What triggers the Inner Child?
[Intro] Hello, and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell, and I'm the owner of Change Radically.
In this space, we'll talk all things inner wellness, and parenting will certainly come up too, because I'm a mom to four kids, so parenting is a huge part of my life.
This space is designed for safety. Your inner child is welcome. Your past self is invited to listen as well. And no matter what type of day you're having, I want you to know I'm glad to be with you.
I live out of vulnerability and transparency, so come and be. Be yourself. Be messy. Invite a friend, and please stay a while. Keep coming back. I want you around. Now, let's jump into today's episode.
Yay for another episode on season seven. It is so refreshing to be here with you. We're going to continue what we talked on last week and what I touched on that I said I would get back to, and that is how we can recognize what our inner child needs and how can we practice showing up for that little kid we used to be.
Because like it or not, that little kid lives on within us, and there are experiences that we have present day that take us back to past experiences. They remind our subconscious of what we've experienced in the past, and they affect us until we go backward, we revisit those past experiences, and we infuse love and care into those places that we so desperately needed it and didn't receive it.
So bear with me if you're new to this concept, and if you're like, oh my goodness, Corinne, what are you talking about? We can always set up a private individual session to delve into this deeper for you personally, and there are other previous episodes on the podcast that you can also check out. I will link to it in the show notes so that you can get a better foundation on inner child and some of these topics that I'm going to be touching on today.
So consider those moments. When you feel like you have a seemingly big reaction to something that maybe an onlooker would say was a minuscule. A lot of this is relative. So what you might think is a minuscule to someone else might be huge. And what to them might seem minuscule to you might feel mammoth.
So it's always important to recognize that there's more going on when somebody has a reaction, whatever that reaction might be. It's layered in past experiences, it's layered in whatever is subconsciously below the surface.
So take, for example, those times when you do get triggered, when you're like, everything seemed like it was going fine and all of a sudden, it felt like out of nowhere, I had a huge reaction. I got super scared, or I started to yell. I became angry or irritable. Well, there is a reason for that as we get curious sometimes we’re able to understand a little bit more what going on below the surface, and sometimes it’s in those moments that our inner child is actually showing up and trying to communicate with us.
If a little kid is sad and they are not feeling noticed by anyone else, they are looking to have somebody to play with them, maybe they're looking to integrate with the room but they're off to the corner by themselves. They may feel rejected in that moment and overlooked and they internalize a story “nobody is noticing them nobody wants to play with them” and so they'll create a belief narrative about what this means about this. What this means about them, about what it means about the other people around them and the world at large.
It might sound something like “nobody likes me, everybody else matters more than me, I'm stupid”, and here's the thing - what makes it worse is when those thoughts those ideas aren't able to be challenged by anybody and those ideas just stay within that person and they don't get vocalized, they don't get to be discussed.
So then that gets compounded by other situations where similar experiences are had and it only solidifies this idea, this belief that “See? Nobody likes me, everybody else matters more than me, I'm stupid.” When then in reality that's not true. Maybe nobody in that area was interested to play with them but in the world at large there are people who like that child.
Certainly, everyone else doesn't matter more than them, but in that moment, nobody was noticing them, and they needed to be noticed. And because nobody interacts with us, to conclude it's because we're stupid may feel very rational to that child. But outside of that developmental age, it doesn't seem rational at all.
You're not stupid. Just because nobody interacts with you means a lot about them, not necessarily about you.
Consider the child who is atypical, and people don't want to play with that child. They don't want to sit with that child at lunch. It really says so much more about the people who aren't including that child than about the child itself.
People might feel self-conscious or nervous or wonder what the cool kids think. They might say, I don't know how to interact with this child who's different than me. It actually reveals a lack of confidence in the person who doesn't go and interact with that atypical child.
So as we consider this, I want to bring in to you in this scenario, in this scene of the little kid who's sitting on the side, not being noticed, feeling overlooked, that what is actually needed in that moment is a grown-up or other person, could be a kid, noticing and coming over with kindness and care to attune to that child. Maybe it's actually to just notice them and say,” hey, come play with us”.
Maybe it's to sit with them and say, “hey, how are you doing? How are you feeling? Are you all right?” Because as we help a child to feel their emotions, and we empathize with them and we co-regulate, we also help them to not get stuck in those emotions, the ones that are debilitating, and we help them return to joy. Sometimes we need someone outside of ourselves to help us return to joy.
So I'm not advocating that we talk to their head, right, to rationalize the situation, to say they expressed how they were feeling, that nobody likes them, “everybody else matters more than me, I'm stupid”.
I'm not saying that we need to start saying” you're not stupid. No, you matter as much as everyone else. People like you”. That's that rationalizing, trying to rescue them from their discomfort. We don't need to explain things or minimize their feelings. Rather, the goal is to connect with their heart by empathizing, “oh, that is such a painful place to be, right? It's so painful to feel like nobody likes you, to feel like you don't matter, and to think you're stupid. I'm so sorry you feel that way. I felt some of those ways at times”.
And if you haven't, then you just say something else that's honest, that's empathetic. You can at least say, “That sounds like a really hard place to be. I'm here with you because I care. Would you like to go play”? and they might say, no, “I don't want to”, and you just sit there with them.
You don't even have to offer to play with them right away. You could just sit there with them and see if they have more they want to say and maybe they just need someone to be with them. Being noticed matters a lot. I've seen children who are noticed be able to jump back in and play with the other kids just because I came over and sat with them for a little bit. Sometimes I talk about what it seems like is actually bothering them and sometimes I don't at all purposely.
It's just you feel into it and sometimes you're going to know this is what I need to do. Sometimes you're going to think you know what you need to do and it's not going to go the way you thought or go the way you hoped and that's okay.
If your heart's in it, you're just going to do the best you can.
I'm interrupting the episode just for a moment to let you know about a six-week group program that is up and coming. We are going to be meeting weekly to have group sessions. You'll also be able to reach out for my support at any time, night or day, via messaging app. Leave me audio messages, text messages, talk about what's triggering you, express if you're feeling alone, and I'll be there to support you.
In addition to that, you're going to get to set up a one-on-one session with me. We can delve into any topic you want. We can focus on what your inner child is needing. It can be really practical in just helping you reach some of the goals you want to reach this year. We're going to be utilizing some of the workbooks and video lessons that I've previously prepared as we go through this six weeks.
So there's going to be resources you're going to receive that you get to keep. There's going to be connections that you make with others in the group that might be lifelong. But one thing I can guarantee you is you'll have my support throughout that entire six weeks and you're going to be with others who are on a similar journey as yourself. If you're interested in this, I've linked in the show notes how you can register. Of course, you can always go to my website, changeradically.com and find out more information there. I would love to have you join.
So consider what I'm talking about and how you interact with yourself and with others.
How do you try to help them, either you or the others? It's going to say a lot. It's going to say a lot when you consider how you interact with yourself. Are you rationalizing things within yourself? Are you minimizing your feelings? Are you actually trying to explain to yourself what's true?
Sometimes we try to go from that angle. We completely disregard how somebody's actually feeling. They just need validation. “Oh man, okay, yeah, I hear you're feeling this sort of way”. That's it. They don't need to be fixed. It doesn't need anything to change. Just to be undone. Just to be understood matters so very much.
So these are the things that we needed in childhood and if we didn't receive them, because emotional neglect is rampant and it's often hard to recognize because we don't even consider all the many moments in a day when a child needs to be attuned to.
They need to be met in their emotional state and noticed and they need somebody to help them feel what they're feeling, but then come out of that and return to joy. And sometimes it's knowing what even to do with what we feel, right? We might feel enraged and we just want to hurt somebody.
Well, even for a young child, it's not right for them to hurt somebody. So we can guide them through that, but they need to still be able to feel the rage. They need to feel it to be able to move through it and release it.
So there are somatic body-based practices that can be done. To be able to allow these feelings to be released and discharged. And if you're curious about that, I have a workbook. You can go to my website, changeradically.com/shop. And it's a workbook that is for grownups and children alike.
And it's basically something you can do with the child in your life, or you can just use it on your own. But it's super helpful. And it will be linked in the show notes for you.
It's very helpful to know what somatic practices you can do to move that energy from your body, through you and out.
Otherwise, it gets stuck and then it gets compounded and we wonder why we're getting sick. And we wonder why when something happens and we're triggered that our response is explosive. When there's a lot under the surface, if it doesn't get released, it just builds up until it finally can get released. At some point, it must. And so this, what I've been sharing, is a way for you to understand not only what you needed in childhood, but also what we can offer ourselves now as we self-parent. We go back into that scene, that memory in our mind's eye of, say, us being the child that was on the sidelines, not picked during the sports game.
And we, as that grown adult, can go over to that little kid and start to talk to them, start to put our hand on their back, do whatever it is that we sense they need to actually infuse love and attention and care into that previous memory. Because you needed it at that moment. You didn't need it in that moment. You didn't need it in that moment. You didn't need it in that moment. You didn't receive it. And now we have an opportunity to go back in time and to do something about it.
It's extremely powerful. If you've walked through sessions with me, you understand what I'm talking about. And if you haven't, I invite you to schedule a session and experience it for yourself. And so there's so much more to this topic. And it is actually very closely linked to the other topic we're going to be talking about next week, which is how can we grow in self-compassion and self-care?
Because if we don't have love for ourselves, it'll be extremely difficult, should I say impossible, to connect with our inner child. Because the inner child is simply a younger version of our self. So if we don't like our self, how are we going to go and be with that little kid and actually convey to them through the energy within us that we like to be with them? Well, if we don't like to be with ourself, then they're probably going to feel that, right? Kids are very discerning, very intuitive.
So we're going to talk about it. If you're like, yeah, “I'm a bully to myself. When I go in front of that mirror, I've only got negative things to think or say. When people praise me for something, I've got plenty of ways to flush that down the toilet”. So stick with me and let's delve into that some next week.
But between now and then, reflect on what I've talked about, maybe even listen to the episode again and let yourself ingest it. Absorb it. There's a lot here. You may need to allow yourself to just be that child that I was referencing and just listen as I'm speaking and just take those words for yourself because you matter. You matter. And that little kid that you once were matters very much too.
So I'm here for you. I'm here for both of you. And I'm looking forward to more times that we can connect.
In case you've been listening and you want to expound on this topic, you want to learn more, if you want to hear more of my perspective on Inner Child, you can go to season 2, episode 13, “Who is your inner child?”; Season 3 episode 5 “Inner child. I see you”. And from season 3, episode 7, “Reparent Your Inner Child”. And all of those episodes are linked for you in the show notes.
[Ending] Here we are. We've come to the end of another episode. Sit back and reflect on what you heard. What's the one thing that resonates with you that you can take away and do something with?
Let's not just listen. Let's listen and take action. Now, action may look very different for us, but it's doing something with what we hear.
I hope that you'll share today's episode with a friend that you think would also enjoy it. And please come back next week. I hope that you have a fabulous week and that you remember when you pillow your head at night, when you're going through your days, that who you are is good. And I'm glad that you're alive.
