
Think about that boy/girl you once were. What did he/she needed? What hurt him/her? Where was he/she left?, with a feeling of “something missing”?
This boy/girl learned how to survive in front of this situations in some way.
Maybe what he/she learned was to, in someway, suppress his/her needs. Probably to “become tough and heartless” or to “laugh to avoid” and making his/her feelings worthless. Maybe he/she “learned how to be very helpful and kind”, even passing over his/her self, and over his/her own dignity.
What did this boy/girl did to survive? You don’t remember? Let me put it in a different way: when you were a kid you were only considered enough if… and maybe your answer will be something like: when I was obedient, when I was a good boy/girl, when I didn’t do mischiefs, when I didn’t cried, when I made a great effort, when I got good grades. That is to say, you lived something that conditioned your enoughness in front of life and possibly, even the love that was shown to you based in one or several behaviors.
Kids, and adults likewise are living beings. Beings who seek to survive and do whatever is within their possibilities to take care of their lives, so it is possible that the reaction you learned as a kid continues with you as an adult. And why shouldn’t you keep it? If it was useful for you and worked out for you, then, why should you leave it?
Maybe you haven’t realized that keeping on with it it’s painful, as painful as when you were a child and were left with one of your needs unsatisfied: a need of love, of recognition, of validation, of observance, of acceptance, when all of this depended on you doing certain things.
Our wounded inner child
Please, for those who at this moment believe that his/her parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers are guilty; I’m only asking you to consider that probably they too lived this histories and may also have “really wounded inner childs”, with hard childhoods. So blaming them has not much use, it keeps us in what we already know.
Then, how can we have a good childhood if we already are adults? How can we give ourselves a good childhood if we missed one? The answer is simple: treating that child, who is still inside us, in the way we would have liked to be treated. The big problem is that we end up being our own executioners, because that’s what we learned and used to survive.
So today, as an adult, I disqualify myself in the same way I was disqualified when I was a kid if I didn’t finish my soup on time. I call myself “dumb” in the same way I was called when I broke a glass. I go over my fears and laugh before everyone to be liked and survive at work. I demand myself in the same way I lived it as a child, and I never consider myself enough, as I didn’t felt enough as a child.
That is to say, I treat myself in the same way I DIDN’t like to be treated. In this way I repeat the unhappy or unsatisfactory childhood I had.
How to live, as an adult, a happy childhood
Is there something different I can do? Is it possible to go back in time? Can I repeat my childhood? Can I have a happy childhood?
Yes, we can do something different. We can’t go back in time. We can’t repeat our childhood. And we can give ourselves a happy childhood today, which means, treating ourselves in helplessness situations in the way we would have liked to be treated but we weren’t. This means stop seeing ourselves with the inadequacy eyes we were seen, and begin to look ourselves with enoughness eyes.
If I learned to go over my needs, then try to listen to them, and ask that inner child: what does he/she needs? What would he/she would have liked was listened?
If I was looked with ‘“you never are perfect enough” eyes, maybe it’s time to laugh at my imperfections, of valuing my effort, of considering what is there, of asking myself if the perfection I care about so much is really that important, of giving me permission to make mistakes.
If I can’t allow myself to go to the bathroom because I have to finish my tasks before going, maybe it’s time to let them halfway and take care of my body’s needs as many times as it requires it.
When we are adults, we are the inner “father”, or “mother” of that inner child, we can give him/her a childhood as deficient as the one we had, or we can offer him/her the chance to finally live a happy childhood. It’s your choice!
And probably, after your choice, your inner child will “make a tantrum”, “stay silent”, or will start to laugh and live a happy childhood.
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