When you think about.
Tending to your inner child parts,
Remember that this isn't about saying stuck where you are.
That this is about being able to.
.
.
Mature.
The parts of us that got stunted stock rigid.
And small.
I want to give permission to not have to think about the other person,
To just look at the impact of the other person's actions,
Not Trying to forgive another person too quickly?
Not even trying to empathize with them or have compassion for them or understand their perspective,
Not trying too quickly to move into what the blessings are or the gifts from a situation because the first step is the healing.
And healing is actually all about you.
It's about being pretty selfish because.
It's the things that you needed when you were little that you never got,
And you have every right to be selfish to get those now.
And the truth is that by being selfish and doing these things for yourself now,
It will be what allows you to be more selfless without self-abandonment in the future.
And so what we want to do is really Let those other things in our mind that we've been told that a good girl or a good person would do to take the higher ground,
See their point of view and have compassion for them.
When you go down that path,
Note that those are probably going to be protector parts.
They're parts of you that you learned that you had to do.
You had to think about them.
You had to think about what they were doing.
You had to be parentified,
Perhaps,
Like you had to look and see,
Oh,
That person's having a hard time.
That's why they can't give me love right now.
But that's not where we are now.
Saying,
We're going to put all that on the shelf,
And you're going to focus on you.
And so you're going to focus on your little girl.
And imagine the little girl,
The you,
As a little girl,
And all the ways that you may have gotten hurt.
And some of them might be in really big traumatic ways,
And maybe in subtle ways,
Maybe in ways that were seen as a joke,
Teasing,
Maybe in ways that you didn't get your needs met or you didn't get the attention that you needed or the ways that somebody was inconsistently there.
Maybe sometimes they were just so wonderful and then other times they were completely absent.
And for you,
You focused on the wonderful things because that's what kids do.
But.
.
.
Just pushed aside the ways that you were hurt.
And so that's part one,
And that I just want to give permission to not have to think about the other person,
To just look at the impact of the other person's actions,
Even if they're justifiable in many ways,
Even if you can make sense of them in your adult brain,
Your little girl could not make sense of them.
She did not understand why other people treated her that way.
She didn't understand why she felt the way she felt.
So that's why we can't.
We've been giving all of that attention to them our whole lives.
You know,
We've been trying to make sense of and justify their behaviors our whole lives so that we could feel better.
The only way to feel better now is to stop that.
And adjust 10 too.
The little u.
Okay,
So when we do this work,
It's easy to use the words soothing.
And reassuring and there's some level of soothing and reassuring that we want to give to ourselves.
There are times when we do need to pick up our inner child metaphorically or in our mind's eye and be like,
Oh,
Like I'm with you and I love you and you're okay in that way,
Right?
That's really wonderful.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But sometimes we can also get hung up in this soothing but never really recognize that the real work is in seeing and witnessing and honoring and allowing that part of us to grow up.
I want you to imagine that you have a hole,
And the hole is where your wounded inner child is living right now.
And on the outside of that is the protector part,
Standing guard,
Saying,
No,
You can't come through here.
But I want you to imagine that you've created enough safety,
You've stepped in enough as an adult,
Where your protector part is willing to let you see that part.
And when you think about when you were little,
Let's just imagine that part of you was scared,
Powerless,
Helpless.
She felt hurt.
She felt angry.
She felt all these feelings.
And no one was there really to take care of her.
So maybe she thought she was too much.
Maybe she thought that she had to hide.
She felt like she had to guard herself.
She had to get a little smaller.
Little bit more rigid,
And she had to not make other people upset,
Try to avoid having to feel that feeling ever again.
And to some degree,
The adult you believes that feeling,
Those experiences were too much,
Because as a little girl they were.
And you are identified as a little girl.
And so those feelings are too much for adults in her life and too much for her.
Her own nervous system.
So we have to come in as the adult now and say,
You're not too much.
Like,
I want to know all of you.
I want to know all of me.
So we have to,
As an adult,
Say,
What I'm working to do is to become tethered to myself,
To be connected to myself,
Which means I need to know all of me.
So when we find a wound,
It's easy to say,
Oh yeah,
Oh yes,
That was scary.
Oh,
You did that thing,
But you did the best you could.
But I want you to imagine if you took it to a step further,
Like,
How can we be with ourselves?
So I want you to imagine the hole.
Let's just say that the protector part has moved aside,
The hole is open,
And you peer inside.
Just the peering inside is magical,
Okay?
Because that little girl has been like,
Nobody has wanted to see me or nobody's taken the time.
I don't matter enough for you to take the time and see that part of me.
Nobody looks.
I'm just here all by myself in this cold,
Dark hole.
Okay,
So do you remember this little pill-sized thing?
And inside the pill.
.
.
Is like a future animal,
And if you put water on it,
The outside of the pill melts and the animal expands into this spongy little animal.
Okay?
Alright,
So this is what we're going to envision.
We're going to envision that When you look into the hole and you peer into the heart of your inner child with your warmth,
Okay,
Your warmth and your actual attention,
Those things melt you.
And I want you to imagine you're a little pill.
Your pill,
Who had to get small and confined and have to put this rigid little guarding around you.
And you had to be just.
Totally tight,
Just tight inside of you,
Rigid and tight.
But your attention,
Adult you,
Attending to that little child part,
That warmth that you provide melts that exterior.
And not only does it melt the exterior,
But it softens and it allows the little child part of you to expand and fill up that hole.
And when you fill that hole,
It's the little child part becomes an adult.
It matures emotionally from the rigid,
Stunted little pill to the full expansion of you.
And when you do that,
It fills up that hole.
So what happens when that hole fills?
For one,
It just feels better.
You feel a sense of safety,
A greater sense of wholeness.
The protector part doesn't need to be there anymore because no longer is there this young part that needs so much protection because she matured into her wholeness.
But not only that,
It's like this spongy material,
So she's flexible.
Her being is more flexible instead of being rigid,
Which means it translates into you being more flexible.
Instead of her feeling this tight,
Rigid self,
She's now expanded,
So now you have greater access to the more expanded you.
She accesses the world in a more expanded,
Flexible way,
And you access her and the world in a more flexible and expanded way.
If you ever think of yourself as a reserved,
Rigid person,
Maybe when it comes to doing things,
You're always checking in to make sure that you're doing it the right way,
Saying it the right way.
A lot of that is because there's a lot of rigidity.
Like every one of those holes has a little rigid pill in it.
And when they expand,
There's just so much more of that softness and that like spongy fluidity and flexibility.
And what we're really moving toward is more flexibility.
More of a sense of,
Instead of rigidly.
Saying,
No,
You can't feel those feelings.
No,
You can't look at that part of you.
It's,
Oh,
I can see how that part contributed to my life.
I can be with it in this more soft way.
So when you think about tending to your inner child parts,
I want you to remember that this isn't about saying stuck where you are.
That this is about being able to.
.
.
Mature the parts of us that got stunted and stuck and rigid.
And small.
And allow them to feel the warmth of your attention and your support.
Because I really want you to think about this,
That when they were little,
People might have said things like,
This is just how mommy is,
Or you made mommy feel this way,
Or you made mommy do this.
And that little girl part just shrunk,
Right?
And she cowered,
And she felt she was to blame.
If we jump in too much with forgiveness or justification or any of those things,
What happens is we're just repeating the same thing.
That's why she has to be fully attended to as the wounded child.
Her experience is not questioned.
Her experience as a little girl is not questioned.
Of course she felt these ways.
Of course you felt this way.
Of course you experienced it that way.
Of course you felt scared.
I am here to say I am with you now,
And I'm so sorry that no one was there for you like that when you needed as a little girl.
And can I hold you and can I be with you?
Now,
By the way,
You may provide warmth and it may only just melt one teeny little part of that pill,
And maybe another time it melts another teeny little part of that pill,
And slowly She's emerging from that little pill.
I'm not saying it's all going to happen in one moment.
But the point is,
That is the vision that I want you to hold,
If that resonates with you.
I want you to hold the vision of her expanding into that hole,
Filling it up with flexible,
Spongy softness,
And coming into her wholeness and filling you up to greater levels of wholeness and expanding you into all of who you are,
And also allowing you to access more flexibility in your whole life.
When you're taking that moment of a parent with your inner child,
I want you to start with,
I see you.
I hear you,
You are not alone anymore.
And I want to help you to soften into.
Your wholeness,
Your fullness to ultimately expand into all of who you are.
And I'm sorry that you had to go through that and I'm here with you now.
" You could imagine your heart is the sun and it's like a beam of warmth to her.
It could be about your attention being warm,
Melting her armor,
Melting the freeze she might be in.
And we thaw her out and let her become all of who she is.
