Letter From Our Inner Child
All people hold within themselves
the essence of the child that they once were.
As you matured,
your adult self grew up
regardless of not getting all its needs met as a child.
But it's not like the child aspect of yourself
disappeared or died
or went somewhere.
It exists within your internal system.
This inner child of yours
symbolizes the core of your emotional self,
the raw essence and vulnerability of your personal truth.
In truth, people have many inner children.
To understand more about this, watch my video titled:
Fragmentation (The Worldwide Disease)
But if we're looking at ourselves in terms of fragmentation,
you can think of these many inner children
as being organized into one box inside yourself
that is labeled "The Inner Child".
If you want to think metaphorically,
the inner child is the box within your psyche
that holds everything related to the child self.
Things like innocence,
play,
wonder,
suppressed desire and interests,
curiosity,
creativity,
being in the present moment,
honesty,
imagination,
emotions,
traumas that belong to your childhood,
childhood memories,
the origin of patterns in your life
and even your pre-birth purpose.
And these things that I've mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg.
Working directly with this box within your psyche
called: "The Inner Child"
or any parts within that box,
can go a long way when it comes to resolving traumas,
healing dysfunctional patterns in your life,
getting closer to your actual core essence,
reestablishing your compass in life,
a compass that operates inside out instead of outside in.
It also goes a long way
when it comes to getting in touch with your needs
and figuring out what needs need to be met,
and also, strategizing ways to meet those needs.
Also, finding what your genuine joy in life actually is.
There are many different ways
that we can go about working with the inner child,
but the exercise that we're going to do today
is to have our inner child write us a letter.
And when I say we're going to have the inner child write us a letter,
what I mean is that we're going to
allow ourselves to embody our own inner child,
and then that inner child is going to write a letter to us, today.
So if you are 32 today,
your inner child is going to write you a letter
to yourself today at age 32.
To do this exercise,
I want you to get a sheet of paper and a pen or a pencil.
I want you to sit somewhere comfortable where you're not going to be distracted.
and then I want you to pretend that you are a method actor.
And as this method actor what you're going to do
is to let yourself embody just the aspect of you
that is your inner child.
In other words, you're diving into the perspective
and becoming that one part of yourself.
You are going to channel
only your inner child.
And allow it to take over your whole body and awareness.
You're gonna get used to
being inside the perspective of your inner child,
as if you were dropping down into a foreign body, a foreign being,
and experiencing how it is to be that foreign being.
Consider things like:
What do I feel like?
How big or small am I?
How old do I feel?
Where do I feel like I am?
Essentially, to begin with,
you're simply becoming aware that without asking it to express
or questioning it.
From there you can let yourself as the inner child,
write or speak.
Some people prefer to speak and record themselves doing this,
but most people find the most benefit by writing as the inner child.
I want you to remember that if you have a hard time doing this,
that you may switch hands
so that you're writing with your non-dominant hand.
No matter how messy your handwriting is, it doesn't matter.
Your non-dominant hand is the most connected to your subconscious,
instead of conscious mind.
So, a lot of people find it easier to do this exercise
when they are writing with their non-dominant hand.
However, if you're the kind of person who doesn't find it difficult
to channel your inner child,
you can go ahead and use whatever hand you usually write with.
Remember you're going to speak or write as the child self
who is writing or speaking directly to you as your adult self
here in this moment the age you are today.
Keep in mind that some inner children
are a lot more communicative than others.
Why I say this is that I don't want you to get attached to how this should look.
I want you to let whatever happens happen.
Some inner children are going to act completely different than others.
Some, are going to be really really angry.
Some, may distrust you so much
that they're hesitant to even communicate at all.
Others, to the complete opposite,
are super bubbly, super playful, really communicative.
I want you to be present for however your inner child shows up
and interacts with "you"
when it's writing you this letter.
What is your inner child's current truth?
What does it need to say or need you or others to hear?
Let your inner child express as much as it wants
as you are going through this process
you may naturally feel questions arise within your being.
It's okay to pose those questions to your inner child
while you are still in the process of channeling the inner child.
Things like:
When did this start?
or... When did things change for you?
or... What would you need me
to be doing differently than I'm currently doing? And why?
Any question that arises naturally in your being
for your inner child to answer while you're channeling it,
can get you closer to what the actual personal truth of this child,
and therefore you, is.
Do this for as long as it takes for your inner child
to say everything that you feel like it needs to say.
And from there, you're gonna switch to:
"All right, given the fact that this is what this inner child has said,
what do I need to do in order to create resolve,
or in order to improve the relationship with this inner child?"
To do this, of course,
you're going to have to come out of the perspective
of being in first person perspective of your inner child.
If you have a difficult time doing this,
I want you to imagine that there's a tiny ball of light,
about pearl size, in your heart.
And what you're going to do is to expand and expand
that pearl sized light
like you're blowing up a balloon
and what you're going to be doing is blowing up a balloon
where the perimeter of that is that perspective you're stuck in,
the perspective of the inner child.
So, almost like you're blowing this balloon up
and then at a certain point that perspective splits.
Kind of like a gene seem would split.
So that you can then step out,
visualize stepping out of that perspective of the inner child,
where then you can turn back around
you can pick up that perspective
and hand it up to the universe at large.
This doesn't mean you're getting rid of it.
Remember, all things in the universe are connected,
so, you're just stepping out of that inner child perspective
so you can be in your adult perspective
and now take action based on the information you received.
If you feel inspired to do so,
you may want to do a visualization also,
based off of the information you've received.
One of the best ways to do this is to imagine your inner child
at whatever age you intuitively see him or her
standing or sitting in front of you.
I like to do this in an empty room.
From there, you do anything with the inner child
that feels intuitively right to do.
That being said,
never forget to validate your inner child.
And it's best if this step is done first.
Validation is the step that most people completely forget
when they are doing inner child work.
And it's perhaps the most important step to take
when we're doing inner child work of any kind.
In other words, when we're working with an inner child
we usually rush to take the child out of whatever state that they're feeling.
We rush to change the way that they feel.
And when we do this, we risk giving them the message
that how they feel is not okay
and maybe isn't even right and needs to change.
I'm going to give you an example of how we might go about
validating the emotional state of the inner child;
Let's say that we're dealing with an inner child who expresses jealousy
because they feel unloved and they feel insignificant.
We don't instantly try to make that child feel less jealous.
Instead, we validate the jealousy that they feel.
Keep in mind that validation of emotions
is not the same as validating the child's truth.
If validating the child's truth is going to lead them
down the road of more pain, instead of less pain.
For example, let's say that this child says:
"I feel jealous. I don't feel like anyone loves me. I don't feel valued."
We don't validate the child by saying:
"You're right! No one loves you and you're not valued."
No!
Instead, you're saying something like this:
You're right to feel this way
because anyone who is in this situation would feel this way.
"It's totally understandable how you can feel like people aren't valuing you."
"It makes sense that you would feel sad,
but I'm here with you no matter what.
It's okay to feel this way.
You have a right and a valid reason to feel the way you do."
We also remain present to however that validation
causes the child's feelings to change.
It's very important to understand
that what causes a lot of us to be stuck in childhood
is that we felt a certain way,
and then we were made wrong for feeling that way, so we got gaslit.
And that actually makes an emotion stuck within the being.
So, validation is one of the primary ways
to get an emotion to move forward
and to evolve and to change
and to improve.
All this being said, I do need you to know
that sometimes, for very specific children
it is important to un-gaslight them
or move forward their emotional state
by actually validating one of their perspectives,
instead of just the way that they feel.
For example:
It's quite common that a little kid who's getting abused in childhood
is constantly gaslit about being abused.
So, they're being invalidated all the time about that perspective
which is actually accurate.
So let's say that a child is being abused
but is constantly being told by the perpetrator
that he's just being given a bath in all the places that he's dirty.
This causes great cognitive dissonance within the child.
In fact, great enough to be its own state of mental trauma.
Therefore, sometimes when you're working with this inner child,
it's important to affirm:
"Yes you're actually right. You were getting abused."
And maybe that type of validation is also necessary for your child
at some point in this visualization.
It's natural for a child to have a reaction
when they're being validated.
Usually it's a good one, but not always.
Because it causes a release.
So some children, when you validate them
will let go and start crying.
Others, will go:
"Okay! Now I can go and play."
If something like sadness or grief
comes up as a result of validating your inner child,
continue to validate these new feelings
and remain present with those feelings as well.
The point is, you've gotta learn
how to be unconditionally with your inner child
without having to change the way that your child feels.
There's a very different energy between:
"I want to do this thing so that you feel better because I really care about you"
and... "I have a real resistance to like, the way you're feeling
and I need this to change."
Now, if you can't do this for your inner child for some reason
it's important to visualize
somebody coming in with this visualization
that actually can do that for your child.
For example, if you believe that an angel
can validate your child in this way and take care of its needs,
then actually imagine or visualize an angel
coming in and doing this for your inner child.
From there, once that validation has taken place
you can step into the part of resolution
where you're meeting any of your child's needs,
you're changing the situation in any way that needs to be changed,
you're basically, causing a change to the emotions,
you're causing an improvement.
Now of course, when you are writing this letter to yourself
as the inner child,
it is much easier to know
what needs to be done in this visualization.
if you're choosing to do that step,
so as to create resolve with your inner child.
So, all this being said, I thought it would be a good idea
to bring on one of my community members
who I gave the assignment of doing this exercise for,
so that you can have a concrete example
for what it looks like to do this letter.
T: Hey Grazi.
G: Hi.
~ Laughter ~
T: You're like, our resident guinea pig now.
G: I am the universal guinea pig here. ~ Laughter ~
T: Okay, so why don't you tell us what your inner child wrote to you.
G: Okay.
T: Could you just read us the letter?
G: I'm gonna read it to you guys, but I thought it was pretty funny
and accurate and very interesting.
You'll see why.
Okay.
"Hi older self, I see that you have taken a lot of responsibility
for what happened to us in childhood.
You should probably stop. Like, now.
you're still doing this from a place of you're guilty
which is your problem.
I just want to have fun.
You're living life with a bunch of consequences in mind
and the truth is that that is not reality.
You are suffocating me
and only letting me come out when it's safe
or there won't be consequences.
Stop.
Stop it!!!!!
(exclamation point, by the way)
You are being our controlling mother.
I know what happened was scary
and feels like it left an imprint,
but actually, I'm perfectly fine.
It was an experience.
If we only stay on that experience, that is the only thing we will know.
Abuse is not the only thing I want to know.
Frustration: ~ Ahrrrg ~
I want to explore, I want to let myself dream.
Because, what is life without letting yourself have possibilities?
You know what... You know what that is?
It's a stupid life.
T: ~ Laughter ~ Oh my god.
G: I think my child self is a little sassy.
Honestly why even bother?
You're not acting like you're out of abuse.
Come on!
This fear of feeling like you're going to lose everyone,
that there is going to be a major consequence
has you frozen in the biggest consequence...
Stuck in your past.
I want you to ask yourself:
What new thing could I create today?
Every day.
As you can see, I'm a little frustrated at you,
because honestly, you just seem like an old fart.
~ Laughter ~
Do something different.
This is not who we are.
We are fun, social, actually pretty outgoing,
not that lame.
You're like, trying to move a mountain,
impossibly stubborn.
Enjoy people.
You're too worried about losing them,
that you don't even notice that they are there.
You know what I'm done with?
You know what I'm done with.
The advice:
Do something new today."
G: Oh, wow... it's really sassy:
"You know what I'm done with?
The advice, do something new today.
That's it.
And no one took anything from you, so...
The end.
T: Wow.
G: ~ Laughter ~ That was it.
T: So, was that what you were expecting?
G: Not at all.
T: What were you expecting?
G: I actually...
Well, from its perspective I can see how
I'm actually still stuck in the trauma of it all
and trying to like,
building myself to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Right?
And it's completely not in that space,
and that was really surprising.
I thought, you know, I was gonna get a little child that was scared
and crying, and it was like:
"No. You're actually crazy."
~ Laughter ~
T: So, based off of the information that you received from that letter,
are there any changes you feel like you need to make?
Or needs you might need to meet?
or...
G: Well, in one way it kind of made everything really like:
"Okay, I'm actually not in the same reality".
I'm in an illusion.
So it made everything less scary.
But I it just seems like I actually do need to have more fun.
T: Okay.
G: Yeah.
T: Okay, so what are you going to do today to have more fun?
I just put her totally on the spot.
G: Yeah. I'm like: "Uhhh..."
T: Can that be what you're thinking about right now?
G: That's what I need to think about,
because I feel like I'm so used to thinking
even just thinking that, you know,
A, B and C leads to "I'm safe",
T: Umhum.
G: That I have no idea actually how to think outside of that.
T: Okay, so that's your assignment right now.
G: Yep.
T: You're thinking outside of that box.
And you're gonna figure out what you need to do to have fun today.
~ Giggles ~
Thank you.
Graciela has been doing so much internal work
for so many years
and developed enough of a relationship with her internal child self.
What you just got to see
was a child self that feels comfortable enough with the adult self
that it's able to be super sassy.
Don't be afraid if your inner child does not sound anything like that.
If your inner child is sad,
if it's grieving,
if it's terrified.
It's totally fine if that's what comes out.
I want you to be present with whatever
your inner child is saying to you.
After you do this exercise,
given the information that you receive from doing it,
is there anything that needs to be done?
Is there any resolve you need to create?
Are there any changes you might need to make?
Do you have a need that you need to find a way to meet?
Do you need to embody
any of the suppressed aspects of your inner child in your adult life?
Do you have any childhood interests you might need to pick back up?
To make the most of this exercise,
you're going to want to make any changes
that become obvious to you that you need to make
as a result of doing this exercise?
And don't forget that you can do this as many times as you want.
In fact, periodical check-ins with your inner child
can go a long way towards your personal health.
And remember:
The better your relationship is with your inner child,
the better your life will feel.
Have a good week.
If you liked this video,
be sure to share it, like it and also subscribe to my channel
so you can see more content like this.
But I want to personally thank you for taking the initiative
and having the bravery to step into the space of awareness
not only for yourself, but for the benefit of those around you.