You are Good, Worthy and Lovable because you are.
Being a therapist is, for me, the most rewarding and wonderful position, alongside mother and wife.
It carries such honor because I know the lengths at which I had to come, in order to sit across from a teen or adult or play on the floor with a young child. Attending and attuning to THEM. Sensing Their thoughts…their feelings AND having the knowledge and skills to do just that!
Counselor education is expansive. You learn decades of therapeutic modalities and theories. You can regurgitate the fundamentals of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Reality Therapy, Person Therapy and the list goes on and on….HOWEVER….in working with such a variety of clients for eight years, I have come to find that at the core of each and every client is the need for Inner Child work.
You know something is a trend when it is commented on The Bachelor and echoed across social media platforms. And in today’s culture “Inner Child Work” is a buzz. People are excited to share their own experiences and others are asking “What the heck is it?”!
So let me introduce you to my favorite type of therapy to practice as a professional AND as an individual.
From about 6 months prebirth to about 6 years old, our nervous system is developing. Our nervous system is in charge for all the neuropathways that tell us how to walk, how share our toys, how to line up to leave the classroom, etc. Now, as we experience our world and repeat a neuropathway, it becomes subconscious. We no longer think, “left foot…right foot” when walking because that neuropathway has been traveled so much that it has become automatic. Fascinating, right?! RIGHT!!! BUT…our nervous system doesn’t just focus on those type of external experiences. It also focuses on internal experiences…THUS we meet our Inner Child.
For about 6% of the population, they grew up in families of origin that had no stress and emotionally mature and secure caregivers that could navigate life with all the energy and support to attend and attune to their children. For the rest of the 94% of us…not so much. Now, this is not to say 96% had awful childhoods with BIG T trauma, no, this is to say that the 96% of us grew up in households where their caregivers were human and products of their own experiences and living in a time that therapeutic work was still very stigmatized. So, we honor them for what they could do, see it for what it was and take on the responsibility of healing for ourselves.
Back to the nervous system…so, just as the nervous system moves external understanding to the subconscious, so too with the internal understanding and this my friends comes directly from our caregivers. Internal understanding is the direct line that communicates our “value”, “worth” and “lovability”. Now I put those in quotes because we are fundamentally those without EVER having to earn them, but in the world of the inner child, it is probable this wasn’t communicated. So, through the experiences of childhood and up until the age of 10, we began to hear statements or perceive energy that may have communicated:
“You are too sensitive?”
“Why are you so difficult?”
“Don’t you ever care how I feel?”
“Sit down and be quiet.”
Or you may have experienced a parent that was overly critical or controlling, an absent workaholic OR passive in not really caring what rules there were for the household.
The list could go on and on!
So through these repeated messages..REMEMBER, THE NEUROPATHWAY REPEATED BECOMES A SUBCONCIOUS TRUTH, received by your child-self, you began to make “sense” of this world and who you were in it. Those messages became truth. Instead of “left foot…right foot”. It may have been:
“If I get good grades, then dad will tell me he is proud of me.”
“Mom never comes home from work to tuck me in, so I must not be important.”
“When I cry, I am too much.”
Because of these repeated messages you began changing yourself to be accepted and safe in your home and then in your peer world.
Can you remember that young self? Can you remember them REALLY just wanting to be loved and accepted and how hard it was to understand why they didn’t feel that way?
So, I want to take a moment right now and honor your Inner Child. I want to tell them that they have done an amazing job in keeping you safe all these years. That was never supposed to be their job but they took it on and did their absolute best and they are good, worthy and lovable because they are.
I also want to invite them to come rest and release. It is time for them to come back to true self. To remember who they REALLY are and lean into that world of wonder and joy. It can be safe again. They can feel safe again and YOU can be YOU again. Come take the journey in healing the Inner Child. You will NEVER regret it. Even in the moments of sadness and pain, you will find release and the reacquainting with yourself, remembering who you REALLY are.
You are magnificent. XOXO
Counselor education is expansive. You learn decades of therapeutic modalities and theories. You can regurgitate the fundamentals of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Reality Therapy, Person Therapy and the list goes on and on….HOWEVER….in working with such a variety of clients for eight years, I have come to find that at the core of each and every client is the need for Inner Child work.
You know something is a trend when it is commented on The Bachelor and echoed across social media platforms. And in today’s culture “Inner Child Work” is a buzz. People are excited to share their own experiences and others are asking “What the heck is it?”!
So let me introduce you to my favorite type of therapy to practice as a professional AND as an individual.
From about 6 months prebirth to about 6 years old, our nervous system is developing. Our nervous system is in charge for all the neuropathways that tell us how to walk, how share our toys, how to line up to leave the classroom, etc. Now, as we experience our world and repeat a neuropathway, it becomes subconscious. We no longer think, “left foot…right foot” when walking because that neuropathway has been traveled so much that it has become automatic. Fascinating, right?! RIGHT!!! BUT…our nervous system doesn’t just focus on those type of external experiences. It also focuses on internal experiences…THUS we meet our Inner Child.
For about 6% of the population, they grew up in families of origin that had no stress and emotionally mature and secure caregivers that could navigate life with all the energy and support to attend and attune to their children. For the rest of the 94% of us…not so much. Now, this is not to say 96% had awful childhoods with BIG T trauma, no, this is to say that the 96% of us grew up in households where their caregivers were human and products of their own experiences and living in a time that therapeutic work was still very stigmatized. So, we honor them for what they could do, see it for what it was and take on the responsibility of healing for ourselves.
Back to the nervous system…so, just as the nervous system moves external understanding to the subconscious, so too with the internal understanding and this my friends comes directly from our caregivers. Internal understanding is the direct line that communicates our “value”, “worth” and “lovability”. Now I put those in quotes because we are fundamentally those without EVER having to earn them, but in the world of the inner child, it is probable this wasn’t communicated. So, through the experiences of childhood and up until the age of 10, we began to hear statements or perceive energy that may have communicated:
“You are too sensitive?”
“Why are you so difficult?”
“Don’t you ever care how I feel?”
“Sit down and be quiet.”
Or you may have experienced a parent that was overly critical or controlling, an absent workaholic OR passive in not really caring what rules there were for the household.
The list could go on and on!
So through these repeated messages..REMEMBER, A NEUROPATHWAY REPEATED BECOMES A SUBCONCIOUS TRUTH, received by your child-self, you began to make “sense” of this world and who you were in it. Those messages became truth. Instead of “left foot…right foot”. It may have been:
“If I get good grades, then dad will tell me he is proud of me.”
“Mom never comes home from work to tuck me in, so I must not be important.”
“When I cry, I am too much.”
Because of these repeated messages you began changing yourself to be accepted and safe in your home and then in your peer world.
Can you remember that young self? Can you remember them REALLY just wanting to be loved and accepted and how hard it was to understand why they didn’t feel that way?
So, I want to take a moment right now and honor your Inner Child. I want to tell them that they have done an amazing job in keeping you safe all these years. That was never supposed to be their job but they took it on and did their absolute best and they are good, worthy and lovable because they are.
I also want to invite them to come rest and release. It is time for them to come back to true self. To remember who they REALLY are and lean into that world of wonder and joy. It can be safe again. They can feel safe again and YOU can be YOU again. Come take the journey in healing the Inner Child. You will NEVER regret it. Even in the moments of sadness and pain, you will find release and the reacquainting with yourself, remembering who you REALLY are.
You are magnificent. XOXO