11: Bringing Awareness To Your Inner Child
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
Episode Summary of The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 11: Bringing Awareness To Your Inner Child
This episode brings to your attention your inner child – the most innocent and pure essence of who you are. We delve into why the way you are today and how an inner child can be wounded. The episode also discusses your personal responsibility to work on and heal your inner child.
What you'll learn from this episode
- How the inner child impacts your life now as an adult
- What is the inner child
- Ways an inner child becomes wounded
Key Quotes from this Episode
The cry we hear from deep in our hearts comes from the wounded child within.
Whilst you can’t change your genetics or the past, you have the power to change now.
Doing work on your inner child is coming home to you.
Featured Resources on the episode
The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 11: Bringing Awareness To Your Inner Child
You are listening to episode 11 of the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang: Bringing Awareness To Your Inner Child.
[Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:
Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.
Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.
My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”
My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.
Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.
This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.
Ready to grow? Let’s grow!
[Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]
[Episode 11 – Bringing Awareness To Your Inner Child Begins]
Hello beautiful soul, I’m so excited to bring to you another episode of The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.
Today’s episode requires going back in time. Back in time to when you were a child.
Bet you hadn’t thought about that in a while right? How long ago was that for you?
It’s interesting as adults we hardly revisit or think about ourselves as a child.
By child – the full spectrum from the early years of our life to when we hit puberty to when we become an independent adult.
Psychologically so much of who we are has been shaped by these early years of life.
What’s prompted this episode is the work I’ve been doing with a few of my clients.
We are exploring how the inner child can impact who we are today.
It shows up in relationships – our fears and what keeps us from being open and vulnerable. For my clients its manifested in feeling like you need someone to complete you, to save you, that everything in your life will be instantly better when you are in a relationship. It shows up in anger and resenting a partner for not meeting your needs, feeling the need to be the caretaker or parent of your partner and being scared of rejection and abandonment.
It shows up in our belief systems – a client recalls how her parents migrating to Australia have shaped her view of what it means to have a job, career particularly as a woman. Another on how it’s shaped the way she sees money, how hard it can be to make money, how money always feels scarce even when it’s not. Fears around investing money and spending money.
What is the inner child? What does inner child mean?
The term inner child is an archetype that stems from famous psychologist Carl Jung.
He rejected the idea that we come into this world with a blank slate and have a ‘predestined primordial image’ derived from the collective unconscious.
Nowadays when it comes to the inner child, it refers to the unconscious sub-personality in our early years of life. This inner child develops from the world around us. At young ages we are like sponges soaking in everything especially based on our parents or caregivers. The absence of this also shapes how we develop.
When we want to understand ourselves deeper, to understand why we are the way we are by default, to understand our triggers that unleash that ‘child like’ behaviour e.g. tantrums, running away, hiding – we must reconnect with our inner child.
The inner child is the essence of who you are. Your inner child is so pure and innocent.
You only have to look at a child to understand why.
Children have so much joy, they beam, they smile, laugh and play.
They are fearless, they go into the world with such an openness – to experience the world, to have adventures, to unleash their creativity. They are so open, honest and curious. A child is a true free spirit.
Children fully express themselves whether its joy, anger or sadness. They feel deeply and are sensitive. They crave affection, attention, connection, love and safety.
Our inner child is vulnerable. Children depend on others to ensure their survival. Children look to others to understand the world and how to behave – what to do, what not to do. As children we are malleable to outside forces.
Inner Child Wounding
Sometimes and the majority of us will experience our inner child being wounded.
Our wounded inner child is the part or parts of us that feels ashamed, left behind, neglected, unseen, abused, the something I can’t quite pick is wrong with me.
Global spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh encapsulates the wound energy well,
“The cry we hear from deep in our hearts comes from the wounded child within.”
Common occurrences that cause wounds include but are not limited to:
- You were taught it’s not okay to have your own opinions
- Being told you need to make your parents happy
- You got punished for speaking up or acting of your own free will and accord
- Being told that sex is bad and sinful
- You were taught not to show emotions, to keep things to yourself
- Having fun and playing were discouraged
- Being shamed, criticised and punished
- Feeling responsible, having to grow up quicker to be an adult to care for your parents or siblings
- Having affection withheld such as hugs, kisses, cuddles, compliments, support, engagement
The neglect which causes wounds to the inner child stems from parents and caregivers when they:
- Invalidating your emotions – you can’t feel that, you shouldn’t feel that leading to self doubt
- Unreasonably high expectations and always comparing you to other children leading to always comparing yourself to others and jealousy
- Not having your physical needs met of safety and nourishment. It doesn’t just mean not having food and water, it encompasses forms of abuse which lead to low self esteem, eating disorders, self harm, addictions, violence and sexual dysfunction.
- Not meeting needs of support, respect and love can lead to low self worth, repression of emotions, ignoring your own needs, depression, anxiety, fear of intimacy
- Psychological neglect through name calling, insults, yelling, gaslighting, threatening causing deep seated feelings of anger, trouble having a healthy relationship, difficulty with self love and loving to name a few
How your parents or caregivers influence and impact your inner child
Now yes it is highly shaped by your parents or whoever took care of you.
It’s not to say to blame and get angry at your parents but more to bring awareness and understanding to who you are and your inner child.
Most parents have the intention of doing their best to raise their child and children. That does not mean they are perfect, no one is, perfection is impossible. It does not mean they are bad parents, they did the best they could under circumstances. Often parents relive out parenting styles they experienced as child and this passes on from generation to generation.
I recently spoke with a client on this and shared with him that whilst to understand why you are they way you are based on your inner child and upbringing is wonderful and a step in the right direction – it’s not okay to remain a ‘child’ to continue blaming your parents. When you continue to hold the blame on your parents, you are returning to the wounded child mindset.
You are not entitled to have your parents or anyone fix you. You are responsible for yourself as an adult.
Now that you are an adult, a conscious adult, it’s your personal responsibility to do the work and reparent himself. To be the adult you needed as a child. To step up and become the person you want to be. To not just sit back and blame, to stand up and take action.
Amongst well intended parents, there are also parents who are absent, parents who were severely underprepared for children, abusive parents, narcissistic parents, controlling parents, parents paralysed by perfection – different types of parents who shape who you are.
Healing your inner child is your responsibility
No matter what – this holds universally true.
That does not determine and set who you are.
Whilst you can’t change your genetics or the past, you have the power to change now. You are safe and strong. You can heal your inner child with great love and compassion.
As an adult now, to understand who we are and to take action is to learn how to reparent yourself. To be the adult you needed as a child.
These wounds charge us into protection mode. We are always looking out for ourselves and danger.
Now this will bring out my inner Harry Potter nerd (which I happened to love as a child) – the visual representation I imagine is from the Harry Potter world, particularly in the film Fantastic Beasts embodied by the character Credence played by Ezra Miller. An uncontrollable dark unstable force that attacks then vanishes. It lashes out of repression, it feels ‘dark’ and ‘parasitic’.
We put up walls and get defensive behind our armour and masks. We protect instead of connecting.
As a child, it is not your fault that you were wounded as a child
It’s not your fault that you were wounded as a child.
As a child, it was never your fault that you felt unloved.
As a child, it was never your fault that you weren’t comfortable in your own skin.
As a child, it was never your fault that you weren’t able to fully express yourself.
As a child, it was never your fault that you didn’t have a safe environment to grow up in.
As a child, it was never your fault that your parents weren’t together or broke up.
As a child, it was never your fault that your parents weren’t there for you.
As a child, it was never your responsibility to care for, heal or fix your parents.
As children we learn what we live.
Doing the work on your inner child
Doing work on your inner child is coming home to you.
All of you.
The whole of you.
The inner child often hijacks adult relationships. I personally become aware of my inner child from the work I did delving into my dating and relationship patterns and experiences.
Understanding why I had an anxious attachment style previously, craving love and looking for it outside of myself – making it someone’s responsibility when really it was mine.
This is common. The attachment patterns you formed as a child are often mirrored in your adult relationships too. A secure attachment styles is a result from having a parent who was responsive to your needs and emotionally available.
What you need to remember is that when it comes to healing your inner child is that it starts with you and only you.
Don’t fall for the Disney fairytale or movie fairytales, this is not Sleeping Beauty.
No Prince or Princess Charming is coming to rescue and save you. You are your own hero.
The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 11: Bringing Awareness To Your Inner Child Close
If you are interested in exploring your inner child in a safe and support space with guidance, if you are interested in learning practical ways to reconnect with your inner child and reparent yourself, please book a complementary session with me on my website phidang.com or via my Instagram @thephidang.
This brings a close to episode 11: Bringing Awareness to the Inner Child. I hope you reconnect with your inner child today and explore how your inner child has shaped who you are. I’ll speak to you next Tuesday beautiful soul as usual. Love and Positivity.
[Episode 11 – Bringing Awareness To Your Inner Child]
Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.