How do you connect with your inner child?

[Rose White]

I’m thinking about bringing my hideous purple stuffed rabbit to therapy tomorrow. She is hideous because her face is creepy due to being “made up” with marker by my daughter. But she is the perfect size for sleeping with and I think of her AS ME. I imagine I am holding my inner child when I hold her as I’m going to sleep. And she smells really good too. Even though she is hideous, I love her. And I do think of my inner child as kind of hideous sometimes, from my contained and rational adult perspective. The inner child’s demands for mother/father unconditional love and mixing up sex with it, and getting tangled in my dad’s sexualization—very frustrating. I know it’s not her fault that my dad acted that way toward her, but sometimes my critic-guardian just sighs about my inner child. I need to focus on reparenting more. I start to take care of my inner child and then I abandon her for a while and have to start over again. My consistency is not solid or dependable. All this is to say that I understand the ambivalence, or even resentment, toward the inner child.

 

[I_Am_Titanium]

I do inner child work with my T during EMDR. During a session, I'll imagine my little self in a specific traumatic event. Sometimes I dissociate at first so I have to focus more with my T's help. Then I somehow "become" her again and I'm there in that moment. The emotions are usually very overwhelming. Then my recovered adult self will come in and give my little self what she needed at that moment in time that traumatized her. Sometimes my adult self comes in with a superhero cape on! lol Lately my adult self takes her out of the situation, we go to a park, and gives her what she needs like her favorite blanket or her favorite vest. Adult me reassures little me she's not alone. She felt so very alone for too long. It's very powerful. My T is really good at guiding me through all this. I'm amazed at how it all works.

I've also been writing letters to my inner child. Once in a while my T will have me write in journal with my left hand (I'm right handed) as my inner child. I'm amazed at what comes out. I feel oddly connected with her during these times.

 

[snowangel35]

I have huge difficulty 'connecting with my inner child'. In fact, I don't feel like there is one there at all....I mean I know there must be but I just don't know how to find her? I am envious of others who are able to do so. I don't really know where to start.

 

[EveHarrington]

I have huge difficulty 'connecting with my inner child'. In fact, I don't feel like there is one th...

Non dominant hand conversations?

 

[snowangel35]

Non dominant hand conversations?

I had to google this...sounds really interesting. Has it worked for people?

 

[EveHarrington]

Has it worked for people?

Yes, it has worked for me! It's crazy-scary the kinds of things that come out. If it doesn't work at first, your inner child may be too scared to speak. I'd keep on trying, asking what he/she needs, what you can do for him/her, etc.

 

[Friday]

...I mean I know there must be but I just don't know how to find her?

Not necessarily. For most people it's pure anthropomorphic imagination. A way to conceptualize the different facets of your own personality. Inner child, inner chef, inner artist, inner rebel, inner accountant, inner asshole, inner etc.. A way to group traits together, or roles, & think of yourself in ways and details that you might otherwise not. It's just conceptualizing. Which can be hugely useful in a lot of different ways... Or not. Really depending on the individual.

The whole inner child / inner parts thing is super American & very western. Other cultures have different concepts & constructs. Friend/Lover/Wife/Mother (friend/lover/husband/father) & Warrior/Poet are an example of Shinto conceptualizing. The most meaningful & influential roles one chooses for themselves - what those mean to them - those 4 are common but it's hardly limited to them (priest, artist, leader, etc.), & the necessary balance needed between 2 things where one isn't complete without the other (a warrior not an artist is a thug, in some schools of thought). Meanwhile Chinese concepts of yin/yang & chi take things even further binary. Jump into Paganism / Catholic Saints / etc. and one will very quickly find the reverse; character traits broken down into zillions of tiny pieces and grouped together in different ways. Need this grouped together? Call on/reflect upon this god/saint. All of this super oversimplified, of course. But it's the same human state looked at in different ways. Shrug.

For some people it's not imagination. There's a huge spectrum, with almost infinite variation, of how hearts & minds work, and work together.

 

[EveHarrington]

Not necessarily. For most people it's pure anthropomorphic imagination. A way to conceptualize the diffe...

I think it's different when dealing with childhood trauma.

My therapist can see the shift in me when child parts come out.

 

[SinkorSwim]

I think it's different when dealing with childhood trauma.

My therapist can see the shift in me...

I get incredibly quiet and won't talk at all that is how my therapist knows little Katie is around.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

If my inner child did not get killed off like I suspect, after all of these years, or she is not feeling safe to come out and I am not going to try to get in touch with that part of my self now after all of these years, I actually do not think I have an inner child really. I know that this is not popular but nothing works for getting in touch with small me. Everything is so repressed and buried down so deep by now, I have huge gaps in my memory of me growing up. I always felt like an adult growing up. I was never allowed to be a child after turning a certain age. I was allowed to feel fear, and terror and pain.

 

[BM2A]

For some of us to get in touch with little me is difficult. Especially when there were so many layers of abuse and we were deprived of a childhood, and could not be a child. I thought it was impossible. I thought for a little while is this a made up thing by therapists?

And then I worked with a therapist who comforted my inner child when I was having a flashback. she taught me how to do this, so that I could finally have the feeling of being comforted instead of so much intensity during and after a flashback.

I began to recognise that part of me and could comfort myself.

That only happened 10 years after I was first told about "connecting with and comforting your inner child".

I think as a child I felt like I was not a child most of the time, which is confusing if your trying to connect with little you

 

[BoN-bOn]

I get incredibly quiet and won't talk at all that is how my therapist knows little Katie is around.[/Q...

Me too.