CEUs are available at AllCEUs.com/ICGrief-CEU
hey there everybody and welcome to this video designed to answer the question
what is the inner child i'm your host dr donnelly snipes
in this video we're going to learn what the inner child is how it's developed we'll identify three
ways the inner child often presents and then we'll discuss symptoms of a wounded inner child
and the benefits to healing and integrating your inner child so let's start out at the beginning
the inner child is made up of memories and schema from your younger self that are stored in your
subconscious every time you encounter something you learn from it your brain registers that as a
learning experience and it forms a little mental shortcut so in the future when you encounter
similar situations it anticipates how it probably should react and that's what we call a schema
when you were a child you encountered things and based on those experiences
you formed mental shortcuts of what to expect and how best to react to stay safe
when you were a child if you were helped to feel safe and empowered even in the face of trauma
you developed emotional intelligence that is you develop the ability to identify your emotions
to tolerate the distress to problem solve after or cope
after you got down into your wise mind in order to best handle the situation
this promoted healthy psychological development it promoted the child's ability to feel
in control so they didn't feel concerned that they were going to be overwhelmed by their emotions
as well as empowered to improve the next moment empowered to address the problem
if the child had to develop its own survival skills because it didn't have
a caregiver that was there to help it learn how to do all of these things it impacted
the child's ability to feel safe or trust others or even develop emotional intelligence
i mean think about what it's like for a three four five eight year old that encounters trauma that
encounters distress and it doesn't even know really what this feeling is or how
to deal with it it's just all of a sudden it's being flooded with stress chemicals
and it feels out of control that's terrifying so the child develops some skills in order to survive
now based on prior learning experiences when the adult is exposed to stressors its
ability to identify and regulate its emotions is strongly associated with whether or not they felt
safe as a child those who felt safe developed that emotional intelligence and are much more effective
at using those skills to engage their wise mind get out of the emotion-based fear-based response
engage their wise mind and figure out what is the best strategy to handle the situation to help me
continue moving toward my rich and meaningful life so they're operating from a fact and logic
based perspective those who did not feel safe didn't develop emotional intelligence because
whenever they were stressed whenever they started having that flood of stress chemicals
their reaction was to make it stop however they needed to make it stop make it stop because they
were afraid they were going to be overwhelmed some people acted out some people shut down
it just kind of depended on what worked for that child at that point in time
unfortunately that means they didn't have the benefit of learning how to develop their
emotions learning how to identify them and deal with them as they came up so as adults
they continue to often feel unsafe and function in a fear-driven autopilot or a default mode
so often we see three presentations of the inner child
we have the unidentified and wounded inner child this is the adult who regularly acts immaturely or
impulsively especially in response to stress but they don't understand why this is the
adult who lashes out or who shuts down and just gives up or goes into a deep
depression or has overwhelming anxiety and they just don't know where it's coming from
then we have people who have identified their inner child and they're kind of
aware it's there but they ignore it and these are the people who are all work and no play
these are the people who feel like they must be uber mature and uber responsible all the time
and they never to to coin a phrase let their hair down they never have moments of
fun and spontaneity and then you have the identified healthy and well integrated inner child
and this is the person who when they're sober a lot of people when they're under the influence can
tap into that inner child but that's not what we're talking about that's the um ignored inner
child that's just desperately trying to come out the identified healthy integrated inner child
comes out when a person still regularly taps into that innocent mindset when it's appropriate
i like to think that my inner child is relatively healthy and well integrated
but at 50 some odd years old i still love blowing bubbles i still love flying kites i still will
push off on a shopping cart in in the parking lot and try to ride it down to my car you know
i still love swinging on swings like i did when i was five now do i do those things all the time
no but is it completely unheard of to see me skipping down the hall at work well no it's not
un heard of to see that either now i don't do it when it's inappropriate i don't do it on the way
to a staff meeting but you know after hours or something if we've had a particularly good day
i may get a little goofy and that's what we're talking about about with an identified healthy
and well integrated inner child i tap into that side of me when it's appropriate
and you know sometimes when it wants to come out the inner child likes to celebrate with you
so let's talk about meeting the inner child which inner child do you have are you able to tap into
that inner five-year-old when it's appropriate and just have fun if so great but do you do it
you know the identified but ignored inner child you know it's there you know there are parts of
you that love to go to the park or you know go snowboarding or whatever it is you love to do
but you never let that inner child out so that gives you a clue that you might want to consider
tapping into it nurturing that aspect of yourself or do you regularly act in way in ways that are
impulsive or immature especially under stress remember when the individual when the adult is
under stress if they don't have tools to identify and cope with those emotions as they're coming up
then the inner child may come out and go okay this worked for me in the past we need to you
know just make this go away we need to get out of here because we don't know how to cope
are you able to identify your feelings and effectively manage them you may not behave
impulsively or immaturely but sometimes it may feel like your emotions come out of nowhere or you
constantly feel icky or blah but you don't know why and icky and blah are not actually emotions
and that is an indication that maybe the person is not completely in touch with their
their self they may have not fully developed their emotional intelligence if that didn't
happen there's a good chance that that inner child is not feeling completely safe either
because as an adult if you don't know how to make yourself feel better then that inner child is back
there going hey you're just going to let us sit here and suffer what's going on are you
able to accurately identify feelings in others and respond in a healthy and appropriate way
sometimes that wounded inner child grew up in such a dysfunctional environment
that they became hyper vigilant or likewise they completely shut off their ability for empathy
either way they have difficulty interacting with others they may be fine when they're alone
but when they interact with others they have a whole lot more difficulty
identifying others feelings others reactions and responding appropriately
so this could also indicate that because of prior traumas because of a lack of
the ability to the the nurturance to develop emotional intelligence that inner child
may have had to develop their own skills and that's what the person still has to deal with
because when they start feeling distress their executive control their higher order thinking kind
of goes offline and that inner child takes over and they go into default emotion based responding
what are the benefits of the integrated healthy inner child well physically stress reduction
if you can tap into that inner child you can hear that inner child when it's saying hey
this is bringing up bad memories for me or hey i'm feeling bored and you can respond appropriately
then your whole self is going to be more integrated if you can hear that inner child when
prior traumas are being triggered or when prior stressors come up then you can better respond to
it instead of just feeling distressed or feeling worn down but not knowing where it's coming from
affectively emotionally your ability to tap into that child like awe wonder curiosity and just
giddiness can really enhance your life it adds depth to the types of emotions you're able to feel
and it also enables you to find happiness in the small things go to a park or hang
out with a little kid for a while they can find happiness in just about anything
they can find happiness in little ants that are crawling around or butterflies or worms
that was my children and me quite honestly or even making images out of the big white fluffy clouds
kids can find happiness in a lot of small things that as adults were too serious and were too busy
to pay attention to but when we tap into that inner child it liberates us for that period of
time now as i said it's not always appropriate to have that inner child come out and play
sometimes we have to tell them you know you can come out and play later but it is important to
be aware of those childlike impulses we have and nurture those so we don't become too too serious
cognitively tapping into that inner child can allow us to see things with new eyes not
constrained by rules or logic as adults and even older adolescents were taught what can and cannot
happen what must happen what the rules are a little kid doesn't know know that necessarily and
they may say well why not you know if you say well humans can't fly a little kid's gonna say why not
and now that may not be the best example but you get the idea children are not constrained
by what they've told can't happen they can envision possibilities that
sometimes as adults we're just blocked from and relationally when you tap into that inner
child you have the ability to recognize it and bring it out in others you have the ability
to recognize when they have a wounded inner child and if they lash out or act impulsively
you may be able to recognize that as their inner child coming out and react accordingly likewise
you may notice if they have an inner child that's just desperately wanting to come out and play
and it can't and you may be able to sort of bring it out in others by suggesting hey let's go to the
park or let's do whatever so there can be a lot of benefits to tapping into that part of yourself
it's part of your subconscious it's not going to go away nor do you probably want it to go away
because that is the eyes wide open enthusiastic innocent person that you were
at some point in your life now if the inner child was wounded then it's important to help
it process and help that inner child heal but once that inner child is healed it can become
that wide-eyed inner child again some people because their trauma was so ongoing and so
extensive they really never had that childhood that they wanted or that they
feel they deserved and quite honestly i think they deserved and that sucks it really does
however once that inner child has healed from their trauma and process that trauma then as
the adult you can start letting that inner child come out some you can go get ice cream sometimes
if you want to nurture that inner child and try to help it feel validated even in your adult body
everybody has an inner child getting to know your inner child can help you better understand
some of your behaviors or just improve your ability to nurture all aspects of yourself
if your inner child is wounded and scared is going to be important to help it feel securely
attached and re-parent it to help it feel safe that means you're going to need to consistently
kind of check in with it let it know that you're there you're going to need to respond when that
inner child starts feeling afraid you're going to need to respond and help it identify its emotions
learn how to tolerate distress and figure out how to problem solve you're going to have to validate
when that inner child is feeling scared even if it is adult even if as an adult you don't feel
threatened or you can see that objectively you shouldn't feel threatened in this moment
if that inner child feels threatened you've got to remember that that inner child is seeing it
through the eyes of a five-year-old not of a 35 year old validate that you know there's a part
of you that feels scared there's a bringing up stuff from your past and then figure out how to
effectively respond to that and help your inner child feel safe by doing this by acknowledging it
by identifying when you start feeling those feelings come up or those impulses come up
by acknowledging it then that inner child can develop the skills that it didn't develop the
first time through and you can feel more whole more integrated and more at peace