How to love, nurture and protect your inner child.

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Every journey needs a starting point. Before you climb a mountain you need to find out something about that particular mountain. Before you start exploring a new country you need a map of that country. Before you can change something you need to have a picture in your mind of what you have now, where you are now and where you want to be.

The starting point for all inner child work is to create a clear separation between the parts we call your more aware Grown up side and your younger parts including your Inner Child.

Without this separation nothing can change

Why can’t it change? Because those younger parts are too used to having to handle the most difficult of life’s tasks, so they will immediately see making this change as just another one of their never ending responsibilities.

The more difficult it seems to achieve this separation the more most inner children parts will say to themselves, “This also I must do.”

And as long as that continues there can be no separation and not much that your more aware Grown up parts can do about it.

The five magic words

So to begin you need to learn five magic words.

“This is grown ups’ work”. or “That is grown ups’ work”. You and I will need to say those words many times before their power will become clearer. But for a start say them to yourself right now. “This is grown ups’ work”. “That is grown ups’ work”.

Now check inside and see if that felt like a younger  child wishing they could hand over the work “That is grown ups’ work” or did it feel more like a grown up explaining to a younger  child that “This is grown ups’ work” meaning that she or he, your more aware Grown up parts, are  ready to take over the task.

It doesn’t matter at this point which of the two it felt like. Either way you are starting to develop a sense that within you there are two parts.

For your Inner Child, saying the magic words “That is grown ups’ work” is one of the first keys to his or her freedom. It confirms that she or he is speaking with your more aware Grown up side and can start to hand over the responsibility for fixing so many things and making so many essential changes.

Later on your younger parts including your inner child will learn to add the words “It’s not my job any more!”

For your Aware Grown up parts the words “This is Grown Ups’s work.” might be followed by “Leave it to me. You are safe now and it’s time for you to play!”

Separation between the two parts within you is starting.

However for a start your younger parts including your inner child will still be feeling doubtful about how real this separation is. The next step is for your Aware grown Up parts to begin demonstrating over and over again that:

1. It is real

2. It is here right now.

3. It is growing quite quickly.

4. It is capable of taking over all the “grown ups’ work” that is on the table at present.

Repeating the words by themselves is a start. The next thing is to select a specific task, one that would worry a small child, and have your grown up system take it over.

Think of a task that is coming up for you quite soon. Let’s take a common example, a meeting or interview with an older or more powerful person. That will always worry an inner child while she or he feels that they have to handle the meeting. The feeling will be more intense if the younger parts including your inner child feel there isn’t any Aware grown up part present to share the task.

Identify the Inner Child feeling

Consciously move into your Aware grown up part.  Try to feel the feelings of stress, fear, even panic as you think about that up-coming meeting. That’s your  younger parts including your inner child. How many of the feelings are connected to thoughts like these:

“It’s all too much for me”;  It’s too hard”; “I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough energy, I don’t have enough power”;“I just want to give up.”

Where are the feelings focussed inside your body?

Ask yourself what you as a grown-up can do to relieve those feelings that are troubling your younger parts including your inner child.

The answer is once again for you as a Grown up to explain to your inner child the magic words.   “This is Grown Ups’s work. Leave it to me. You are safe now and it’s time for you to go and play!”

See how that feels? If you experience even the slightest sense of relief and calmness then you know it’s starting to work. That is how you demonstrate to your  younger parts including your inner child that your Aware grown up part is truly starting to take over the difficult tasks you face in your life.

To start  you need to separate your two systems

      1.Your    Inner child and the Young parts

       2. Your  More aware Grown-up parts