Nurturing your Inner Child

None of us get through our childhood unscathed.

Even if you had the best parents in the world.

Even if all the teachers you had were supportive  of your unique take on the world.

Even if the religion you followed allowed you to fully express all aspects of yourself.

Even if the society you live in was the most inclusive and liberal.

You can see where I'm going with this, right?

You see when we were born we were at our most open, trusting and vulnerable and we had no filters. that means we took everything as gospel, as the pure truth because we had nothing else to judge it by.

If someone told us we were ugly we believed them. If someone told us that we were useless and not worth the time spent talking to us, we took that in too.

The truth is they didn't even have to say a word - we soaked everything up like a sponge; the good, the bad and the downright ugly. All was taken in and laid down in our subconscious mind and shaped how we viewed life from then on.

That voice you have in your head telling you that you are never going to amount to anything, that you will never find love? That comes from way back then.

And we can't blame those who instilled those messages into us. They were just teaching us what they learned when they were young. No parent sets out to damage their child ( generally speaking. Yes, their are some damaged individuals who inflict child abuse but in broad sweeping terms most parents want the best  for their kids).

Buried deep inside of us is a wounded child. A child that needs our love, forgiveness and compassion as if they were standing in front of you right now with tears streaming down their face and looking to you to make it all okay.

How do we go about making it okay? How do we kiss the boo boos away and tend to those past hurts?

Here's  a few simple steps you can take:

(1) Acknowledge the hurts. We can't heal what we don't acknowledge and sometimes the healing lies in the acknowledgement.

(2)  Do a visualization and imagine sitting down with your inner child and asking them what they need for healing. This can be a powerful process for healing on all levels. Imagine taking the younger you onto your lap and giving them a big hug and listening to all they have to tell you.

(3) Write your younger self a letter telling yourself all the messages that you had longed to hear. how valuable you are as a person, how much you are loved and treasured.

(4) Place photos of you when you were younger around your work space so you can remember to connect with that younger aspect of yourself. Let it be a reminder to have fun and play.

(5) Most of all be gentle with yourself and know that whatever your childhood was like you survived and you are here now and that in itself is a precious gift.

What is your favorite way to nurture your inner child?

Loving yourself whole

The way I see it we have only one choice - we have to love ourselves

All of our selves.

The flawed, quirky parts of us.

The wounded parts of us.

The parts of us that were wounded when we were little. ( Yes, I mean our Inner Child)

The parts of us that didn't quite fit in when were teenagers. (More Inner Teenager than Inner child)

The parts of us that were damaged from the relationship break ups.

The parts of us that don't have a f@+%ing clue what we are doing with our lives even though we are now (fill in the blank) age and should have our shit together.

The parts of us that are changeable and fluid and bend which ever way the wind is blowing, or when some new inspiration hits. "I'm going to become a writer.... no, I'm going to move to the South Island, no, I'm going to dye my hair green, no wait....I'm going to"

The parts of us that are so deep and dark and scary that we hide them... even from ourselves.

The parts of us that just want to crawl under the covers and come out when the world is nicer.

We need to love ourselves back to wholeness, back to happy, back to abundance, back to our natural loving, open armed, open hearted selves.

The eternal question is how?

How do we love all of that messy, dark , wounded parts of us?

By admitting that it is there.

By taking ownership of it.

"Yes, I am flawed. Yes, I do get angry and fly off the handle far too easily. Yes, I have been hurt. Yes. Yes.Yes. This is me in all my flawed beauty"

By acknowledging, to yourself, all that you have been through and learning the lessons from them.

By accepting that this is who you are - without judging or feeling sorry for yourself .

Because if we can accept and love our friends when they are being jerks then surely we can love ourselves too.

If we can love our partner/husband/wife/lover when they just made a dick of themselves, not to mention all their irritating little habits then surely we can love ourselves too.

If we can love our children when they poop on us or vomit on us or (when they are older) when they make silly mistakes then surely we can love ourselves too.

We all make mistakes, we all screw up the trick is to love ourselves through all of it. We do it for everyone else maybe it's time we did it for ourselves too.



Want more of this? Check out my book "The Goddess Guide to Sex, Love and Life"

Feeding my Inner Child

Your inner child stays with you throughout your life. It is that small, tender part of you that feels things strongly, that maybe wishes things had been different when you were growing up - even if you had the most loving, caring parents. It is the part of you that wants more attention, more affection, that feels needy and would just like MORE, even if it can't define exactly what more it wants.

* Just bear with me while I do a temporary trip down memory lane - When my eldest son was first learning to talk  the very first word he ever clearly said was "more" which then became the only word he said for ages. More food, more story, more cuddles  were all summed up in one neat, little word -"MORE" *

Meanwhile back to the actual point of today's post;

We have been doing a lot of Inner Child work as part of the Self Love Immersion ( There is still time to join so head over and join the fun) and it is amazing the stuff that comes up. I have just been working on the next three emails to go out and look forward to hearing what is going on with the ladies in the group.

One of the exercises this week was to find a picture of ourselves as a baby or toddler and post it to our desktop, as a cellphone wallpaper or somewhere that we would see it daily. (yes, that's me and my Mum) What I found this week was how much my inner child still felt wounded, unloved and in need of some appreciation, some celebration.

Now, that is not to say that my parents didn't do the best that they possibly could to love me. I was the fourth of five children and I know now as a Mother of three just how hard it is to meet the expectations of all your kids and the more kids you have ( in my case, step children got added to the mix) the harder it gets and inevitably someone feels that they are not getting their fair share of attention.

When we were growing up we didn't have birthday parties ( well, I remember having one when I turned five)  , what Mum  did do though was make us chocolate eclairs for a birthday treat. As my week progressed I could feel myself longing for one, for the acknowledgment that I was special and someone cared for me ( I know, such a first world problem). I launched my book earlier this year and I still didn't feel like I had celebrated or acknowledged that enough. I am also fully aware that it is my job to fill me up, to acknowledge myself and my achievements, to celebrate me.

And then I saw it.

 Sitting at the supermarket.

The perfect eclair. ( Now, would be a good place for a picture- except I ate it!!)

 Now most store bought ones are a sorry affair - fake cream, melted chocolate instead of chocolate icing and dry, crusty choux pastry.

This one was nothing like that - I could tell just by looking at it. So I did what any rational child would do - I bought it and ate it. More than that I savored it  and talked to my Inner Child telling her how proud of her I am , how much I love her and what a great job she is doing. And I felt myself soften and bask in that praise and feel just a little more whole.

So how have you fed your Inner Child recently? Come over and join the Self Love Immersion group and share . Sign up for the emails here and don't worry this weekends email gives you a round up of all the past emails so you can catch up.

Where the hell is my Prince?

I can hear my Inner Child sulking from here

If you are anything like me then you were raised on the idea that one day a man in shining armor was going to come and rescue you from your life of drudgery and whisk you away to a life of luxury. Now we all realize as adults that this is pure fantasy but our inner child still firmly believes it and is waiting patiently for the day that all her dreams will come true. Our adult, rational mind sets about creating a life for herself, working hard, doing all the right things but somewhere deep, deep inside a small voice can be heard asking  “ Where is my prince?”  or if you are married already the voice wants to know “ where is my life of luxury? Why isn’t my prince providing me with all the luxury that I deserve?” ( I know, such a first world problem *rolling my eyes* )

I know because I’ve been there. It just recently dawned on me that, even though I am strong capable woman with her own business, part of me is still waiting ( and secretly) hoping that my Prince will provide me with the life I feel that I deserve. I have to say it came as a bit of a shock as I have always considered myself a very independent woman but here I was getting frustrated that my life hadn’t panned out quite as I expected and blaming my husband for all the perceived lack.

Fairy-tales have a lot to answer for

Then I took a deep breath and started to delve a little deeper into my psyche and realized that its hardly surprising given the range of fairy tales that we were all fed as impressionable young girls. How entranced we were by tales of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. One day our prince would come too! We just had to be patient. And then along comes books like " Fifty Shades of Grey" which is a modern day fairytale for grown ups ( Okay, all you feminist ladies can stop rolling your eyes and gnashing your teeth! I bet if you look deeply enough you will find a faint glimmer of the inner child wailing for her prince too - I said deeply, ladies, look deeper. NO? Well its just me then)

So here I am at 52, admittedly with my handsome prince, but still feeling like he should be doing more to make me happy.  Where was my life of luxury?  Why wasn’t I showered with gifts regularly? After a few thoughts like that I started asking myself  “ Why was I waiting for him to provide it for me? What was stopping me from doing it for myself? That is when I realized that I had to let my inner child know that she was more powerful than she realized and she didn’t need to wait for any man to save for in reality only she can save her self.

Acknowledging that you are "waiting"is half the battle

Now that I have acknowledged my inner child’s longing I can go about making her feel safe and strong using EFT and meditation.

Some people are never going to admit, even if only to themselves, that this is a problem that they have. I must admit I didn't want to admit it. I have always been independent. When I became a solo mum I felt kind of proud of how well I coped. I kept food on the table, the mortgage paid and the kids fed and clothed. In fact when my ( now) hubby came along I was all "I've got this covered. I don't need a man" which is ridiculous. I was right  I didn't need  a man but I sure as hell wanted one.

So where do we go from here?

Like I said before it is about letting your inner child know that she is capable of doing anything and everything that she wants to do. A lot of us have baggage from when we were kids. Maybe we didn't feel loved enough or listened too or valued.

That was then, this is now and it's not too late for your inner child to hear what she needs to hear and feel.

Here's an EFT script you can try:

Karate chop: Even though my inner child is waiting for a Prince to come and "save"her I love and accept all aspects of myself and forgive myself for holding this so long. Even though my inner child would like things to be different I love and accept my life exactly as it is right now and I forgive my inner child and love and accept her.

EB: My inner child wants to know where her prince is

SE: I know that I am capable of looking after both of us

UE: I am willing to let my inner child know that she is loved and cared for

UN: I love and accept al aspects of myself

Chin: I am a strong capable woman

CB: No, I'm not

UA: I need someone to save me

TH: I'm waiting for my prince to come

EB: No I can do this

SE: I am capable

UE: I choose to believe that I am enough as I am now

UN: I've got this covered

Chin: Whew, it feels like a battle raging inside of me

CB: My inner child is not ready to give in

UA: I am not giving up on meeting a good man

TH: I appreciate the man I already have

EB: I am willing to invite in my highest and best self

SE: And know that I am fully provided for 

UE: I can give myself everything I need

( Deep breath)

UN: I can relax and know that I am loved

Chin: I love me

CB: and that is enough

Deep Breath and have a large glass of water.

 This is the start of a process and I suggest that you keep running through the above script and also tap on any other issues that may arise as you tap.

If you are wondering about the arguing back and forth this sets up cognitive dissonance in your brain which helps you clear the blocks and let go of old baggage.

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