Love Your Inner Child

Have you taken a moment to notice and nurture your inner child lately? Have you ever noticed them step in and start running the show, right at a moment where you have to be 'perfectly adult'...like right when you're about to give a presentation, run a workshop, start a new job, meet someone new and important to you for the first time?

As some of my amazing teachers in the realm of relationships and intimacy once taught me, so many of the times when we're frantically busy, stressed or feeling a little overwhelmed in those moments, in the midst of what we're experiencing in the present is so often actually also the memory and experience of a scared child us, remembering the memory of a time when we weren't yet sure how to cope, where we might then have felt hurt, scared or abandoned in the face of an experience just like this one you're in right now and wished our parent/s or someone grown up would come along and take over and make it all feel safe and OK again.

​But here's the thing. Some times there's not always someone else available to take over again in the world of adult experience. How do we then love and build up our own resilience throughout these moments?
Here's a little tip on the Love Your Inner Child Practice I was taught that you can use to help love and support yourself through these moments to help you feel safe, loved and supported when only you and God are left in your part of the room.

1-Close your eyes, breathe slow and deep, tune into yourself and ask yourself "how old am I right now?"

2-Whatever comes up, visualise you at that age standing before you now.
If a child or a young person was standing in front of you, feeling upset, scared and vulnerable, how would you be with them? What would you say to them?

3-Take a moment now to do this with this little being in front of you. Love them as a parent would, let them have out what they need to and support them through it as your ideal of the perfect Mother or Father would. Until they feel happy, safe and loved. Tell them that you'll always be there because in fact the two of you are together and in fact inseparable always. Then when you're ready, say your goodbyes and see them go to somewhere fun for now. Then bring your awareness back to your surrounds.

I know, i know, sounds a bit tedious, right? Do you REALLY have to? Well no you don't. But if you choose to, there are some major benefits that come from doing this practice that might be worth a look at.

When our inner intimacy and safety needs are met:

-We're less distracted by our own needs and have more of our presence and energy available to give to our work or our clients and we're getting paid to show up and offer our professional magic in those scenarios. This practice will help you always bring your A game. And in return you'll have super happy work colleagues and clients who sing your praises.

-We have more presence and energy available to offer to our relationships, personal and professional. Do you remember what it felt like the last time you were in the room with someone who was "there, but not really there?" We humans like to be listened to with full presence and have people genuinely love and take an interest in us. Doing this inner child practice means that we have more of ourselves available to give to the people we love. And life is a beautiful mirror. What we give out has a way of being returned to us ten fold. If we're willing and open to receive it.

-And lastly, when we're consciously aware of this behavioural pattern, and this tendency in others, we're less likely to fall into habits of parenting them in our relationships, personal and professional and create in the process a dynamic of dependence, rather than independence. And that means that, when either of you has to withdraw from the relationship for any length of time to do "life", the other wont fall down in an overwhelm of "i can't cope without you" or a fit of resentment when you withdraw. Because they'll be more empowered to love and support themselves independently. And then every body can feel happy and free to do their thing...until next you meet. Who doesn't want that?????

Like any new skill or practice, it takes a bit of practice and takes a bit of time to get used to and integrate this one. If you have any questions, or would like some support with practically implementing it, you know where to find me.

So, the next time you're in the midst of it and not sure what to do, take a moment to...