Healing the Inner Child
- Mica Schuchardt
- Jul 11, 2019
- 12 min read
Let’s start with a story...I promise this is relevant
When I was in high school, I wanted to have a turtle farm - so basically multiple turtles as pets. I thought I could make them a nice little pen around a fresh water spring on our property, and we would have a lot of fun together (for context, I was a strange high schooler…but also prom queen…so a weird mix).
Anyway, one day when I was driving home from track practice, I saw a turtle on the side of the road. I excitedly pulled over and scooped him or her up (you determine the sex of a turtle by looking at tail length and believe me, it’s more ambiguous than one might think). In any case, I decided to name it Yoda. I put Yoda in my passenger seat and drove home.
When I pulled up, my mom was outside watering plants, and as I took my passenger out of the car she of course asked, “What’s that?”
I said, “It’s a Yoda, and it’s the first member of my turtle farm.”
She just turned around and went back to watering the flowerbed, which I interpreted as a “green light”, especially considering we once had a possum named Mr. Snugglebunnies that lived in a drawer in one of our sheds and a seagull named Buckbeak that lived in a kiddie pool in our laundry room (he had a broken wing).
So, I walked in the house, put Yoda on the kitchen table, gave him/her a lettuce leaf, and started consulting google. The first thing I found out was that Yoda belonged to a subspecies of the painted turtles, and as I started diving into more specific research, I discovered some horrifying information. If removed from its natural environment, this specific turtle would wander aimlessly for the rest of its life looking for where it came from. Shit.
I put on a pair of gloves, gave Yoda a bath in order to get rid of my scent so his tribe wouldn’t reject him, and immediately drove him back to where I found him. Goodbye Yoda, and good luck.
So what does my failed turtle farm have to do with healing the inner child?
Everything.
We are all painted turtles. Just as the painted turtle will spend the rest of their life looking for their home, so will we, as humans, live our lives searching for our natural habitat – which is wholeness, fulfillment, and pure love (if you don’t believe me, I’ll share my rationale in a moment). The problem arises because when we are children, we are dependent on our caregivers to meet our needs, and inevitably, they will not meet our needs perfectly so we end up with wounds and voids.
If the inner child is not healed, than in our adult lives we will continue to look to have our needs met outside of ourselves. We will continue to be dependent on others for feelings of love, validation, happiness, and fulfillment. While this isn’t a bad way to live your life (many people do it this way), it’s also not ideal. When we depend on imperfect humans to have our needs met we are setting ourselves up to live our lives on an emotional roller coaster. While that may sound exciting, honey it’s exhausting. And more importantly, it is the surest way to distract yourself from being all that you can be, and it will prevent you from actualizing your true potential. Now more than ever the world needs the full expression of your gifts, so healing the inner child is work worth doing.
Ok, so let’s talk about the 'natural habitat' I referenced earlier...
If esoteric perspectives tend to resonate with you, than perhaps it makes perfect sense that prior to coming into this world, we were in a place of wholeness, oneness, and pure love. That’s what’s familiar to us, so when we start taking form in this physical plane – growing within an imperfect human and being cared for by imperfect humans - it’s going to feel very foreign, it will be a rough transition, and our needs for love and fulfillment are not going to be perfectly met…regardless of how well-meaning our parents are.
If the esoteric perspective doesn’t resonate, simply consider this: babies come into this world knowing their worth – they demand your attention, they expect to have their needs met, and if they aren’t met, they cry. Their expectation is to feel good and to be loved. That’s what feels natural and right to them. Babies are not thrilled when you ignore them or treat them as if they’re unworthy. That feels wrong and unnatural.
So in summary, we are born with a natural inclination to be basked in love and have our needs met. When our experience starts to deviate from these expectations during the crucial childhood years, we begin picking up beliefs from observing those around us regarding what we need to do in order to fulfill these deep-seeded natural desires…and that’s when things start to get weird.
The neuroscience specifics
So as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we are incredibly impressionable the first six years of our lives. This is because our brain waves are slower – children predominantly exhibit delta and theta waves which mimic a trance-like hypnotic state. This means a child’s perceptions become directly programmed into their subconscious mind because the filters of the analytical conscious mind haven’t been fully developed yet. This is ideal for learning how to walk, speak, and not die, but you can probably imagine where things can go wrong.
While neuroscience has only recently clarified the mechanism of this vulnerable period of subconscious programming, this process has been observed and manipulated for centuries. Aristotle said, “Give me the child until he is 7 and I will show you the man”. This saying is also referenced in the Jesuit tradition because they knew if they took advantage of the child’s trance state, they could easily implant church dogma into the subconscious. And what’s perhaps scarier (depending on your upbringing) is neuroscience tells us that if left unchecked, these subconscious programs will dictate 95% of our behavior for the rest of our lives.¹
Let’s look at an example: if a caregiver is repeatedly sending their kid the message that in order to receive love they have to meet a certain standard of performance, the child isn’t able to say, “This is actually BS. I have inherent value, I’m enough as is, and you’re wrong for trying to make me earn your love.” No. Can’t happen. Kiddos haven't developed this power yet. So the child acquires the subconscious belief that in order to be loved, they have to be a high-performer…or perfect. Then in their adult life, they are still being directed by this subconscious program and are putting a tremendous amount of pressure on themselves to achieve. While that may lead to certain levels of success, it is also likely that it will lead to burn out and come at the cost of their overall wellbeing.
While I could give countless examples of detrimental programming we acquire during childhood, by far the most common belief (associated with varying degrees of certainty) is “I am not enough”. What else is a child supposed to think when their needs aren’t met? When a parent leaves? When they aren’t given the attention that they crave? Now many people don’t think they hold this belief because their conscious mind knows that they are enough, but humor me for a moment…
Repeat to yourself 3 times “I am enough” and then imagine what your life would look like if you truly embodied that phrase – if you knew it with certainty and believed it with every ounce of your being, every layer of your humanity, and every cell in your body…
Maybe you would speak up more in work meetings, maybe you would take better care of yourself because you know you’re worth it and deserve to feel good, maybe you would start the business you’ve always dreamed of, maybe you would get out of an unhealthy relationship…
The point is, if you imagined doing something different than what you’re currently doing, the “I’m not enough” belief is somewhere in your subconscious holding you back. And as such, healing the inner child could be of benefit to you.
Ok, so in summary - whatever messages we get continually sent during our childhood ends up programmed into our subconscious mind, and if left unchecked, this programming will carry into our adult lives and we’ll play it out on a daily basis - we will continually try to get our needs met from unreliable sources, we’ll self-sabotage, we’ll shut ourselves down.
Who is to blame?
Well, no one.
In hypnosis when I ask clients to go back to the scenes that are the absolute root cause of whatever detrimental belief they are presenting with, the “severity” of the scenes occur along a spectrum. You can acquire a detrimental belief from an absolutely benign situation that you simply misinterpreted as a child or it can come from some type of malicious trauma.
SO...
Even the most well-intentioned caregivers cannot protect a child from acquiring detrimental beliefs...and they will likely be the cause of at least some of them.
And, if your caregivers were jackasses, please understand this – their jackassery is a result of their subconscious programming, their unresolved traumas, and their unmet needs. So it isn't their fault per se, but it was their responsibility to heal and they obviously never got the help they needed. Let's be real, blaming them isn't very satisfying. It's just keeping you stuck and wasting your energy.
It's also important that you hear this: while they may have projected their issues onto you, the issue was never you.
Going off that topic, for a good part of my upbringing, I thought one of my caregivers was an actual monster, and while their actions were certainly supportive of that conclusion, one day I witnessed from a distance this particular person lying in the woods in the fetal position crying their eyes out during a snow storm. That’s when my perspective shifted from resentment to compassion – I saw very clearly in that moment their monstrous actions were the downstream effects of them being a very broken human.
Hurt people are the ones who hurt people - which is why healing work is so important. None of us set out to be a wrecking ball in relationships, burn our loved ones, damage our kids, or thwart our own potential. Yet, this tends to be the norm rather than the exception. But that type of living is for people who don’t know that healing is possible for them or available to them…
If you’re reading this, I don’t care what kind of hole you’ve got yourself in, the truth is healing is both possible and available.
Inner child specifics
I'm just going to rapid fire key points, so here we go:
1) Signs you have an inner child to heal:
a. You sense some type of void in your life…which, for the most part, feels pretty unbearable so you will try to fill it with any number of things – a relationship, drugs, alcohol, food, etc.
b. You’ve been on earth long enough to notice some patterns in your life that make for a less than ideal existence – examples: maybe you hurt the people you care about most OR you keep attracting the same type of people into your life (not just romantic partners, but it could also be certain types of bosses, co-workers, friends…they will share certain characteristics that drive you nuts/stress you out/cause you pain) OR you might notice you have a hard time finishing projects OR when things are going really well, you get all weird and self-destruct and ruin everything
c. You have triggers – a disproportionate emotional response to something not going your way. While one might think this would be a pretty obvious thing to notice about oneself, that’s actually not the case. If you’ve been responding the same way to these triggers for many years, it’s likely you’ve developed a blind-spot or have convinced yourself that your behavior is justified. As such, if it feels safe, it’s sometimes helpful to ask someone you spend a lot of time with what your triggers are. The reason you respond to a trigger in the way that you do is because you have some sort of narrative attached to it. So when you feel yourself starting to get worked up, if you can, in that moment, take a deep breath and listen to what the narrative is – listen to what your mind is telling you – it might be things like “you’re not good enough, no one appreciates you, you aren’t loved, what you say doesn’t have value, if they really loved you they wouldn’t____” etc. and decide if that narrative is actually correct. These types of narratives can sometimes develop when you’re looking at a situation through a very narrow lens which then leads you to make inaccurate conclusions that don’t always serve you (or the people around you).
2) I'm sure some of you have been through some unimaginable hell in your life, and I empathize with that. Just remember darlin’ you’re in the driver’s seat now. I say this with every ounce of love in my being - you have to take responsibility for turning your life around. I know that’s a tough pill to swallow, but notice that it’s also a message of hope and empowerment – it means you aren’t destined to stay stuck, you have a choice, you can reclaim your power, you can change. And in the same breath, please be gentle and patient and offer yourself abundant grace. You’ve criticized yourself long enough now and we know how that pans out, let’s just try encouraging yourself and see where that takes you ❤
3) I need to dispel this myth - “healing is hard”. No. The truth is, healing is as hard as you make it or as easy as you want it to be. After you’ve developed awareness about what it is that you want to heal, the rate limiting step has to do with this: how willing are you to let go of that which no longer serves you? As someone who has been fervently studying healing for some time now, I’d just like to let you in on something I’ve discovered: your capacity to heal, overcome, adapt, and grow is far greater than you’ve been lead to believe…so do the impossible, reinvent yourself, and expect miracles along the way
4) The doorway to healing is a shift in perspective, an expansion of consciousness, a new awareness – and this shift is always occurring in the direction of fear/separation -> love/unity. This does NOT require a change in your life circumstances or the help of another person. Although both can be helpful, healing happens within you. It is an internal process that then upgrades your external experience. That said, it’s my awareness that you are divinely supported on your healing journey, and you are not alone. The unseen forces are on your team, cheering you on, elated by your courage, and are offering you guidance at every step. Accept that if it resonates, discard it if it doesn’t. ✌
5) There are the 2 shifts in perspective that need to happen in order to heal the inner child: 1) acknowledge you have power 2) use the damn power :D
Here are the details:
The Power to Choose
No matter what kind of upbringing you had, the difference between then and now is you have power. As an adult, you are no longer a victim of your environment or your mind. You have the power to choose new circumstances – ones that actually serve you – and you can choose new beliefs. You can rewire your subconscious so that it starts to work for you rather than against you. For more information on changing subconscious beliefs, check out my post “Taming the beast”.
Using the Power
What were the things you so desperately needed to hear during your upbringing? Imagine you’re sitting with your younger self, what do you want to say to that precious little human?
“You are loved. You are enough. Everything is going to be ok. Being different is your superpower. I’m proud of you.” Fill in the blank…
Here’s the secret: the words you say to yourself are more powerful and potent than the words anyone else says to you. In fact the only reason other peoples’ words have any impact on us at all is because we let their words (or the lack thereof) change the words we say to ourselves.
So this is the choice being presented to you: one way to go through life is to keep trying to find someone who tells you all those words at the right time, or another more empowering option is to start saying the words that you need to hear to yourself.
You can become your own loving parent. You can become your own greatest cheerleader. You can take your power back.
Here’s some ideas on how to become your own loving parent:
Affirmations – make a list of the things your younger self was longing to hear and repeat them to yourself every morning, night, and whenever else you think of them. I’d suggest focusing on 1-3 affirmations per month. If you want to keep this as simple as possible, based on my experience, the affirmation “I am enough” packs a punch - it is both powerful and high-yield. The key to affirmations is they can’t just be words that you repeat. They have to mean something to you. When you say them to yourself, you should start to feel empowered and they should elicit the most amazing emotions within you. If this isn’t happening, try making the language of the affirmations more exciting and do your best to FEEL these words in your body. And just a fun fact, exercise (particularly cardio) increases neuroplasticity (the reorganization of neural synapses), so if you can do affirmations while getting some cardio in, theoretically that should enhance your ability to wire in these new beliefs 😊
Visualization – again, I’d suggest making a list of all the things your younger self needed to hear, and as you scan that list, start visualizing what your day would look like if you fully embodied all of those truths. How would you show up in the world, how would you carry yourself, how would you interact with others, what would you do in your spare time? And if you want, you can extend that visualization out further in the future – what would your life look like 1 year, 5 years, 10 years from now as you embody these new beliefs. Again, do your best to FEEL this visualization in your body. Experience it as if you’re actually living it. Allow the images to shift your emotional state. If you can do this every day in a peaceful environment for just 5-10 minutes, you’ll start noticing changes.
Hypnotherapy - a phenomenal option for streamlining this process. Send me a message if you would like a generalized hypnosis recording for healing the inner child or we can set up a 1 on 1 consultation.
When you fully embody the role of being your own loving parent, you are free. You are free from people pleasing. You are free from the need to control. You are free to be the most vibrant, confident, authentic version of you <- and THAT is what this world really needs.
Peace, blessings, love, and light
🖤Mica
References:
1. Lipton, B., Dr. (2010, August 17). Are You Programmed at Birth? Retrieved from https://www.healyourlife.com/are-you-programmed-at-birth
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