs to know that we will always be there for it, that it can rely on us, that we recognize and understand how it feels and finally that we have the ability and we are responsible enough to find solutions and face effectively all issues that may occur. It is imperative for our inner child to know that it doesn’t need to play another role other than its own, other than to be its real, authentic self.
There is a mini meditation we can do in a daily basis in order to reconnect with the child within us.
We take a couple of deep breaths, we relax our body and say “I look within and I see the perfect child that resides to my heart. I tenderly hold this lovely little being close to me and I share my deepest love. My inner child is safe and appreciated. I share my love with my child self and my child self reveals to me the vast power of innocence”.