Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome back to the Practical Spirituality Podcast. We are so excited to have you on this journey with us, where we explore all elements of mind, body, emotions and soul through the lens of everyday life.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Hello Kim.

Speaker 1: 0:30

Hello Gareth, how are you?

Speaker 2: 0:32

I'm doing good this morning. How are you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:35

I feel better after we had a good little laugh there.

Speaker 2: 0:40

Always helps before the recording. Yes, it does.

Speaker 1: 0:43

It does.

Speaker 2: 0:44

So for this week's episode, I want to talk about something that I think comes up in a lot of people's healing journey, especially when they start exploring themselves. That would be spiritually self-help therapy and we have talked about this, I believe, on an exclusive episode on the community and how it's related is basically about our inner child and how that can come up in so many different ways in exploring ourselves. And I think, when you realize how deep that runs within any of us and the skills we have to learn along the way to basically reparent ourselves. Yes, and I think that's such an interesting topic because when you take a step back and think about it, when we look at a lot of our fears or self-criticism, our inability to emotionally regulate, or misunderstanding of where our thoughts, behaviors, programming comes from, a lot of it, if you look at it, is a child's perspective in a lot of different ways.

Speaker 1: 1:43

Yes, it is Very much so yes.

Speaker 2: 1:45

So the whole concept of reparenting ourselves, I think it's just a very interesting topic because it's a huge part of the healing process, especially in the journey of understanding self and what it means to be human.

Speaker 1: 1:58

I would agree. And I think what a lot of people don't understand is they think we're going to go and heal an inner child and we forget that we've had many, many, many, many versions of that child.

Speaker 2: 2:13

And her children.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Yeah, so I used to say I think it's why sometimes people talk refer to internal family systems because it is all of that time period when we didn't have the ability to express ourself or, you know, speak up for ourselves or defend ourselves, regardless of what the issues were, and so there's a part of us that gets frozen in that time frame until we've resolved whatever that is, and so it becomes interesting.

Speaker 2: 2:44

But I think that's where I love. That saying I use often is that you know, we don't grow up, we just grow old.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Yes.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Because a lot of the time is that even our parents we might have looked up to them, or our caregivers we might have looked at them for such an extended period of time in our lives for advice. But it really is. We're all children, raising children.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Yes.

Speaker 2: 3:05

And when we're so young, we're all children, raising children.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Yes, and when we're so young we don't know any better Exactly and I used to say it all the time, you know, when I first started working in drug and alcohol that it really is. You can tell that children have been raising children, because there's no logic and there's no maturity in some of the things that have been expressed and so it's like. But again, I remember the day I realized with my own mother that she was seeking attention, just like a child was seeking attention, and so it was like oh wait a minute, you're not even grown up. No wonder I'm not grown up.

Speaker 2: 3:43

Wasn't given the chance.

Speaker 1: 3:46

Exactly there you go.

Speaker 2: 3:48

What about now?

Speaker 1: 3:50

Working on it.

Speaker 2: 3:51

Working on it, working progress.

Speaker 1: 3:53

There are moments. There are moments when I hit small Moments of wisdom. Emotional maturity.

Speaker 2: 4:00

But I think in this episode it's important to talk about why all of this matters, because I think, if it hasn't been explored before, touched on, for someone who's listening to this, I can understand how it's a bit of a wild concept, because we really only think of ourselves as present day, as the age we are now, that happen to have memories from the past and from childhood. I think it's a hard concept to believe or to think about that these different versions of us, or parts of us, is still alive within us present day. That can dictate a lot of the decisions that we make day in day out.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Yeah, I could get really technical and explain to you the technical and the neuroscience reasonings for that, but we've done that in so many episodes so I won't go into it now. But when we have anything happen to us, it doesn't have to even be a big trauma If we don't feel completely resolved in whatever it was that happened. It could be simply as running into the room wanting to tell your parents something and them shutting you down and it was really important to you and you got shut down.

Speaker 1: 5:06

That part of you gets frozen in the shutdown and so until that gets resolved, it's always going to play a role in every relationship you ever have. And I think people get scared of the concept of the inner child. You know, because I've often had clients come to me and I start to talk oh, I don't want to do inner child work. I'm like, okay, well, let's just do younger you work then, because it has to be done.

Speaker 2: 5:35

Redefine it.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Yeah, and I don't think people understand why that is so important, that it has to be done, that we really need to form that relationship, and it is, if we're really serious.

Speaker 2: 5:48

it is about forming a relationship with ourself and all the versions of ourself that have been alive throughout the years I think what's important to also point out is that the different elements of us that shall we we say, needs work, or fears, or the criticism we have or inability to process certain emotions yes, there are some of the negative traits that we might have hold on to or that's been frozen in time, but then, if you also think about it from a positive perspective, there's a lot of things from when we were kids into our young adults that have been frozen in time have actually made us who we are today, of the things we actually enjoy in life.

Speaker 2: 6:27

Also, because it's not all negative. Yeah, both sides exist and if we actually do enough questioning, regardless of what comes up, of why we either dislike certain things or why we enjoy other things, you can often link it back to when we were kids, children, certain individuals in our lives, experiences that go across so many decades of any of our lives. So, I think, in even reparenting ourselves or understanding the pros and cons of what scares us, but also what drives us, what makes us feel at peace, what makes us feel safe, it's just a very interesting conversation because it's not one area of our lives that it doesn't affect.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Exactly. There's not a single area that it doesn't affect. So I think one of the reasons that it's hard for people to wrap their heads around that we're going to re-parent our inner child is because we have been taught, like we've said in previous episodes, to seek that sort of thing outside of ourself. Well, when we continue to say, getting curious about ourself, getting curious about going within, that's exactly what we mean. It's like, okay, we're starting to develop this new relationship with self. We left those kids way back when and never looked back and didn't want to know about it because, as most of us do in early childhood, we can't wait to get out of the childhood years.

Speaker 1: 7:50

We can't wait to be an adult. Then we get to be an adult. We're like, oh well, this adulting is not really what we thought it was going to be. But then we just press on and forget that there was a time.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Yeah, we get busy, and so the more that we develop that relationship with self and we go within and we can look at these different aspects that have been frozen in time, then there becomes a sense of maturity. It's like we're starting to grow up a little bit. When I'm talking with clients and I often want to help them understand why this is so important and why we need to go back and do it and what are some of the signs that there's unresolved issues. There is, if you are someone that is running that self-critic that is nonstop in everything you do, you can't do anything right. There is a sign that you've taken on something in childhood and it just has been stacked and stacked, and stacked and so it's showing up in every area of your life. And for all of these steps or signs that I'm about to say that we need reparenting trust me, plenty of examples, if anybody needs them.

Speaker 1: 9:02

I got all of them, I had all of them. So well, I still have them. So, okay, I'm going. Oh, I really want to say I've moved past them, but I really okay.

Speaker 2: 9:12

Just aware of them now.

Speaker 1: 9:13

I'm aware of them and I'm able to stop and really be with me in those moments. So that self-criticism is one of them, you know. The other one is a big word but I'll break it down that emotional dysregulation and a lot of people know what that means today, but basically what it means is if our emotions are really all over the place, we get stressed, then we're having big reactions. Or if there's conflict and we're trying to run away from the conflict, or if we have unexpected things come up that we don't know how to deal with and we want to run and hide or we want to run away from it, those are all signs of emotional dysregulation that we don't. So I used to think because this is what the psychologist used to tell me you have no affect regulation, which means you don't know how to control your emotions, and I was like, well, I can't control my emotions, they come up. But really what it means is, as those emotions come up, I have no idea where they're coming from and I feel out of control.

Speaker 1: 10:14

Is what it means, that emotional dysregulation? And then, of course, the big, big one which so many of us have, is that fear of abandonment, or the opposite side of that, the excessive people pleasing. So, if you think about it, they're all signs of that fight, fight, freeze response on some level or another. So these are all areas that you know. If you're experiencing this on a regular basis, this is a sign that you might have a part of you that is screaming out for help. And that's how I prefer to look at it, as it's not a dysfunction. It's not something that's wrong with us. It's just a part of us that hasn't been able to resolve something.

Speaker 2: 10:57

And I think in everything you're saying there, in those examples, it's so relatable.

Speaker 2: 11:01

I think if you picked anyone out in the street, they would of have elements of self-criticism, they're going to have emotional dysregulation and the fear of abandonment in their own ways and, of course, people pleasing so I think it's that most people probably have are running three out of those four, and there are only some of the examples.

Speaker 2: 11:18

Yes, of course, much, many more on top. Of that goes to show that it is a universal experience we're all gonna gonna, are gonna have to go through and do go through because, as I mentioned earlier, we're all just kids raising kids, because we've never been taught any of these things that actually go on within us and what are the solutions and what are the awarenesses begin to mature in those different ways. We are experiencing any of these different examples. The easiest thing to do is to deflect. It's like you're making me feel this way, you're criticizing me, you're making my emotions go crazy or make me want to run away, or you know, it's a constant experience that, because when we don't understand self, it's easy to say it's you that's the problem but.

Speaker 2: 12:02

I think, like anything, is that if we don't understand within ourselves, those kind of relationships are going to keep finding us. Because we have yet to understand that we're a part of the problem in this equation, because if we keep attracting it in different relationships, it can't be the entire 8 billion people. That's the problem.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Exactly. But we don't, you know, we don't understand it, we don't know how to do it, and it is very hard in the beginning to go. Oh, this is coming from inside me, because progress with me used to. I'll never forget it. You know, I would go into her office and I would be downloading bam, bam, bam, bam bam all this terrible stuff about my partner Right, and she would sit there with this little smile on her face and she's a small and petite, right, and she'd sit there with a smile on her face and she'd do this. She'd start to look up at the ceiling. Then she'd turn her head and look at the ceiling in another direction, that she'd look behind her and I think, what the hell are you doing? I was like, did you hear me? And she goes oh yeah, are you ready to start talking about you yet?

Speaker 1: 13:21

ouch right, and I'll be like I am trying to tell you, and she was like, yes, but I don't see him here in the room, I only see you here. And I was like, oh, it used to drive me mad in the beginning. I mean, by the time I finished seeing this person, we used to have a big laugh about it, because I'd start and I just it would be like this, stop mid-sentence, because I'd be like, oh, I'm doing it again. Okay so, and like the day that she said to me, let me introduce you to the rest of your inner family, I was like, oh, no, I've got enough already, not today.

Speaker 1: 13:56

But you know it is, it's such an important aspect on this spiritual growth.

Speaker 2: 14:02

Yep, and just growth, full stop. Because I think that's what's's again fascinating about it. We're all exposed to it and we all discover these parts of us at different timelines as we go throughout life. And I think our awakening to that is that when we find ourselves repeating the same patterns through different people, to no fault of their own or ourselves, it's just that when we keep seeing the same thing over and over again and we keep getting hurt in the same way over and over again, where we're all the same is that at some stage along the way, it forces you to ask the question and to start doing the inner research and outer research into what is actually going on here, because the same lesson over and over again. It keeps cutting deeper into the same wound.

Speaker 2: 14:50

Yes, until we actually begin to understand why and, as you said, it is not an easy concept or thing to explore, especially at the start, because it is so alien compared to anything we've been taught in our education systems or in even in society, or even from family, friends and our relationships. So it's a lot to wrap our head around. But when we start having those aha moments, like you were using there in your examples, it is kind of it's a breath of fresh air to begin to understand okay, there is something I can do about this or this starts to make sense for not only my past but what this means for me from moving forward, and I think we should probably dive in to know some of the core steps and actually what it means to begin reparenting ourselves in our day-to-day lives so I think one of those first steps is acknowledging that we do have an inner child, or inner children.

Speaker 1: 15:43

They go what do you mean? I don't really believe in that stuff. Rah, rah, rah. And so then for me, as someone who works with a lot of people, I have to kind of then give them examples. But acknowledging that, you know, the simplest way I found is how I explain to people what happens in the brain when we get triggered and how we go back to the emotional reaction.

Speaker 1: 16:05

And, like you had said at the very beginning of this conversation, when we start to look at our reactions and we listen to what we say or how we respond, it does not sound like it is a grown adult making that response. It sounds like a child's response. The reasoning behind it sounds like a child's response and that in itself is an acknowledgement of that. This is coming from a younger space in my life. We're not saying that you now have to create an image of a child and really hold that image, although that can be helpful if you're a very visual person. A lot of times I will explain to people do you have an old picture of you when you were a child? And so, because we get so critical of ourself. Instead of being critical, we have a picture of ourself as a younger child. When we have the self-criticism or the emotional dysregulation or any of the other things we've mentioned, we look at that picture.

Speaker 1: 17:02

How would you respond to someone that age? You know you're just acknowledging that this is coming from a space inside of you that had not emotionally matured at that time and so you wouldn't go at it like a bull in a china shop. You would go okay, we need to have some kindness and some compassion here, to have some kindness and some compassion here, and so you want to step into that form of it and then seeing that a child didn't have the skills to acknowledge or to to speak the truth about what was happening for them, Like when you're a child and someone said, don't do that, did you go? But I'm really curious, Didn't happen If mom and dad said don't do that?

Speaker 1: 17:46

You know you might do it just out of spite, but most of the time we don't do it because they're the authority figures. And what I remember the most is I would be excited about explaining something to my parents and I would get shut down and they would tell me that I was crazy, or they would tell me I was over emotional or all the other things that they would tell me, but I would be so frustrated because they wouldn't even listen to my point, and so those are a lot of the places where I myself got frozen in that as that younger self, and that's really what it is. It's like a part of us freezes in that moment where we don't get to express what we want to express.

Speaker 2: 18:27

And I think, especially when we're starting to become aware of this and beginning to make different decisions on how to be less, shall we say, triggered, less emotional, but for the right reasons, because we actually want to understand it is that that often entails in learning how to set emotional boundaries, which again is a whole new concept, because a lot of us are not even aware of all the emotions that we have access to, but then how to name them, how to express them, never mind setting emotional boundaries with ourselves and with other people.

Speaker 2: 19:01

Yeah, so even that and I don't want to oversimplify all these different things in this episode, because we both know there's a lot of different layers to any of these components, which is the truth we can either find ourselves giving too much responsibility to another person as I said earlier about you're doing this to me or else we can actually find ourselves taking too much responsibility for someone else's actions also and I think, depending on where we're at, both extremes are unhealthy for us and it does manipulate our own emotions as well.

Speaker 2: 19:32

We find ourselves can be capable of manipulating other people's emotions, so we can find ourselves in this constant back and forward and therefore, like a lot of the episodes in which we give advice, that's why we actually need to find a professional to be the adult in the room with us as we figure out our inner children of why we're so reactive, because we need that wise person to actually start educating that part of us. Ever be educated if we're always around other children that even raised us, that is, our parents our caregivers, our friends, our family members, the list goes on.

Speaker 2: 20:06

So we actually have to turn to a person who has explored this, who understands that you can have the patience for us, who can understand what to do when we're triggered, and that's why we have to have that self-compassion that it does take time for us to have that emotional regulation and then to know what to do with that information, to begin applying it to family, friends, relationships, so it does not happen overnight.

Speaker 2: 20:31

As soon as we read one book, it's like once we're triggered, everything, all that logic can go out the window if it's understood correctly, it absolutely goes out the window.

Speaker 1: 20:41

If not understood correctly, it absolutely goes out the window. And while you were talking, it brought up two examples for me. So one of the things that I like to say is you know, when we get triggered, I go. The trigger is the smoke alarm and it's pointing to the maladaptive coping skill that we picked up as kids, and if we are reacting from that, it's because there is a wound that has not been resolved, and so I stopped hating the trigger. I don't quite love it, like you do, but I stopped hating the trigger because now I go oh, it's my smoke alarm showing me that I'm operating from a child self instead of, and from a wound instead of from the present day self that actually has that emotional maturity. So there's that aspect of it.

Speaker 1: 21:26

So the other aspect is because I struggled with this in the beginning, so incredibly, like I was convinced it was them 100%.

Speaker 1: 21:37

You know what I'm like when I'm convinced, so I was convinced it was the other person who was doing it to me and, of course, that first teacher that I had way back when she was the one that looked at me with that little tiny smile and she just said very softly well, kim, if you spot it, you got it, and I was like what? No, I don't. No, I don't Tick the box, but if I'm thinking somebody else is doing something to me, it is another smoke alarm, saying you have something unresolved in you. It doesn't mean it's playing out presently, it might be from then, it might have been from two weeks ago, but it's something that you are holding inside of you that you haven't resolved yet. And so those were some of the tricks that I learned in the early days, and it used to drive me mad because I'd want to spew something at somebody and I'd be hearing that you spot it, you got it, and I'm like where is it alive in me?

Speaker 2: 22:35

Let's take a step back from this week's episode and share with everyone what we've been up to behind the scenes.

Speaker 1: 22:40

We're really excited to be able to finally offer the Gareth Michael community to each of you. The community offers a range of benefits, including access to our live events, weekly podcast episodes, articles, self-checking questions, as well as a community of individuals you can connect with and interact with along the way. As a community of individuals you can connect with and interact with along the way, it's designed to offer you support, guidance and a safe space on a day-to-day basis. We'd love to have you join our global community of like-minded individuals. That website address again, is wwwgarethmichaelcom. Now let's get back to that episode.

Speaker 2: 23:22

Shall we a little example of that that I think can get a trigger out of majority of people if you say it to them is that if I was to say, sit here and say, can you remind me of your mom, can really spot her water all over the mic.

Speaker 2: 23:39

Well, you remind me of your dad. And what's really interesting about this is that if your parents, parent or caregiver raised you, you can look at that as an analysis from a very factual thing. Going, if these people raised you, it'd be very hard for you not to be like them under certain ways Exactly Mannerisms, wording, programming, whatever it is but the emotional response that brings up so many people because a lot of us can go through life going I don't want to be compared to them. I'll never do life the way they did. I'll be a completely different parent. I will never be like them.

Speaker 2: 24:15

Don't get me wrong even if you have a great relationship with your parents, parent or caregiver, there can still be that response of oh, don't compare me to X. But as you said there in that example, if you spot it, you got it. But it's funny how a lot of people, or a lot of us, at one stage did not want to believe that even for a second, that we could be anything like our parents which is a crazy concept to start with, that we actually think we could be anything else but like them.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Well, what used to drive me crazy is in the early days, when I first started getting help, people would go oh my God, you're so much like your father. Well, at that particular time in my life, I really wasn't very happy with my father. I thought he wasn't a very nice person.

Speaker 1: 24:56

And so I was like, how dare you? And then I kept working and resolving all the issues with my dad and I can remember the first time I went home and they were like, oh my God, you're the spitting image of mom I was like seriously, people leave me alone.

Speaker 2: 25:13

Can I not just be me?

Speaker 1: 25:46

no-transcript. Doing this work is it's not about blame and shaming more it's about recognizing compassion for everybody and that everybody's just doing the best they can. And they can only give us what they got, and if they didn't get very healthy boundaries and instances of communication, then you're not going to get it either.

Speaker 2: 26:14

And that compassion for self, nevermind then extending it to another person.

Speaker 2: 26:20

It's not easily found or just given.

Speaker 2: 26:22

It takes time because I think especially because there's so much misunderstanding and so often so much hurt and that hurt is true and it is valid, and I think that's why it takes so long to work through that, to get to a stage of understanding that, more often than not, a lot of the decisions that our parents or caregivers made is that this one, because they didn't know better, as you said yourself. And secondly, they were also running from fears that they probably got from their parents and now they have their own kids to look after or family to look after, and that completely changes a person, never mind them running all these inner child patterns. So when you start piecing that all together, not only do you start defining compassion for yourselves, but you also begin to look back and go those poor parents, those poor caregivers, like they were just always just trying their best. It doesn't mean that you wouldn't prefer that they had done certain things differently, but I think we can look at anyone we have a history with and say that about them and ourselves.

Speaker 2: 27:23

Now, in hindsight, we all say hindsight's an amazing thing because there's a lot of things we could all do differently, but I think, with the hurt and the misunderstanding that we often hold within ourselves towards other people, is that it's important that we allow ourselves to have that different perspective of that. We were all pretending to know a lot more than what we actually did, because that's what everyone else was doing, and more often than not, there was a lack of information and more fear present than we ever thought there was very true and I have.

Speaker 1: 27:54

I have such a good example that I'm going to share, and I've probably shared it before. But when I was was 17, I came home one night, blind drunk. I want you to hear that. I was 17. I hadn't even hit legal age yet and I was blind drunk, and it was probably, you know, one of multiple times and my father said to me you have a problem, you need to get help or you need to get out. I am not going to tolerate this in my household and, of course, I'm 17. So what am I going to do? See you later, alligator.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Well, let me tell you, for years, the resentment and the hatred I had towards that man for kicking me out at 17 and making me find my own way, and yada, yada, yada and all the other wounds that I felt like I had from it. And I remember working on this as my kids were growing up, because I still hadn't resolved a lot of the stuff with my dad. But when my son turned 16 and he went out and got drunk and he didn't want to go to work the next morning and I was standing in his bedroom and I was saying to him next morning and I was standing in his bedroom and I was saying to him you want to play, you have to pay. You're going to get up and go to work. I had this flashback and I was like how hard must that have been for that man to look at his 17-year-old daughter and say you must either get help or get out.

Speaker 1: 29:18

And then, when I got out, how hard that must have been for him, because I was, well and truthfully, into an addiction that went on for quite a while, which probably you know as a parent, you never stop caring about your children and the fear. And so it was in that moment that that was happening to me, that all of a sudden I had this that was happening to me, that all of a sudden I had this geez, how much must he have loved me. And it was the first time after all those years of anger and hatred that I was able to go oh, okay, I get it now. And that is kind of how it happens for all of us, don't you think? On so many different levels. And I had been actively working on it for quite a while, so it wasn't like I wasn't trying to, but I couldn't get past the resentment of what he had done but this is what we can't force it.

Speaker 2: 30:08

You can't force or fake the compassion that eventually comes down the line. And that's where actually educating ourselves with different books, material and going to the right individuals to walk us through some of these processes, because the wound is going to take as much time as it needs to heal and, depending on the wound we're talking about, some are surface level and some run very deep, very deep. Yes, we can't skip straight to compassion. The education is important because that's where the lesson is compassion.

Speaker 1: 30:40

The education is important because that's where the lesson is. So then, I think you know where a lot of people get confused is, if they can't even relate to having an inner child, how do they go about, you know, working with an inner child if they can't even relate to having it? And so we have to now go into talking about, okay, once you acknowledge that this might be coming from a younger aspect of your life, and the response is not what you would respond if you were completely present in today. Now, how am I going to reparent this little thing that you know like for me? I remember thinking I don't know how to parent. Nobody taught me.

Speaker 2: 31:15

I think a technique you mentioned earlier and I think just getting us any of us introduced to this part of it is to take it really slow, and something, if the opportunity is there or we have access to, is childhood pictures, as you mentioned, Ranging from any age, from when you're a tot, from when you're just born right the way up through your teenage years. It doesn't matter whatever you have access to, and just identifying with yourself at those different age groups can bring up so many emotions, so many memories that have been forgotten, and it's just a really interesting exercise to do, to be like. What does these different images bring up in me? Who are the individuals in it? Exploring that simply at the start, I think, is always going to be amazing. It can give you so much to explore with a professional.

Speaker 1: 32:07

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 32:08

And I think even in doing that process and identifying with those different parts of you, versions of you, it can be healing on its own, and I think I've seen it bring up so much emotions without even asking a why? Question once.

Speaker 1: 32:22

Yes, yes, it can.

Speaker 1: 32:24

I can tell you.

Speaker 1: 32:24

Oftentimes, when I first started going back home to my parents' house and I saw pictures of me, I didn't know who it was because my self-image of who I was and what those pictures showed were so vastly different, and that was a big eye opener for me, you know, and everybody's going to have a different experience when they look at these photos, but it is a great place to start.

Speaker 1: 32:49

So I think the next place you go is the next thing from the pictures is becoming aware of our responses and paying attention to those responses, and I think what I show a lot of people. So one of the things and of course, this is where my filters come through, because I was in the middle of 10 children, so there wasn't a lot of time for a lot of affection and caregiving at that stage in my life, and so what I show people is, you know, I teach them how to just start to soothe themselves with that interconnection, just you know, doing a very nurturing, rubbing your arms, or I put my hand on my heart and I go, I heard you, it's okay, it's okay, I got you.

Speaker 1: 33:36

That's all I would say in the beginning is it's okay, I've got you. And as I used to say to my first teacher when she'd go, how'd you go working with your inner child? And I'd look at her and I'd go the inner child did just fine. It's the adult that keeps leaving. She skips out every chance she gets because it was so hard to actually work with the concept. And that's when somebody else and she had me start writing. That was the very first time I started to write and start to communicate with my younger self, and I would just write a letter to my younger self and then I would give my younger self the opportunity to write back to me and it would just be free writing and that's a great way to start to understand what's going on.

Speaker 2: 34:20

Because I think, even in the journey for so many years, we can feel such guilt and shame about the experiences that we're going through, the experiences that we had, the feelings that are the emotions that are going on within us, and there's just such a misunderstanding there and I think when we actually are doing this kind of work, you begin to realize that all of this didn't start with you, but it is within you, and I think that's where there's a battle of wanting to blame other people, and all of us have spent decades blaming a lot of different individuals in a lot of different ways. But what we all have in common here is that it's never resolved the feelings inside, because a lot of us have never once again been taught how to take responsibility for this in different ways. How do we actually express this? How do we get to acceptance and to peace with this? And actually, in looking at it and doing an element of this inner child work and actually sitting with ourselves in ways that we just haven't had the opportunity for and never knew was even possible?

Speaker 2: 35:22

And I think when we do that that we actually begin to see that resistance and shame and guilt starts to resolve because we have a newfound understanding and new ways to express ourselves. Because if we've been having all these negative emotions as the example we've never known how to express or even how to put wording to it then in the negative emotions that we do understand or can feel, they all go loading into that one emotion, or those few emotions and that's where you can feel it quite often or the smallest of things can trigger it, because that's the only emotion at the moment that's currently openly available that we can express. So therefore, as we talked about in previous episodes, our whole system has to get creative to get our attention these different ways, and it'll utilize anything it has access to to do that for our own growth. But does it feel like that? Does it feel like growth when we're feeling?

Speaker 2: 36:12

those emotions absolutely not so it's only when we start looking at those photographs throughout the different ages and we start writing to ourselves and even having an emotion sheet, as I say, our emotion inventory beside us, that we can do justice to the different levels of emotions that we can experience. We feel that our system then doesn't have to utilize other intense negative emotions or intense thinking or thoughts in order to get our intention longer term. And, of course, if we're noticing certain behaviors or patterns popping up more within us, that's when we go back to the profession or go to sessions with someone that we trust to help us work through the specifics, because it's not a journey that any of us are built to do on our own from start to finish. I do think it's actually humanly impossible, because we do need external input, because all we know is this internal world and it can be hard for any of us to decode it on our own because, as I said, it's all we've ever known.

Speaker 1: 37:08

Well, if it's all we've ever known and it's come from that child aspect and we haven't been made aware that there are other aspects, how can we change it? We have to have that outside objective point of view to go. Wait, have you ever thought about it like this, or have you looked at it from this angle? And that shifts everything on so many different levels. And I agree that I think it's humanly impossible for us to go into this kind of depth on our own. And Lord knows, I've tried and it never worked. So here's the shortcut Don't do it.

Speaker 2: 37:43

I feel like when we're actually in session, it's like a parent-teacher meeting, it's like how are the kids this week? What did they misbehave, what did they do good, what came up, and a report is distributed. But again, I mean that in a positive light, because then we stop feeling as much shame or guilt or beating ourselves up. We start beginning to understand ourselves and the people around us in ways that we just didn't know humanly was possible, and that is so healing and so free and beyond words.

Speaker 1: 38:14

Well, and it makes so much more space for us to explore the different things we want to explore now because before we're trapped in these cycles of repetitive patterns. So you know a couple other things that people talk about. Like I've said so many times, I love the present moment, awareness, because that helped me see that I'm here. I used to say to myself here I am, it's 2025, and this is the age I am, and yes, that felt really real then. It's not happening now, and the more that I use that mindfulness and the more that I used all the different aspects that were taught to me, the more I developed a relationship. I do have and I don't mind saying it, I have a very close relationship with my inner children now and I'm pretty aware whenever they're close to the surface and I'm responding from that place. Does it make it easier to work through it? I mean, the things still happen, because there are still things that come up that I wasn't aware are there, but it makes it a whole lot easier to communicate with myself in that way.

Speaker 1: 39:18

What we really want to talk about here, as we've gone through all of these different aspects, is, if you make the decision to start to work on this, which you usually don't get a choice. It's usually happening. So once it's started. Consistency is the key, because if we work with our inner child for a little while and then we go okay, that's enough. Oh, there's my little girl. Let me just put my hand on my heart. Yes, I hear that you're upset. That was then. This is now.

Speaker 1: 40:08

I've got this, you don't have to do it, and so many of my clients have heard me say that so many times. I think they hate those words, but that is one of the key things, and it becomes easier and easier and easier as long as we are being consistent. And it is one of the greatest journeys you're ever going to take, because you get to know yourself in a completely different way. You get to give yourself what you didn't get, and I think that's the real beauty of doing this work when you finally are giving to you what you've always wanted your whole life, but you thought you wanted it from outside of you.

Speaker 2: 40:42

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Speaker 1: 40:48

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