How Your Inner Child Battles And Adventures Got You Ready For Life?

Ryan Reinold was asked an interesting question that made me re-think my inner child’s role inside my subconscious

I was listening, just now, to a speech Ryan Reynold gave. In it, he described a little bit about his childhood and he said that living with 3 older brothers was not easy but he survived using his widths :D

What was extremely interesting was the question that came after his story:

“How did that experience prepare you for life?”

I felt this question making me tremble a bit. I just stopped the video and let it sink in a little.

The inner child

You have an interesting picture of your inner child. He, or she, has lived through the most challenging period of your life. During the period when you had no power, you were absolutely defenseless and dependent. The period when all your world was infinitesimally small, your house, your parents.

In this world, you were dependent on what happened around you. You were dependent on your parents, on your house. You learned how to be, what is ok and what is not. How to see, how to hear, how to talk, how to express yourself. You learn how to love and how to be loved. You learn how to feel hurt and how you can hurt. In this period you create yourself from what is around you. The rest of your life is just constructed on top of that.

Your inner child is the one that saw your mother’s behavior and associated it with love. Your inner child saw your parents' relationship and, subconsciously, decided that he want the same for himself. Your inner child suffered, learned, and adapted.

The inner child’s impact on us now

The problem is that your inner child has learned stuff that might not be useful now. He, maybe, learned to fear opening his heart because at some point he did that and someone hurt him. Or maybe he is afraid to desire because at some point he might have expressed his desire for something and he got hurt because of that. Or maybe he is afraid to try because he failed at some point and he was not encouraged with love and that hurt him.

To fix this a lot of people say that you should get in touch with your inner child and self-parent him. Tell him that it is ok to feel what he feels. It is ok to be afraid. It is ok to feel hurt when he opens up. Tell him that he can try anything because you will always be there for him, and catch him when he fails. Tell him that he is safe and loved and deserving of all the love he receives.

Everyone says to hold your inner child and love him and let him feel whatever he feels because it is ok.

And that is wonderful.

What about the rest?

There is one thing that I hear less of, and that is what to be grateful for from your inner child?

You are him. All that he went through has led to you being you. And you do love yourself. That means you love him as well. All that you love about yourself, you love about him. Even the fact that you love yourself is due to your inner child.

So let’s also thank your inner child. He wants gratification, I think, as much as the right to feel and express himself safely.

Tell him

“Thank you for being strong”

“Thank you for going to school”

“Thank you for learning to love”

“Thank you for loving and protecting me”

“Thank you for me”

Let your inner child know how his work and his struggle in this weird new strange world have helped you. Grab him by the hand and take him to a park, to eat ice cream, or play in the woods. Offer him what he likes because he deserves it.

Stay with him on a bench in the sky, with the Earth at your feet, and the sun behind you, eating ice cream. Show him the world you have at your feet and tell him

Thank you for giving me all this!

If liked this article you might like these as well:

If you liked this article and it helped you in any way, then I would love it if you would buy me a coffee ❤️☕️.

Or, if you want unlimited access to all Medium content, feel free to use my affiliate link. It’s 5$/month, and I would receive half of that.