I am the Parent of My Inner Child

It is more secure for the inner child to have me as a guide.

“We grow but there is a part of us that still thinks and emotes as a child”

“In fact, we are a sum total of the various subpersonalities that existed from different times of our life. Our current behavior is a reflection of these subpersonalities.”

Most people live through their life without realizing the existence of the inner child and its effect on our current selves but someone on the path of self-growth works with his inner child and brings it to terms with his current beliefs and expectations.

The path to self-growth

The real path to self-growth involves getting in touch with your inner child and understanding its fears and concerns thereby making it come to peace and become happy.

This process first involves getting rid of the emotional charge associated with incidents that the inner child faced. Such incidents may have caused the person (as a child) to become fearful, angry or guilty, etc.

“The process of catharsis helps in removing the emotional charge thereby making the person think about the situation with a logical mind.”

At this point, the inner child needs consolation and love. Till recently I was relying on guardian figures like my parent or uncle, etc but later realized it was difficult to internalize the fact that they indeed have changed.

Forcing my inner child to believe that guardian figures would accept him as he was with all his so-called shortcomings may not work and that’s where I think we ourselves can act as the guardian to our inner child.

“There is no one who knows us better than ourselves so the acceptance to our behaviors as a child will come more naturally if we act as the guardian figure.”

Acceptance is the first step towards feeling secure. There was a reason why we as a child behaved in a certain manner so as to cause fear. Accepting ourselves in spite of that behavior would make the inner child secure.

The next step is to change the false belief that caused us to have fear. Here we ourselves with an evolved understanding of life can help relieve the inner child of its false belief and act as a pillar for his emotional safety.

Example: Ram grew up in a conservative society where he was forbidden by his parents to get involved with children of the opposite sex. There were several incidents where Ram was attracted to another girl and feared being punished by his parents.

Thus, Ram’s inner child was full of insecurities and even after becoming an adult, he faced issues in interacting with the opposite sex and have a general sense of confidence. Ram was then suggested by one of his friends to undergo catharsis and refinement of his inner child so as to overcome his current issues.

Ram used catharsis to remove the emotional charge from various fearful incidents as a child when he felt insecure. Such incidents ranged from being ridiculed by his friends for disclosing his desire towards the opposite sex to his parents to having guilt for deriving pleasure watching sensual motion pictures.

Each incident was handled on a one-by-one basis and after the emotional charge was removed Ram relied on his current self to provide security and love. At this point, if he relied on his actual parents or another guardian figure for acceptance then maybe it may not work.

“His parents and other guardian figures may not have changed as much as he has in his thinking so relying on himself is a better approach.”

After the inner child of Ram feels secure that the false belief that sexual attraction is bad can be replaced by a better belief that one should be proud of his feelings and that society would actually function better if people do not have to suppress their innate tendencies.

This whole process of catharsis and then refinement of the inner child by using himself as the guardian figure helped Ram overcome the anxiety and lack of confidence pertaining to the opposite sex. He also became generally happier with an increased level of self-acceptance.

Conclusion

The inner child of a person has a lot of say in determining the current happiness level of the person. If the inner child is happy and confident then the same is reflected by the person while if the inner child is fearful then in all likelihood the person at present may also be fearful and lacking confidence.

The best way to bring the inner child to terms with our current beliefs and thinking is to work upon it by removing its fearful emotions and then replacing the false belief with something better. During this whole process reliance on ourselves as the guardian figure that could provide emotional security would come in handy.

I hope people follow this process and make the various subpersonalities existing within themselves to be consistent with each other thereby avoiding any split personality syndrome. Following this path of self-growth would help the person in realizing his ideal self and would also create a more healthy and happy society.