Our Inner Child

Our Inner Child

It's funny how our childhood creeps up into everything we do without our being aware. It's like a five-year-old is constantly following us around asking questions that we don't want to listen to. She's so annoying, that child: always asking why, always bringing up stuff we don't want to deal with. She can pop up in some aches and pains that we brush off as stress and take some Tums to forget her. We're not paying attention to her, poor child, and she acts out all the more because of it. Sometimes she screams and shouts, throwing a temper tantrum just to be noticed. She infiltrates into the present moment and takes hold of it until we silence her again into a corner of ourselves.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my inner child, especially since I heard a post cast with Dr. Don Wood, PhD. He developed the Inspired Performance Institute to deal with past events that are effecting our present lives. So, of course I asked myself: how is my past affecting my present? The answer is: it's affecting it in almost everything.

One example could be that when my parents got divorced, I just really wanted to be at home with my mom. So, at school I started to fake stomach aches so she would have to come and pick me up. My mom had to work, however, so eventually she had to stop coming to pick me up. The problem was at that point I had convinced myself that I had stomach aches, so I continued to have them even if I had to hold them in.

I held onto my aches for so long that I still have them today. 

I would like to say that I "grew out of them", or maybe that I grew into myself so that I didn't need them anymore. The truth is the aches became spasms that I have been dealing with for years. I have been aware for a while that any situation that makes me sad or frustrated burns just under my rib cage. So, the child is still there, asking for attention.

What I would like to say to her is this: "I feel you. I know you're there, but you don't need to be there anymore. I am strong enough now to deal with the past and the future. You can stop now."

What is your inner child saying to you? What would you like to say to him or her?

Text: Kristen Mastromarchi

Photo: "inner child" by Eddi van W. is marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.