"Heal Your Inner Child" | Self-release and become a better version of yourself

You may have felt or experienced the following:

Sometimes, inexplicably sad, or even emotionally out of control;

Sometimes, very helpless, longing for attention and satisfaction;

Sometimes, I suppress myself and often feel insecure...

In the depths of everyone's heart, there is a little inner child who is our most primitive and true self.

We grow up, but the inner child in our body will not disappear because of our age, it has been hiding in a corner of our heart, sometimes helpless, painful, and even feel that we are not good, not good, Not worth being loved, being hurt again and again.

Even when we are adults, the inner child is still like a cloudy child, becoming our out-of-control emotions, and over time, slowly becoming our character flaws. If the inner child does not grow, we cannot grow.

So how do we heal our inner child?

Shi Qijia is a psychotherapist and a college professor with a medical background. Trained in neuroscience and neurology, he worked as a neurologist, and later, because of his interest in psychology, he turned to psychotherapy and psychiatry, and became a psychiatrist.

He said that if we don't get the care, love and healing we deserve when we are young, the injured child will stay at the point of growth and stop growing.

"Healing Your Inner Child" addresses the five needs of the inner child (love, companionship, praise, play, and apology), five emotions (fear, shame, abandonment, emptiness, sadness), and five values Beliefs (I can't, I'm not good, I don't deserve, I don't like, I don't agree with) provide systemic solutions.

By seeing and responding to the needs of the inner child, empathizing with him, releasing suppressed emotions, reshaping the values ​​and beliefs that have been destroyed, finding the inner energy of the self, and reintegrating oneself.

01 See the inner child

To discover your inner child is to discover your true self.

The inner child is a mental entity that we experience as a child within us. Although our body has grown up, due to the unmet needs or the experience of being hurt as a child, we retain a fragile, injured, inner child who needs attention.

"Appropriateness, stability, and persistence are very important factors ," the authors said .

The child whose initial requirements are not met, then the inner child develops in two distinct directions: one in which he develops a particularly bad inner child, and another in which he develops a particularly quiet inner child , not noisy or noisy, especially quiet.

If the needs of the inner child are not met, he may be injured.

The wounds that are not healed in time will always accompany our growth, and may jump out at any time, crying, inferiority, helplessness, powerlessness, or disturbing us with hatred, etc., making us lose control of our emotions, feel angry, Sadness, sadness, even uncontrollable rage or breakdown...

So, what forms does the inner child take? The author believes that there are the following forms:

1. The inner child who lacks love.

Early parental love and unconditional fulfillment of a child's needs can help a child develop a secure inner child. Children are particularly trusting of the surrounding environment, and they are also very warm and friendly to the people around them, and they are full of confidence.

If a child lacks love, his inner child may be a very greedy "devil", he is a hungry child, he is possessive of many things, likes to eat, possess food, or has a habit of collecting, Possession of various items.

2. The inner child who lacks company.

Children without companionship develop two types of inner children: clingy attachment and fearful attachment.

The clingy-attached inner child is particularly clingy, wants to be with close people all the time, has separation anxiety, and is especially afraid of separation.

Inner children with fearful attachments are particularly "acting" in their relationships. They have a deep desire for intimacy, but what they do on the surface is to destroy the relationship.

Left-behind children are typically unaccompanied children, and children who lack parental company in their early years will feel abandoned as adults, and they will feel that there is no relationship to be trusted.

3. The inner child who lacks praise.

The low self-esteem inner child is characterized by asking for compliments and making those around him feel belittled.

In the process of a child's growth, the need for attention is not met, and parents rarely give praise, and even often reprimand and degrade the child, which can easily make the child feel inferior.

4. The inner child who lacks play.

The relationship between people is gradually acquired through play.

Play is human nature, it can expand a person's psychological space. Larger mental space means you have more anti-frustration ability and reflection ability.

Through play, children's imagination, creativity and hands-on ability will be greatly improved.

And people who lack the inner child to play will appear as "straight men" in adulthood, and are prone to great setbacks in interpersonal relationships.

5. The inner child who lacks an apology.

A person who often entangles with others is because there is a wronged child in his heart, and there is an inner child whose parents never apologized when the child was young.

The grievances can't be relieved, and then become psychosomatic symptoms, which haunt a child's life.

In fact, an apology can release a grievance by being seen, understood, and appeased.

In addition, there is the inner child of fear, shame, abandonment, emptiness, and crying.

02 Reshaping value beliefs

Someone joked: "There is a kind of cold call that mother thinks you are cold."

In fact, parents need to understand their children's needs, understand their children's feelings, and make correct responses to their children's needs.

Parenting children is not simply to raise children, but in the process, let children feel that "I am needed, I am respected, and I am loved".

This process is the process of mentalization, allowing children to feel the emotional connection.

Therefore, in the process of raising children, we must give them enough love, companionship and understanding.

So, how to reshape your own values ​​and beliefs?

According to the author, there are five ways:

1. Affirm yourself and say goodbye to "I can't ".

If a child sees that his parents like him very much, and he likes him from the bottom of his heart, then it is like a mirror, reflecting the child's self-worth.

However, sometimes parents are like mirrors, reflecting their own shadows.

"Why are you so stupid?"

"Why did you do it wrong again?"

"Why do you always procrastinate and can't finish your homework before going to bed?"

"Why don't you always try hard?"

Children don't get praise from their parents, and they don't get appreciative eyes. This shadow is to be devalued, have a low sense of self-worth, have low self-esteem, and feel that they are inferior to others.

When children are young, parents encourage and support their children, give strength and praise, and give tolerance and acceptance, which will make children more confident.

2. Pay attention to yourself and say goodbye to "I don't deserve it".

"I don't deserve nice clothes"

"I don't deserve a good life"

"I don't deserve to buy good stuff"...

So, how did "I'm not worthy" come into being?

Some children form the inner child of "I'm not worthy" because of the attitude of their parents towards their children when they were young. Another source of the feeling of "I'm not worthy" is the inferiority complex caused by inferiority complex.

How to go from "unworthy" to "fit"?

The authors say treat relationships with relationships and cover bad ones with good ones.

If you are fortunate enough to meet a person and keep nourishing yourself, then he can gradually change from "unworthy" to "worthy".

3. Stop attacking yourself and say goodbye to "I'm not good".

There is a statistic, "People with childhood trauma are particularly sensitive to bad things, to other people's eyes, words, and derogatory words in their words, but they usually turn a blind eye to praise and praise and do not hear it."

Every child wants to be seen and encouraged, so create a particularly positive, encouraging and inclusive environment for them.

Building nurturing relationships will allow children to say goodbye to "I'm not good" and stop attacking themselves.

If his surroundings make him feel "I'm the only one, I'm the best, I'm perfect", he will gradually accept "I'm not perfect" even if others think of him lower.

4. Release yourself and bid farewell to your suppressed self.

You can choose to use intense language to express and release verbally.

You can also try stating things with "I must," "I should," "I have to," such as "I have to nod and bow to the leader," and then use "I want to..." "I want to..." See if your beliefs are all imposed on you by others, and you make this repression natural, that is, not knowing what you want.

"In general, particularly happy children also develop a sense of self-esteem," the authors said.

How can I release myself without suppressing myself?

The author tells us that, first, there is no absolute freedom. You can only become freer if you can accept some unfreedom in reality. Second, you can release yourself, and you can't make others feel uncomfortable or even hurt.

5. Self-identification and say goodbye to doubting self.

The author said that self-identification mainly includes: biological gender identity after birth; related to parental designation; related to social self-identity; related to interpersonal relationships;

The self-identification of the "big self" is to focus on oneself and one's relationship with oneself.

Therefore, "The level of your self-identity depends on your vision, your knowledge."

03 Integrate, live out love and new self

Heal your inner child and let him give you the strength and the courage to start over and change your relationships and your destiny.

To know oneself, understand oneself, integrate oneself, and live out a loving and reborn self, the author believes that there are the following ways:

1. Find your innocence.

The author said that a person's innocence needs a suitable environment to incubate.

To maintain and restore one's innocence and incubate oneself, one must first clear away the inner sense of lack.

We often see shoppers and shopaholics, and the things they buy are likely to be far more than they need. Such inner children have a strong sense of lack, so they will desperately buy things and use money to confirm their sense of self-worth.

2. Stimulate potential and develop your own unknown advantages.

Hemingway once said: "Eggs, broken from the outside are food, broken from the inside is life", we must heal the inner child, and ultimately we must achieve it through inner efforts.

The author said that the process of introversion has a very important direction, that is, he only pays attention to his inner experience.

0-15 years old, his external attention mainly exists in the mother-child relationship;

15-35 years old, his attention mainly exists in small partners and interpersonal relationships;

After the age of 35, he will become more interested in the natural world, and his interest in interpersonal relationships turns to an interest in nature.

Human potential is unlimited, and the process of self-exploration is also unlimited.

In the process of exploring yourself, you will have infinite pleasure, and this pleasure is far higher than material pleasure.

This potential will give you a new view of the world, and this pleasure is not humane enough.

3. Integrate and become a better self.

One is to be able to understand your own body and understand the language your body sends out.

The second is not to be too realistic. To stay more in self and inner dialogue, understand the other self.

The third is to be interested in a certain discipline or field, especially philosophy.

Fourth, learn to meditate.

It's an introspective training that allows you to connect more with your inner self.

Fifth, pay attention to the information transmitted by the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind can be past experiences, your own dreams, or the spiritual transmission during meditation. You should pay attention to the information transmitted.

In short, what we need to overcome and understand is an inner self, and after completing self-integration, we have the strength to bear more and bigger things.

Healing wounds must be a process of dissecting oneself and uncovering wounds, which will be very painful. After that, release oneself, identify with oneself, and use some methods to soothe and reshape oneself. Only then can the inner child open up the "treasure house" for us. The door to make us a better version of ourselves.