Welcome to the Shifting with Marlee podcast.
I'm Marlee.
Thank you for joining me wherever you are.
All that I ask of you,
The listener,
Is to have an open mind and an open heart.
And in return,
I offer you myself.
You Today.
We're gonna talk about the inner child.
This episode has been a long time coming,
But it now feels like it's in alignment for the collective and very much needed.
And this episode today is really giving a voice to all of our inner children.
To me,
It feels like we are giving a voice to the voiceless or speaking for those that cannot always speak for themselves.
We are shining a light on an important part of ourselves today that is often silenced and ignored and suppressed.
It's also my intention with this episode to share with you all that I've learned so far working directly with the inner child in my energy healing sessions with my clients.
The Inner Child shows up in almost every single healing session and has a lot to say and share.
So if you've ever done an energy healing session with me,
You've contributed to my bank of wisdom on this topic.
So thank you very much.
I also want to say in the beginning,
If you're a parent of young children,
I recommend you listen to this episode twice.
The first time around,
Listen to the episode for your own inner child.
And your own personal healing journey.
And then in the second listen,
Listen from the perspective of your child and from the perspective of your role as parent.
Because if you're open and receptive,
This episode can be immensely powerful and eye-opening for all the parents out there,
The stewards of all the little souls on earth right now.
So to start off,
One of the biggest points that I want to bring awareness to in this episode,
One of the biggest lessons I've learned through working directly with people's inner children,
Is that children are far more sensitive than we realize.
They are open sponges for their environment.
And that includes the subtle energies and emotions of the people around them,
Especially their parents and caregivers.
And they hear and feel everything even if they don't show it or even if it seems like they aren't listening or paying attention.
They're also impacted by what's happening around them,
Even if it's not happening directly to them.
Such as,
For example,
If their parents are fighting in the same room as them.
Maybe it's not directed at them,
But they are still impacted.
The analogy and imagery that came through around this.
Is to think of the home like a swimming pool.
Everyone in the home is energetically swimming in the same waters of that swimming pool.
So if someone is making waves,
Everyone is going to feel it.
And the other big point I want to make is that whether we realize it or not,
Our inner child has a major impact on our lives in adulthood.
Our inner child is in the background running the show.
Oftentimes when we are triggered in adulthood or our nervous systems go into fight or flight,
It's actually our inner child that is triggered.
Many adults are essentially just wounded children acting from that place of childhood wounding without being aware of it and then seeking external validation to try to fill a void or a hole within.
And our inner child is deeply connected to our limiting beliefs,
Our fears,
Our judgments of ourselves and others.
But also on the other side.
Our passions and desires and our joy.
So connecting with our inner child and building that relationship and focusing on inner child healing is hugely important and impactful.
I'll also share in a bit how inner child healing actually bends time,
Which is probably one of my favorite things I've learned from working with people's inner children.
And before I dive into specific examples.
I want to share why inner child healing is so,
So important right now specifically.
And it's because the portal to a better world runs right through our inner children.
This world we're living in has become too serious.
There is a seriousness epidemic we've been living through,
And it's causing harm to ourselves and the planet,
And it's holding us back from reaching our highest potential.
So connecting with and healing our inner child is a return to that childlike energy of joy and play and fun and love which this world desperately needs.
And another thing this world desperately needs is more heart.
More humans living from their hearts instead of their minds.
And guess what?
Your inner child is the key to opening your heart.
Inner Child Healing is the portal or gateway to connecting more deeply with our hearts and our emotions and understanding ourselves on a deeper level.
And when we can open our hearts and live from our hearts,
Everything changes.
The whole world changes.
Inner child healing is also deeply impactful for our relationships,
As well as helps us tap into more self-love and self-acceptance and self-confidence.
Our inner child is also the key to our intuition as well,
As children are deeply intuitive before the world made them shrink to fit into society.
So let's dive into some specific examples which have been shared with me directly from the inner children of people I've worked with in energy healing sessions.
Some you may resonate with,
Others you may not.
I encourage you as you listen to notice any reactions you may experience in your body or any emotions that may be triggered as that may be a sign of resonance for you or your inner child.
So right off the bat.
I often find the inner child stuck in a cage because of strict rules from their parents and family dynamics.
So we're talking both the spoken and unspoken rules in a household can be very restrictive for the child and tame the natural wildness out of them and cause them to shrink and become smaller.
And as a result of this cage from the strict rules,
I often find the inner child is holding in a scream full of anger and sadness that they weren't allowed to fully express growing up.
I've often found the inner child stuck in emotional and traumatic loops,
Such as their parents fighting in front of them,
Almost like a TV show playing in front of them that they've been unable to escape or turn off without some help.
The inner child is often holding a lot of pain and disappointment from not receiving the love and attention that they needed growing up.
Similarly,
The inner child may be holding pain and disappointment because they felt that they weren't truly seen or witnessed by their parents in a way that they needed.
I also often find a wound of disconnection in the inner child,
And that's disconnection from either the mother or father or both.
Similarly,
I often find kind of an energetic hole in the inner child if one or both of their parents was emotionally distant.
I find this most commonly,
Though,
As a father wound.
In addition,
Lack,
Scarcity,
Fears that are parents repeated and played out in the presence of the child gets absorbed by the inner child and then turned into limiting beliefs.
I also often find wounds the inner child is holding from how they were disciplined as children.
That's a big one.
The inner child can also be influenced by ancestral trauma and generational trauma that has been passed down to them energetically.
I often find a lot of emotions being held by the inner child,
Such as disappointment,
Resentment,
And anger,
Especially from being unseen,
Unheard,
And unrecognized in the way that they needed.
I also find blocks in the throat chakra of the inner child very commonly from the inner child holding in all their unprocessed emotions and unspoken words,
Especially if it wasn't safe for them to share their feelings and opinions growing up,
Or if they weren't allowed to express themselves,
Again,
Due to the rules and expectations within the family unit.
I also often find trauma the inner child is holding from dynamics with other children,
Such as bullying or feelings of being left out or feelings of being different,
Which results in them feeling small or unworthy or unloved.
The inner child is also often holding limiting beliefs from things that have been said to them by authority figures,
Such as parents or caregivers or teachers.
Just to give you an example,
One of my clients had a teacher in middle school say to them,
You aren't special.
And their inner child absorbed that and it resulted in a limiting belief that my client still holds today.
In addition to I'm not special,
I often find other limiting beliefs hiding in the inner child,
Such as I'm not smart,
Or I'm not important,
Or I'm too much.
Or I'm too loud or I'm too bossy.
Just to name a few.
This can also be from dynamics from peers,
From other children as well,
Not just from parents and caregivers and teachers.
But all of it causes your inner child to shrink and hold themselves back and become smaller and dim their light.
I also want to bring attention to conditioning your inner child takes on from the school system.
And that's the school system as it was whenever you went through schooling.
This conditioning from the school system runs so deep and it's very layered.
And if you went to a religious school,
Such as Catholic school,
That adds a whole other layer of conditioning as well.
But in essence,
What I want to bring awareness to around this topic is that the school system conditioned us to shrink down.
It stamped out our uniqueness.
It told us what was right and wrong.
It taught us how to think and taught us and molded us to fit into this current society and the institutions and structures and systems in place today.
But in doing that,
It perpetuates this society and reinforces these institutions and systems we are living under which,
As we know,
Many of which are harmful and don't really serve people or planet.
And what it did was put us in a box or even a cage,
And it confined our imaginations to thinking that this is the only reality available to us,
That these are the only choices available to us,
That the only pathways for survival and success are what already exists within these systems.
It's like a negative reinforcing feedback loop,
And it keeps the cycle going and keeps these systems in place.
It conditioned our minds to think that the only options available to us are go to school,
Get a job,
Have a family,
Work until you're in your 60s or 70s,
Retire,
And then die.
It conditioned us to believe that this was the only model of success,
That the Monday through Friday 9 to 5 grind was the only option available to us,
Or even that that was what was safest.
And then when we do all of those things and aren't finding the happiness or the joy or the fulfillment or the success or the money or the contentment that we were promised.
We struggle to break free or break out because it doesn't feel safe.
And we can't even imagine another way of being because of our limiting beliefs in societal conditioning.
Largely from these school systems.
And so when my clients come to me and maybe they are entrepreneurs and they are struggling in their business,
Or maybe they work in the corporate world but are burnt out and feel something is off,
Or maybe they are struggling with their creativity and to create what's on their hearts,
It's the inner child that illuminates these limiting beliefs and conditioning as the blocks holding us back from really reaching our highest potential.
Similarly holding us back from reaching our highest potential is the limiting beliefs around money that the inner child is holding.
This is influenced heavily by our parents and their relationship with money and how they spoke about money around the child in their vicinity growing up.
So your inner child is also holding money wounds that have been passed down through generations and from your ancestors as well.
And if you maybe grew up in a lower income household where maybe you actually didn't always have enough.
Like enough food or enough clothes,
Or perhaps there was instability and inconsistency,
That lack and scarcity mindset runs deep,
Even if that's not your situation now in the present.
And I also want to bring up here,
If your soul experienced this lack in a past life,
That may be a wound and limiting belief that is carried with you into this life as well,
That your inner child is still holding,
Even if it wasn't experienced directly in this lifetime.
The inner child is also often holding feelings of abandonment.
Perhaps from divorce.
Or from lack of emotional availability from one or both parents,
Or even from a past life.
Feelings of abandonment are also very much tied to feelings of not being seen or heard or recognized.
I also often find feelings of embarrassment that the inner child is holding and looping and kind of unable to let go of without a little help and encouragement.
A big one as well from almost every single inner child that I have worked with.
Is fear of being seen.
And there's many,
Many reasons this fear may be present,
But the important point is that an unhealed fear of being seen causes you to hold yourself back in adulthood.
It can be a big trigger point.
And that unexpressed potential from holding yourself back because of this fear of being seen can physically hurt and also cause depression and low self-esteem.
A lot of the fears and limiting beliefs that we've discussed today also leads to a holding back from being vulnerable in adulthood,
Which then negatively impacts our relationships.
I also sometimes find trauma from the child's boundaries being crossed,
Such as adults not listening when the child says no.
And this often shows up in sessions as a discomfort with others,
Such as a discomfort with the masculine,
Which acts as a sort of limiting belief,
Which then also causes you as an adult to push people away.
And the last example I want to bring up today is comparison with others from childhood,
If unexpressed and unprocessed,
Leads to self-judgment and your inner child thinking they aren't good enough or pretty enough or handsome enough,
For example,
Which then impacts your self-worth and self-love in adulthood.
And the list goes on.
This is not even a comprehensive list.
This is just a taste.
And I learn more from every single energy healing sessions that I do week to week.
But I hope though you can feel the magnitude of the weight your inner child is carrying,
As well as understand a little better the depth of the sensitivity of children.
It's not easy being a child in this world.
It's not easy being so sensitive but not having the understanding or the words to express yourself or protect yourself or the tools to process all the emotions that are flowing through you.
And it's important to point out as well that children are influenced heavily by the unspoken subtle energetics in their environment,
Even if they don't understand them or can't put words to them.
And everything I shared today,
All of these wounds and fears and limiting beliefs and conditioning and unprocessed emotions,
It results in trauma responses and survival mechanisms that then turn into character traits and get confused for your personality.
Because the child will do whatever it needs to in order to survive.
So the child will bend and contort itself and shrink itself and mask itself to fit in in order to survive.
And this is not always illogical.
So that looks like people pleasing.
Performing to keep everyone around you happy,
Aka controlling your environment.
Closing off your heart,
Walling off your heart,
Suppressing your emotions,
Holding back tears,
Being overly responsible and controlling,
Never slowing down.
Growing up too fast,
Being emotionally mature from a really young age,
Just to name a few.
People-pleasing,
For example.
It makes sense,
Right?
It's safer.
If we can keep everyone around us happy and untriggered,
Then we feel safer and our nervous systems feel safer,
Right?
But understand,
All these trauma responses and survival strategies and fears and limiting beliefs and these feelings of low self-worth and low self-esteem and lack of love for yourself,
None of this is the real core truth of who you are.
These are like layers on top of who you really are.
And please know it is absolutely possible to heal and break free.
And become who you truly are.
And who you are at your core.
Please hear me when I say this,
Who you are at your core,
Your core essence.
Is love.
Is divinity,
Is Source expressing itself through you.
You are the universe and the cosmos incarnate.
You are infinite.
You are magic.
You are powerful.
You are inseparable from the all that is.
You are important beyond words.
You are so special,
In fact,
That nothing would ever be the same again in the entire multiverse without you.
And the true bigness and immensity of who and what you really are.
Is immeasurable.
I feel that in my heart and my inner child swells when I say those words.
I bring awareness to all of this today because one thing I've learned is that the inner child needs to be seen and witnessed in order to let go and release some of what they're holding onto.
It's also a crucial component of healing to understand the depth to which your inner child and their feelings and wounds are impacting you into adulthood.
But importantly.
Importantly,
And this may be hard to hear,
Our souls chose our parents.
Our souls chose the circumstances we were born into in this incarnation,
In this lifetime.
And every lifetime for that matter.
Our souls chose those things because there were certain experiences it wanted to have in order to learn and grow and evolve.
Or there were certain soul contracts and agreements that needed to be fulfilled.
That's the nature of this earth school that our souls agreed to be a part of.
And in the beautiful and divine orchestration of it all,
There was deep wisdom we each gathered from our childhood,
Despite the hardships.
Deep wisdom.
And in that way,
Your experiences in this life have led to your superpowers.
So I encourage you to look at all that you've experienced also from the lens of the wisdom you gained and to realize your inner child is one of your teammates and carries such gifts and magic and wisdom.
So once you witness and acknowledge and shed light on all your inner child is carrying,
Then you can hold hands and discover the magic that you hold within together.
And when you invite your inner child into your life,
You rediscover your childlike joy,
You rediscover play,
You rediscover your wildness,
You rediscover your desires,
And you rediscover an important part of your intuition.
And because that's another thing I've learned working directly with people's inner children.
Our inner child is deeply psychic and intuitive.
I often find their third eye and clairvoyance is super activated,
But then life and conditioning causes them to close off and shrink and shut it down.
So your inner child can also help you tap deeper into your intuition and psychic abilities.
The inner child has also told me many times not to look at them through the lens of hierarchy.
They are not beneath you.
They are not less than you now as an adult,
Even with their wounding.
And similarly,
Not to put them on a pedestal either,
They are your teammate.
They are an equal part of you.
And they want to be a part of your life.
They want to help you.
They want to work with you to reach your highest potential.
They want your love and attention.
So once you work through some of the wounding they are carrying and give them what they need,
They want to help you.
They want to work with you to reach your highest potential.
You are greater together.
And guess what?
Doing your inner child healing work will make you a better parent,
Caregiver,
Grandparent,
Aunt,
Or uncle,
Or teacher,
Or just steward for the next generations.
Some concrete ways I want to share to do this inner child healing work.
Of course,
Energy healing is a powerful modality,
But you can speak to your inner child right now in this moment.
You can invite them in and rebuild a relationship with them.
Tell them they are special,
They are important,
That you love them,
That they are beautiful.
Invite your inner child in to dance with you,
To swim with you in the ocean,
To eat ice cream with you.
Invite them in when you are reading books to your child so that you are also reading your inner child the book.
Let them cry,
Perhaps scream into a pillow,
Punch a pillow to help release some of the emotion they are carrying,
To help them release a bit of the weight.
You can be the parent for your inner child that they didn't have.
You can give them the love,
Attention,
And validation that they didn't receive growing up.
And know it takes time and patience and grace and compassion as well.
Be gentle with your inner child.
Let them speak.
Let them know their emotions are valid.
You can give your inner child whatever it is they need in this now moment.
And in this way,
Inner child healing bends time.
How inner child healing bends time is a bit difficult to explain logically,
So bear with me.
As we all hopefully know by now.
Linear time doesn't really exist.
Time isn't fixed.
And time and space do not even exist in the astral realms and in these higher dimensions,
Which is where the energetic realms reside.
So where your inner child resides in these energetic realms,
Time and space don't exist.
That's why working in the energetic realms,
Such as with energy healing,
We are able to access and perform past life healing,
Ancestral healing,
Generational healing,
We're able to connect with different parts of ourselves through time,
Such as the inner child or inner teenager or inner young adult self.
Or we're able to connect with our future self and future timelines.
It's all available to us in the energetic realms,
Which you could also call the astral realms or the quantum realms or the unseen realms.
And so with that foundational knowledge,
When we connect with our inner child and when we send healing energy and love to our inner child,
And when we listen to them and give them whatever it is they are asking for,
That healing ripples through time and space.
So you in this present moment are healing your inner child in this present moment,
But then also in addition healing your inner child in the past whenever it was that you took on the wounding and trauma.
So you are actually changing the past.
And as that healing takes place,
That healing also ripples back through your ancestors and through generations.
And then it also creates ripples that heals your future self.
And then as you in this new healed energetic state move forward in time,
You are then breaking the cycle,
Which heals future generations.
So think of it like a circle.
Okay?
And in that way,
Through inner child healing,
We are bending time and creating healing through past,
Present,
And future.
This is truly powerful work,
Friends.
And actually,
Quantum physics is starting to catch up with this concept,
Which is really,
Really cool.
And I want to end today with a vision.
For a world in which every child is safe.
Truly,
Deeply,
Completely,
Wholly safe.
Where every part of them,
Every emotion,
Is allowed and held in a safe environment.
Where each child is supported and loved unconditionally.
A world that is structured around fostering each individual child's uniqueness,
Gifts,
And curiosities as they grow up.
Where each child and their uniqueness is honored and celebrated,
Where children are seen as sacred.
And where their connection to nature and the earth is woven into the very fabric of society.
And as that child grows up in this safe world and becomes an adult,
They never lose their connection to their inner child.
And so in that way,
In this world,
Inner child healing has become obsolete.
It's no longer even needed.
Can you imagine it?
Can you feel it?
We are each part of building this future through our healing,
Our actions,
And our choices.
I'll end today with a quote from Nicky Rowe.
Everything seemed possible when I looked through the eyes of a child.
And every once in a while,
I remember.
I still have the chance to be that wild.
