Inner Child |

‘Children who are not loved in their very beingness do not know how to love themselves. As adults, they have to learn to nourish, to mother their own lost child.’ Marion Woodman

In this post I want to help you to heal a part of your own past, in order for that past to not affect you in the present. This is so important, especially when we have children of our own.

We looked in the last article, ‘I’ll Never Say That to My Kids!‘, at similar patterns in parenting we are unconsciously sharing with our parents. If you haven’t already, go and do the Self Awareness Exercise that was included in that post. This should have given you some insights into areas you may be having problems with.

Based on these insights we can move forward on clearing these patterns.

We are going to do a meditation type exercise here, so you will need to find 20 minutes when you can turn off the phone and make sure you won’t be disturbed. (I know that’s hard for most, but trust me it’ll be worth it!)

I recommend to record the meditation onto a recording device so you don’t have to keep referencing the text. If you do, remember to include pauses of about 15-30 seconds between each part so you have time to experience whatever is going on for you. I have wrote this as if you are listening to it and not reading it. It is best to do this when you are as relaxed as possible, but if you do choose to read through it, then it should work just as well.

Reference the insights you had in the last exercise and choose one you want to deal with. Put on some relaxing music if you like.

I’ll be recording this mediation into an MP3 download in the future for you all, I’ll have both free products and ones for purchase so sign up and watch this space!

Healing your Inner Child Meditation

Make yourself comfortable, sitting or lying down, making sure the temperature and lighting is relaxing.

Start to notice your breath, as it comes in and out of your body. Take some deeper breaths, breathing all the way out. Allow your eyelids to close if they haven’t already.

Imagine yourself in a beautiful garden, in front of you is a path leading off in the distance. Follow the path through the garden until you see a bench in front of a beautiful lake……. Sit on the bench and take 3 deep breaths……. Allow your mind to wander…….. Remember the insight you wanted to deal with from the previous exercise…. Notice the feelings that come up when you do or say this to your child….. and allow your mind to, take you back to the first time you felt this way…..

Allow any impressions or memories to surface….. What needs to happen here…. Does someone need to be forgiven?….. Do you need to say something…. to be heard?…… No matter what happened in the past I want you to let the memory go now…….

Imagine a bright light surrounding you…. it can be any colour you want… Its a healing loving colour…… Allow it to permeate every cell of your body until your filled with this healing light….. Send it back into your past….. to your younger self…… When this feels complete, bring it back into your present, and just allow the healing light to fully integrate into your body…….

When you feel ready, start to wiggle your fingers and your toes, and gently open your eyes and come back to the room.

You may want to take some time to sit there and just relax for minute or two to think about what you just experienced.

Enjoy!

If you have any comments or questions please ask below.

If you like what you read please help me by sharing this with your friends!

Recreating the Past

So many people say they are not going to do or say to their children what their parents did or said to them. So many people find themselves doing or saying those same things anyway. The words just seem to fall out of our mouths, right?

Often the way our parents parented was authoritarian and conditional, sometimes loving and accepting. This wasn’t their fault, it was just what was normal for the time. I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do with the resources they had available at the time. Their parents probably treated them the same, or worse. Parenting styles traditionally are just passed down, influenced by the latest research and a desire ‘to do better’ than our parents did with us.

So Why Don’t We Change?

It should be so easy not to recreate the past right? We know what we don’t want to do, what we don’t want to say. We know how we don’t want to treat our kids. And from this its very easy to determine what we do want. So why do we find ourselves habitually repeating those same phrases we heard as children?

The answer lies in the unconscious mind. Our unconscious minds are like tape players that record everything that was ever said, done or experienced by us. We may not be able to remember everything consciously, but all our memories are there, stored away in this vast depository just underneath the surface.

The 1st 7 years of life are the most impressionable for children. So our parents (or caregivers) are not just role models in life but they are our first and probably most thorough example of how to parent. When situations happen in our adult life that, on an unconscious level, remind us of a familiar situation with our own parents, (specifically or generally) old thoughts and patterns from the past will surface and be acted out. The most common time for this to happen will be in moments of stress or other highly charged emotional events. There may also be phrases or a tone of voice we use that we are not even aware of consciously.

So How Can We Stop This?

The first step in preventing yourself engaging in negative patterns with your own children is to become consciously aware of just what patterns your acting out. Below is a exercise in self awareness, its a tool to bring light to what may be happening in your relationship with your children that is a recreation of your own childhood. Its not something to beat yourself up over or worry about. I don’t believe any one of us are perfect parents all the time. What matters is the desire to do better. I want you to use this as something to help you become more conscious of any patterns there may be. In my next post I’ll be introducing you to ways to help shift these patterns, but first we need to discover what they are.

Self Awareness Exercise (Read this all the way through to the final part before you start the exercise so you have an understanding of what to do)

1. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle so you have two columns.

2. On the left hand side, write down all the things your parents did that you didn’t like. This may be phrases they used, tones of voice, rules they had, the way they disciplined you etc. For example:

Saying ‘Do as your told’
Spanking
Not listening etc etc

3. List everything you can remember.

4. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes and then spend some time thinking about your list and the way you are towards your own children, and also how you think your own children experience your parenting style. Are there any similarities or glaringly obvious identical patterns?

5. Based on any insights you get, list anything you do that is the same or similar to your parents in the right hand column.

6. Think about: What insights did you get? How do you feel about them? Where abouts in your body is the feeling? Breath into this place. Allow any emotions to surface and move through you with your breath, (breath into them). Notice any places of tension in the body and breath into them too.

If you can’t think of any similarities or your mind goes blank, you can do this exercise again at a time when you are more relaxed, or you may find memories or realisations popping into your head as you go about your day to day life, write these down if you can.

As I mentioned, in my next post I want to help you shift patterns or emotions that keep you stuck in the past, so I’ll be introducing you to some ideas on how to do this!

Will you comment below on how you got on with the exercise? Would love your feedback!

If you like what you read please help me by sharing this with your friends!

Healing the Inner Child