Inner Child - the child that never leaves you
Inner Child - the child that never leaves you
- posted: Apr. 14, 2025
“Stop acting like a child,” or “grow up,” or “you need to toughen up.” So much of our negative language revolves around avoiding our more childlike traits. It is less acceptable to watch a man on a flight have a temper tantrum because his ears are impacted by the air pressure or a woman needing a mandatory nap time at work (though that would be amazing). And, understandably, those actions are not normalized. However, the feelings are valid. According to The School of Life’s book An Emotional Education, the child version lives inside of all of us, as much as we try to suppress and pretend they are not there. The inner child exists within all of us. A simple way of describing our inner child is each of our childlike versions of us, and in more complex terms, it can be our younger selves that have been frozen in time, plagued by the traumas of our past. Whether we like it or not, the little version of ourselves follows us around in life, wanting the spotlight on them. And can you fault our little selves? Maybe our inner child was neglected, abused, belittled, or unseen, and so they search their whole little lives for something to prove they are worth being taken care of.
But for so many people, they ignore the pesky and needy little version of themselves, perpetuating and prolonging the pattern of abandonment. Yet despite the suppression of our little selves, they always show up and sit with us when we are in a state of disarray. In those moments, the little ones take over, and we are no longer in the present. We are experiencing conflict as a five-year-old, an eight-year-old, or even a sixteen-year-old. We are acting in the way we would at that age, having a temper tantrum, compartmentalizing and simplifying conflict to black or white conclusions, and expecting to get our way just “because.” Little us is trying to solve an adult problem through a child's lens.
As Alice Miller puts it in The Drama of the Gifted Child, “Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history. They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, ignoring the fact that it no longer exists, continuing to fear and avoid dangers that, although once real, have not been real for a long time.” In those moments, the fears of our past time travel to the present. If someone was yelled at as a kid, feeling powerless and paralyzed, shutting down to protect themselves, their inner child would play out being yelled at, as they are being chewed out by their boss. Our bodies can’t differentiate the past from the present, so little us takes over, seeing our boss as our angry parent, and ourselves as the small child who had no voice.
Our society demands maturity but does not understand that maturity can be achieved while holding the hands of our bruised inner child, tending to their needs, and reassuring them in moments of peril. We are not immature when our little selves are begging for love and attention. We can improve, though, to listen to our little ones instead of self-abandoning and sitting in self-righteousness. We can hug them the way they were never held and let them know we are here to listen and here to stay.
An exercise to consider was created by Jessica Baum from her book, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love.
I want you to remember a time when you might have acted “irrationally.” Imagine it was the child version of you in that moment, feeling angry/annoyed/frustrated/sad, etc.
Write out a conversation between “Little Me” and “Big Me.” Consider the following questions:
How would you reassure Little You?
Instead of scolding or belittling, how can you meet Little You where they are at?
What would it look like to express compassion, empathy, and kindness towards Little You?
What can you learn from Little You?
You might not come to a satisfactory conclusion in this conversation between your two selves, but if you can even just hear out your inner child for a moment, you might learn something. Because that child will stay with you until the very end, keeping you company.
Inner Child - the child that never leaves you
- posted: Apr. 14, 2025
“Stop acting like a child,” or “grow up,” or “you need to toughen up.” So much of our negative language revolves around avoiding our more childlike traits. It is less acceptable to watch a man on a flight have a temper tantrum because his ears are impacted by the air pressure or a woman needing a mandatory nap time at work (though that would be amazing). And, understandably, those actions are not normalized. However, the feelings are valid. According to The School of Life’s book An Emotional Education, the child version lives inside of all of us, as much as we try to suppress and pretend they are not there. The inner child exists within all of us. A simple way of describing our inner child is each of our childlike versions of us, and in more complex terms, it can be our younger selves that have been frozen in time, plagued by the traumas of our past. Whether we like it or not, the little version of ourselves follows us around in life, wanting the spotlight on them. And can you fault our little selves? Maybe our inner child was neglected, abused, belittled, or unseen, and so they search their whole little lives for something to prove they are worth being taken care of.
But for so many people, they ignore the pesky and needy little version of themselves, perpetuating and prolonging the pattern of abandonment. Yet despite the suppression of our little selves, they always show up and sit with us when we are in a state of disarray. In those moments, the little ones take over, and we are no longer in the present. We are experiencing conflict as a five-year-old, an eight-year-old, or even a sixteen-year-old. We are acting in the way we would at that age, having a temper tantrum, compartmentalizing and simplifying conflict to black or white conclusions, and expecting to get our way just “because.” Little us is trying to solve an adult problem through a child's lens.
As Alice Miller puts it in The Drama of the Gifted Child, “Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history. They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, ignoring the fact that it no longer exists, continuing to fear and avoid dangers that, although once real, have not been real for a long time.” In those moments, the fears of our past time travel to the present. If someone was yelled at as a kid, feeling powerless and paralyzed, shutting down to protect themselves, their inner child would play out being yelled at, as they are being chewed out by their boss. Our bodies can’t differentiate the past from the present, so little us takes over, seeing our boss as our angry parent, and ourselves as the small child who had no voice.
Our society demands maturity but does not understand that maturity can be achieved while holding the hands of our bruised inner child, tending to their needs, and reassuring them in moments of peril. We are not immature when our little selves are begging for love and attention. We can improve, though, to listen to our little ones instead of self-abandoning and sitting in self-righteousness. We can hug them the way they were never held and let them know we are here to listen and here to stay.
An exercise to consider was created by Jessica Baum from her book, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love.
I want you to remember a time when you might have acted “irrationally.” Imagine it was the child version of you in that moment, feeling angry/annoyed/frustrated/sad, etc.
Write out a conversation between “Little Me” and “Big Me.” Consider the following questions:
How would you reassure Little You?
Instead of scolding or belittling, how can you meet Little You where they are at?
What would it look like to express compassion, empathy, and kindness towards Little You?
What can you learn from Little You?
You might not come to a satisfactory conclusion in this conversation between your two selves, but if you can even just hear out your inner child for a moment, you might learn something. Because that child will stay with you until the very end, keeping you company.