Our Inner child offers us the deepest most intimate and loving relationship we can possibly have in this life. Working with the inner child allows us to heal our deepest traumas and emotional wounds, which in turn leads to more deeply fulfilling emotionally rich and happier lives.
We are set up to be emotionally dysfunctional by our role models, both parental and societal. We are taught to repress and distant our own emotional process. We are trained to be emotionally dishonest when we are children.- "Codependence, The dance of the wounded soul" by Robert Burney
Working with our inner child is one of the principal keys to sustainable happiness, balanced emotional health and deeper more profound loving relationships with yourself and others.
All of us, certainly those of us from western cultures, carry around within us wounded and emotionally dysfunctional inner children.
These inner children are the remnants of childhood traumas that have not been healed and in many cases have been deeply buried due to the nature and suffering that the trauma initially engendered.
For most of our life, our inner child has been, one way or another, in the driving seat. Telling us what to do, how to react, even what to think and say when the trauma is activated, triggered or otherwise woken up.
“Everybody breathes wrongly because the whole society is based on very wrong conditions, notions, attitudes. For example, a small child is weeping and the mother says not to cry. What will the child do? – because crying is coming, and the mother says not to cry. He will start holding his breath because that is the only way to stop it. If you hold your breath everything stops – crying, tears, everything. Then by and by that becomes a fixed thing – don’t be angry, don’t cry, don’t do this, don’t do that.
The child learns that if he breathes shallowly then he remains in control. If he breathes perfectly and totally as every child is born breathing, then he becomes wild. So he cripples himself.
So powerful is the inner child that they unconsciously carve out patterns of behaviour that we as adults are largely blind too, yet all to readily suffer from.”
- Osho, "Above All, Don’t Wobble, Talk #12"
This work, that of coming into union with our inner child or inner children, is one of deep, deep healing. This healing of the wounded inner child allows us, as adults, to more fully accept, and truly love ourselves with deep unconditional love and compassion.
The tools provided in my workshop are not difficult to use or learn. However, you will need to find the commitment and the courage to use them regularly as it will take some time to heal your inner child's wounds and for you to re-establish the loving relationship they rightly deserve.
Is it worth it?
For me, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
Through doing this work, I have been able to find and discover greater freedom, passion, joy, play, happiness and love for myself and in my life.
Will it work for me?
Yes, without doubt, provided you are willing and ready to put in the work.
As with many things in life, there is no free lunch! You do the work; you reap the rewards of that work. Inner child work is no different.
Where do I start?
In a nutshell, as far back as you can. How do you do that? You do that by starting to look, to look mindfully, with tenderness, at the patterns of your life and the suffering that these patterns are trying to deal with or hide!
"Recovery involves bringing to consciousness those beliefs and attitudes in our subconscious that are causing our dysfunctional reactions so that we can reprogram our ego defences to allow us to live a healthy, fulfilling life instead of just surviving. So that we can own our power to make choices for ourselves about our beliefs and values instead of unconsciously reacting to the old tapes. Recovery is consciousness raising. It is en-light-en-ment – bringing the dysfunctional attitudes and beliefs out of the darkness of our subconscious into the Light of consciousness.
On an emotional level the dance of Recovery is owning and honouring the emotional wounds so that we can release the grief energy – the pain, rage, terror, and shame that is driving us.
That shame is toxic and is not ours – it never was! We did nothing to be ashamed of – we were just little kids. Just as our parents were little kids when they were wounded and shamed, and their parents before them, etc., etc. This is shame about being human that has been passed down from generation to generation.
There is no blame here, there are no bad guys, only wounded souls and broken hearts and scrambled minds."
- from "Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls"
Inner child work is in one-way detective work. We have a mystery to solve.
We start by asking these types of questions;
- Why have I been attracted to these types of people that I have been in a relationship within my life?
- Why do I react in certain ways in certain situations?
- Where did my behaviour patterns come from?
- Why do I sometimes feel so: helpless; lonely; desperate; scared; angry; suicidal; etc.
Just by starting to ask these types of questions, is the first step in the healing process. It is healthy to start wondering about the cause and effect dynamics in our life.
In our childhood, we reacted to life out of a black and white, right and wrong, belief paradigm that taught us that is was shameful and bad to be wrong, to make mistakes, to be imperfect – to be human.
It is from this foundation that we have formed our core relationship with ourselves and with life in early childhood based on the messages we got, the emotional trauma(s) we suffered, and the role modelling of the adults around us.
The Inner Child Re-Union Workshop
This workshop will take you on a journey of re-union with your inner child.It will give you a set of tools that you can use in your daily life that will enable and empower your inner child and your self. We will use EFT and breathwork to deepen the journey and liberate and heal the wounds that our inner child still carries.
The workshop is gentle it moves tenderly, honouring the delicate, wounded nature of the inner child and allowing time for the bonds to be re-established between you and the child.
This workshop includes a 40-page workbook that has all the notes from the workshop.
If you are looking for;
- greater happiness or contentment
- to understand/feel a love like no other
- remove the codependent hooks from all your relationships
- an integrated and balanced union of all the parts of our internal self
- healing and integration of your inner child
- deeper compassion towards your self and others
Then this is the workshop for you!
You can check out my next workshop. The Inner Child Re-Union