Your inner child lives in your heart and can be accessed through the heart chakra. As adults its important to become the parent of our own inner child and give them the love, appreciation, acceptance, safety – all a small child ever needs and that may have been lacking in our own families while we were growing up. When we were young, it was our parents responsibility to take care of us. Now we are adults too, it has become our own responsibility to care for the needs of our inner child.

Most importantly as the new parent of your inner child, you need to allow it to express the repressed emotions it has been carrying around for decennia. Because as you will clearly read in this article, the inner child feelings and thoughts are co-creating your current reality without you even knowing it.

If you were abused as a child you can be sure that your inner child is wounded

I just did a Soul Embodiment™ Therapy Journeys with a woman who had for a short period been sexually abused by her stepfather at the age of nine. The abuse ended when the relationship between this man and her mother ended. She wanted to do a Soul Journey because she would get very far in live and then at the moment it really counted, things would fall through. She for example got really far in a television contest which would have really helped her artistic career, but then that piece never got aired and it happened over and over again. She was really sensing a pattern and although she had forgiven her stepfather and had gone to psychotherapy she still felt that the abuse could be the cause of this last minute sabotage.

So we went into the Soul Journey and I couldn’t get her to connect with anything, not her feelings, not her higher self, she couldn’t make the connection at all. Until I had her connect to her inner child and a grieve was released that she had not even realized that was still there. Afterwards when I had her ask her inner child if this was the cause of her last minute sabotage, her inner child replied and said ‘Yes, when this happened to you you made the decision to be invisible.‘

The woman was stunned by how much sense her last minute sabotage made now, this was exactly what was playing out in her adult life.

Many young children use invisibility as a means to escape any kind of abuse, but unless you undo this decision as an adult it will be hard-coded in your subconscious mind as I explained in this teaching here and your subconscious mind will make sure you stay invisible no matter what. Not because its mean, but because the subconscious mind is programmed to protect you. Visibility is considered a threat, according to the experience it logged in this case when the woman was nine years old and should be avoided at all costs to keep her safe. Very effective for the situation then, a total nuisance now when she was a very talented artist who wanted to become well known for her work.

But you don’t need to have been abused to have a wounded inner child

Don’t think because you had a relatively normal childhood that your inner child can not be wounded. Inner child wounding can of course be caused by abusive behavior, but also in families where there was no abuse, wounding can take place. As in all cases of wounding it is the interpretation that creates the wounding, not the event itself. It’s what we tell ourselves about what it means, that this is happening to us that wounds the deepest.

From that perspective, simple day to day life situations can be taken completely the wrong way and made to meant something they were never intended to mean. One of the most profound examples I ever read was in the Healing Code by Alexander Loyd. In his book he tells about a young ambitious woman, who can just not seem to break through to the promotion of her desire for years until a childhood memory was healed. The memory was of when she was around five years old and her mother had said no ice cream until you finish your dinner. She didn’t finish her dinner, her sister did finish it and got the ice cream. The girl herself did not get an ice cream from her mother that evening. She as a five year old had found that so unfair, it was so charged with emotion and she made it mean something that it didn’t mean at all – she made it mean that she was not worthy of the ice cream and others were and that was exactly the same believe that was recreating itself in her career life. She was not worthy of promotion and others were constantly promoted above her.

Her mother just wanted to teach her to finish the healthy food first, before she got her treat. The mother’s only intention was to assure her child ate the food that would give her the vitamins and minerals she needs to grow and thrive. It was the child’s own wrong interpretation of what that incident meant to say about her, that created the wounding.

She had decided she was not worth getting the reward, which became her reality and kept being her reality until she found and neutralized this childhood memory.

How can the wounded inner child saboteur show up in your life and business?

And let’s be honest we have all done that in our lives at one time or another, made something mean something about us that the other never ever intended. The only problem with inner child wounding is that, it slipped into your subconscious mind and you forgot about it. You were also way too young to really analyze what happened and correct yourself, so especially if the situation was paired with high emotions your conclusion about what this meant was just hard coded into your believe system. Co-creating your current reality without you even knowing it.

Because what you believe becomes your reality, even when you are not aware you are believing it and that is why it is so important to make the unconscious, conscious so that you can live the life YOU WANT, instead of the life you were subconsciously programmed to live.

Here are some examples of how inner child wounding can play out in your life and business if left unchecked:

Fear of abandonment

Most women struggle with fear of abandonment in their life at one point or another and most often in their intimate relationships. As I was recently explaining to a Soul Journey client, imagine how it feels when a three year old is pulling on you and demanding for attention, how does it make you feel. Her answer was, sometimes I can rise above it and give him/her what he/she needs, other times it just feels suffocating and I only want to get away.

That’s exactly how your partner feels when your inner child takes over and gets all clingy, insecure and demanding with him/her. When you were a child it was okay to turn to others to sooth you, as an adult it’s your own responsibility to sooth yourself. To meet your own needs and to take care of your own emotional well being.

Fear of abandonment is always an inner child aspect getting triggered and instead of turning to your partner to comfort you, you need to comfort yourself first. Parent your own inner child. Let your inner child know that you are ALWAYS there for them and ready to take care of them, this opens the road to real intimacy with your partner. Because as long as your inner child is making you act like a three year old – it will stand in the way of adult intimacy the way you really want to connect with your partner.

Not saying NO

Not being able to say NO is also an inner child thing. As children we often had to do things we didn’t want to do because we were taught to be obedient. As adults we are under no obligation to others and you are allowed to say NO whenever you want.

If you find it hard to say NO and feel you always have to say YES, even when you don’t feel like it – ask yourself why you cannot say NO in this situation. If your answer makes no sense at all or is only about the other and not being selfish then dig deeper why you would want to make someone else’s thoughts and feelings more important than your own.

Why do you find it hard to choose for yourself and what you really want?

Over delivering

If you are over delivering you are basically saying out loud ‘I am not (good) enough‘. Because if you were enough you would not feel you had to sweeten the deal with lots and lots of extra’s to compensate the inner believe that you alone are not enough.

If you catch yourself in the act of over delivering, stop and ask yourself why you are feeling the need to bedazzle your clients? Instead make a list of 25 reasons why you are (good) enough, and really take the answers in as proof of your worthiness. If you get stuck on this one, ask others what they really appreciate in you. Then go back to whatever you were doing, feeling confident and competent.

Not setting boundaries

Again as children it was not always possible to enforce the boundaries that we wanted to put up for various reasons, but as adults there is NO REASON at all to continue this unhealthy behavior.

How are your boundaries? How do you allow others to treat you? How do you let other people make use of your time? Do you allow others to use you, or are your relationships reciprocative?

We have weak boundaries when we are afraid of loss, either losing someone completely or losing their approval of us. If you find yourself bending yourself backwards for someone, ask yourself how important is this person to me really? If not important let them go immediately. If this person is important to you, ask yourself why you feel the need to please this person? Look deeper into the answers you get from this inquiry.

Wanting everyone to like you

This is a mission impossible always. It is impossible to have everyone like you and you cannot completely abandon yourself in order to be what everyone wants or expects you to be. You can only be yourself, the true you. That is the best way to really get people to like you, is to be true to yourself.

As a child it could feel really painful when other children didn’t want to play with you or you weren’t allowed to participate. We all want a crowd, a tribe to belong to. You will be the most happy in a tribe of like minded people, because there you can really be yourself which is a basic human desire. To fully express ourselves.

When you catch yourself in the act of shape shifting in order to please or impress someone else, close your eyes become aware of your own body and energy field and ask yourself who do I want to be right now? What do I want to do? How can I express my true self in this moment.

Some people will walk away, but other people will replace them that are a much better fit for you and that make your life so much more fun and interesting.

Fear of overwhelm

Another sure sign of a wounded inner child is fear of responsibility and the underlying fear of overwhelm. Recently my twelve year old son crawled in my arms and stated he was going to live with me forever. He was afraid he would fail at school (he has a B average) and that he couldn’t take care of himself. So I hugged him and explained to him, that this might be how he feels now – but that as he grows older he will learn all the skills he needs to take care of himself and that I know for sure that he will create a fantastic life for himself.

Similarly your inner child might feel completely overwhelmed by some aspects of your business like the bookkeeping. This could tie into your money story and what you learned as a child about money. No matter what part of your business triggers the fear of responsibility and in the end overwhelm, dive into it and write down all your beliefs around this subject and see what comes up.

Playing small

Last but not least is allowing fear to keep you playing small. Just like the example of my 12 year old son above, your inner child might feel insecure about you stepping into your full power and sharing your unique gift with the world. You might be totally ready and fully equipped to start living your life purpose and still a part of you is wondering if it will all work out in the end.

My son has a B average which guarantees his advancement to the next class in school, still at a subconscious level he was afraid he might not have what it takes. This fear was in his case brought on by him comparing himself to his older brother who suffers drug related psychosis and is struggling to make something of his life. We discussed it and he was able to let his fear go.

Are you playing small? Have a talk with your inner child and ask him/her what is he/she afraid of. It’s really scary if you future trip from elementary school to how will you find a job, pay the rent, cook your food and so on. You just skipped 6 to 7 years of puberty at least, that prepares you to make this next step, Is your inner child also maybe future tripping and because of that urging you to stay where you are, where you know you will be safe?

I pray this teaching serves you.