Inner Child healing

Dad & me

Inner child healing is said to be an essential part of inner work. The dictionary describes inner work as the psychological and spiritual practice of diving deep into your inner self for the purposes of self-exploration, self-understanding, healing, and spiritual transformation. For me it was mainly connected with a desire to understand myself, as well as my various behaviors and reactions. My goal was to learn about triggers and wounds created early on in life, with the hope to bring healing and addressing a pain body that was rooted on an emotional level, and in turn resulting in a pain body that made itself visible in the form of RA flare up’s. Trapped emotional trauma that was stored and unresolved transformed into the physical form and in my case into chronic disease.

I have only come across inner child healing earlier this year and already, it has become an essential part of my journey. It has opened my eyes and unlocked secrets. It has brought me face to face with myself and transformed pain into healing and love. It is also described as the psychotherapeutic or spiritual process of changing yourself to become the person you know you can be. To go through this process of embarking on such deep and profound work, we have to recognize that certain things within us are out of balance. We have to admit that we are not perfect, but that we are flawed. We have to express a goal of no longer wanting to turn our heads the other way by ignoring our shadow self and our darker aspects. We have to recognize that nobody is perfect and it includes us….especially us. Doing inner work, means that we have to be honest with ourselves and this is not a time for foolish pride. In the process of it we need to recognize and observe that we act out of character in certain situations. We need to pinpoint what it is that we would like to change about ourselves. On its own, inner child healing reconnects us to the wounded elements of our inner child within. Inner child healing is the term given to therapeutic work on childhood wounds. It is an effort to correct and to balance, to remove and to heal while expressing a desire to achieve inner peace.

Just recently I was thinking about what an enormous responsibility it is to raise children. I was never been gifted with this responsibility, but I pay homage and pull my hat to all of you parents out there who do a fabulous job and show up each and every day. The sacrifices you bring to the table make it easy for me to see that as a parent you want the best for your child. Often this includes a better life than the one you might have experienced yourself. You pray for a life with less struggles, and smooth sailing as it is your best wish and hope your child lives a healthy, successful and glorious life. Let’s not forget a happy life which is often overlooked and not listed as an essential requirement, but it truly is. You put forth your best every day, all for the well being of your child. After all, you are his/her mentor, guardian and protector, and in many ways you keep him/her safe, providing a roof over their head, food on the table and clothes to wear which is not always a given in many 3rd world countries. And yet it is impossible to protect your beloved from the lessons of life. From the experiences their soul has agreed to have in this lifetime before they were even born. It renders you helpless and you can only watch and support to the best of your ability. My soul has agreed to many years of struggle and to lessons that I yet have to learn. I am still identifying my wounds and the things that are out of balance. I am still discovering things I would like to change about myself. I continue to be my worst critic, but I have also become my best friend and my biggest supporter. Most of all and despite of this ongoing learning process, I am at peace and that’s what’s most important to me. I know that changes will continue to come in their due time and that the lessons and experiences of life will never end. I am ok with it, with this current moment, my now, and don’t need to wish that things could be different. Everything happens in divine timing and I might as well enjoy the current scenery to the best of my ability. I am grateful that I have adapted to a personal concept of finding beauty within a weed, to see something positive amongst the devastation of a Wildfire, that I search for the lessons even amongst the most painful experiences and that I always find a way to keep going.

When it comes to my inner wounds, I know that they are elements that were hurt as a child. Elements that nobody on the sidelines could really protect me from. These elements would follow me all of my life until I was finally ready to stare them into the face and do the healing. It’s something that has to be realized first and too often we don’t even know that such a thing exists. How could we ever be aware that we are missing something, that something needs mending, that something is begging to be healed. It takes a great deal of life experiences and pain that eventually brings this awareness into our life. One such element is a stubborn one and I have tried to heal it several times already. It has to do with my yearning for meaningful relationships and friendships. It branches off into other inner children such as abandonment, unworthiness, invaluable, isolation, a feeling of being left behind, betrayed, taking for granted, and more if this yearning is triggered and not met. While I have healed many of these childhood wounds and inner children, I have yet to learn as to why such a connection is so meaningful to me and why I crave it so much. Perhaps I am still focusing on “too small” (individual connections) and my purpose is even greater than I realize it myself. Time will tell and in the meantime until this divine moment arrives, I am here doing the work and laying the foundation.

I have learned that I don’t need these connections for my own happiness, to feel loved, to feel complete or because I need to feel validated and accepted. I know that I already carry everything I need within me and it does bring great comfort. I know that happiness is not dependent on others, but others can surely enrich a state that is already present. I know that in life we might never be all that we hope in the eyes of every single person. It’s simply impossible and we don’t always connect on the same level. Yet there remains a yearning to share life, to feel connected to someone or something other than myself. I am pondering what that is and where this wound was created. I am sure it has to do with the early death of my father and the harsh feeling of being left behind. A feeling of abandonment and missed chances. A feeling of last moments without realization they would never return, and having to come to terms with a new way of life and without him. I am pondering the name of this wound and while I could call it a great many names, I am searching for the main umbrella that encompasses all the other wounds and reactions thereof. Perhaps that’s why it has been so difficult to address and heal this specific one. Therefore I relive some of the same experiences and emotions over and over. The same hopes surface and the same disappointments follow. Today, I am merely recognizing that I have a little more work to do and that this inner child is not completely healed yet. I understand that a lesson will repeat until it is learned and I’m committed to break the repeat cycle. I wonder what the lesson is and how it is healed. Personally I am tired of this teacher and I want to waive farewell as I integrate it with my soul and shower it with love. I haven’t quite figured out this season for a reason thing yet and why people come and go so frequently. Why potentially meaningful relationships are reduced to encounters, an acquaintance, or nothing at all. Why interests and needs change so quickly and not over time, why it is a use and be used kind of experience and why time is simply up. Am I truly the only one feeling this way!