002 – Your Inner Child

This is “Love Yourself Back to life” Episode #2: Your inner child!

Welcome to Love Yourself Back to life. I’m your host, Nadia Fleury

You dream of living a successful life, yet you feel emotionally empty. You know something is missing, but you don’t know what it is. What if the answer was already within your reach?

With each episode, I will help you see life through new lenses, shining the spotlight on your inner world, eliciting awareness and wisdom.

My mission is to release what’s blocking the flow of your success— to awaken your full potential and love yourself back to life!

YOUR INNER CHILD

Let me illustrate my point with this story.

I’m looking at a child. From where I stand, I cannot tell if it’s a boy or a girl. All I can see is the child playing in a puddle of water. Let’s just say he’s a boy. He’s wearing a raincoat and cute rubber boots.

He is amazed by how the water moves depending on the weight of his footsteps. He gets the idea to jump in the middle. Mud splatters everywhere, including in his laughing mouth. He spits it out and continues playing, going in a circle in and around the puddle.

Looking at this child’s innocence is actually a beautiful scene. He certainly lives the moment.

However, what if this child is you right now? What if this child is your age? What if when he looks at the puddle, it’s like you looking at your tasks?

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE HEADING IN LIFE?

What if his outlook on life with no care in the world was actually how you saw your own world? Living without thinking about where you are heading tomorrow.

Yes, I agree it’s important to live in the moment. As long as the moment is supporting your goals, no? That is, if you have goals or aspirations in the first place.

Going back to the story, what if the child is playing by himself not because he wants to but because something happened to him? What if he chose to isolate himself because someone hurt his feelings? Or because of fear?

What if the child is there not because he wants to but because the bus that just came by didn’t pick him up?

He could have been told he wasn’t ready to get on the bus, or he arrived too late and missed it.

What we can extrapolate so far from this story is this boy is there because he’s waiting for something to happen.

ARE YOU WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN?

Sometimes we don’t act because we feel we are not ready or we are missing something. Like we don’t have the degree, the connections, the know-how, or we don’t have the right environment. It is true that your willpower is not as strong as your environment. However, it is your responsibility to do something about it.

TIME AND MONEY: THE TWO THINGS WE LONG FOR THE MOST

Usually, the things we long for most are time and money. So while we have neither, we stay stuck in that puddle of water. I know how it feels because I was in that puddle for several years.

When you live in it, you feel all the reasons why you are “stuck” there are valid. However, know that you always have a choice.

FEAR IS WHAT KEEPS US STRUGGLING EMOTIONALLY AND FINANCIALLY

You can keep looking at the puddle and say, “I’m stuck, and I don’t have a choice,” or you can actually say what if I had a choice? What if I wasn’t afraid? What if I had all the money in the world?

Sometimes, the real reason as to why we stay stuck is because we don’t want to revisit deep scars.

How many of us bare the pain of witnessing cruelty? Or remember the sick feeling in your stomach, hiding away in the bedroom with a pillow on top of your head because your parents or the adults who are in charge of you were having a very heated argument?

NEGATIVE THOUGHTS MAKE US BELIEVE WE ARE FLAWED

How many of us have been hit as a child – making us feel we were flawed when in all actuality were simply learning just to be?

Speaking for myself, I was hit on more than I can count. It wasn’t constant, but I remember retiring to my bedroom feeling very sad and hurt. However, the physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional one.

Being told you were not worth their time, felt you are a burden on their shoulder or made fun of because you didn’t catch a concept quickly, or felt abandoned or left alone for a long time. All these can be the real reason as to why you are still looking at the puddle of mud today.

You may say you are truly enjoying what you do right now. Or what if you pretend to be happy to cover up something buried in your chest? And you don’t dare go in because just the thought of it is painful.

FORGIVENESS IS MEDICINE FOR YOUR SOUL

For me, I chose to forgive and let go of my dad’s shortcomings. What is the point of holding on to a boulder that stops the flow of happiness into my heart? I chose to do it inside myself by writing a letter telling I forgave him. It was my way to heal. I also know that he didn’t have it easy growing up. So I gave him space.

Regardless of the situation, your inner child still lives in you today, and depending on how you were affected in the past; it may cause havoc in your life right now.

Most of us spend our lives not knowing we have an inner child inside us. Yes, we all have an inner child. Your inner child is the unconscious part of your being.

Now you would say, how can you tell? Here are the signs of your inner child:

• No concept of time.

• Can’t plan.

• Difficulty focusing on a task.

• Just want to play.

• Live or talk with spontaneity.

• Creative.

• Not attuned to other people’s needs.

• Needy.

• Cry to get what you want.

• Don’t know what you want.

• Say silly jokes out of context

• Wants to eat or sleep now.

• Looking for physical or emotional attention

LET ME ILLUSTRATE WITH ANOTHER STORY.

HOW YOU DO ONE THING IS HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING

Todd is this goofball guy at work. No one really knows what he does. He’s has an office, but somehow he doesn’t seem to do much. He doesn’t take life too seriously.

You can always count on Todd to make you laugh. Everybody knows that when there’s a party, Todd will be the center of the attention. The thing is, Todd does wish to be promoted, but his behavior doesn’t give him a chance. No one in the upper management can trust him to take on a project and finish it.

In reality, Todd does wish to climb up the corporate ladder, but he feels it’s beyond him. He hides his true feelings behind his goofiness.

In fact, sometimes, his goofiness comes out of him almost without any control. It happens to me, too, sometimes when I realize I should have said that “silly joke” or when my hugs turn into a tackle.

THE REALITY BEHIND THE FEAR OF COMMITMENT

So why does Todd act as he does, or do I sometimes let my inner child out? Sometimes it’s because of fear. It can be all sorts of fear. Fear of commitment, being successful, or not being good enough. Todd and I hide our fear behind our goofiness.

In the case of Todd, he may be scared of being tied into a “desk” job because of what his friends might say about him.

WE CHOOSE OUR ENVIRONMENT TO MATCH OUR FEAR

Just know that unconsciously we choose our environment to match our fear. So in Todd’s case, his choice of friends is no accident. As long as he hangs with them, he doesn’t have to think too hard about his life.

A LIFE EVENT CAN BE A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Sometimes a life event comes into play and wakes us up. Let’s just continue with Todd’s example. His behavior at work and his regard to what his friends might think may change when he suddenly sees his first daughter being born.

In my case, I let my inner child out when I needed to release too much weight on my shoulders.

HOW ABOUT STIFLING YOUR INNER CHILD

I was in an environment where criticisms were the norm. I think I lived most of my life with someone always telling me what not to do. Being a no-box person, meaning, I don’t think outside of the box; I don’t even have a box; I was considered reckless from the perspective of someone who likes the comfort of being in the box.

On the other side, because of my upbringing, being raised on welfare, I grew up fast and “over-responsible.” So for the longest time, I stifled my inner child.

I will never forget the evening when my inner child took control of me. It was early January, on a cold rainy night.

Only ten people showed up at the event. The trainer in question decided not to follow the script and did something more intimate, as he called it. He went on to explain that there is a conscious mind that is at the tip of the iceberg, and there’s this huge mass below the surface called the unconscious. And as much as “we” like to think, we make rational decisions. We never do. We chose with our hearts and justified with our minds.

LIVING CONSCIOUSLY

The trainer continued and explained that went we live unconsciously; we tend to live our life by default. We don’t think much of it and don’t expect much either.

We live with old unconscious habits.

We stay where it’s familiar, or what I refer to as keeping the status quo.

Wanting to control everything around us.

And being righteous, meaning always wanting to be right.

When he explained about all these four things, I suddenly understood why I was struggling in my environment.

I was fighting the status quo. I didn’t like anything that is familiar. I love to experience new stuff. So in a way, my husband, at the time, didn’t know what to expect from me from one day to the next. He couldn’t control his environment. And the best of all, he lived to be right.

Actually, he took it a step further. “I know I’m wrong; I’m wrong, I’m always wrong,” he would say.

And me, being an entrepreneur, these words like right or wrong don’t exist. I think more like: Ok, let’s adjust that a little this way. To me, for any challenges, there are always several options depending on the circumstances.

ARGUING WITH SOMEONE IS A SIGN THAT YOU LIVE UNCONSCIOUSLY

The thing is, I couldn’t think like my husband, and he couldn’t think like me, so we were always arguing to a standstill.

Later on, the trainer said something about people who want to be “right” are often time uptight. And he puffed up his chest, and he said these people have a hard time even laughing. And he made a parallel with a child who would laugh from his belly.

He made an allusion that we should live more like a 2-year-old. And I took his saying to heart. Because of the casual atmosphere and the safe space the trainer provided, I somehow permitted myself to just talk without holding back. Let’s just say that when I was done barking my frustration at the trainer, one of his eyebrows was on fire.

ONE PERSON — IT’S ALL IT TAKES TO MAKE A LIFE-CHANGING DIFFERENCE

The aftermath of that evening was life-changing for me. It’s like this experience has cleansed my heart.

It was the first time in my life I felt I could express myself fully without fear of criticism. I will be forever grateful for this trainer to have shown up at the poorly attended event and opened my eyes to what was going on in my heart.

Later on, as I was reliving the experience, I felt a sudden calmness in me. Only then did I realize I lived more than 40 years with an inner child running on two cylinders.

YOUR INNER CHILD IS YOUR SOURCE OF INSPIRATION AND CREATION

Now, why do I go on about this inner-child business? Why do we need it in the first place? It’s because your inner child is your source of inspiration. It’s where creativity comes from. Have you experienced a moment where you have a problem at work?

Let’s say you are an accountant and your books don’t balance or you are an engineer, and you don’t know how to align two parts together, and the solution comes when you are in the shower or taking a walk.

Sometimes we think the busier we are, the more productive we are. I don’t think it’s always the case. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in taking 15 minutes break to have a good laugh and then resume your work. Now that I think of it, it’s probably why the upper management keeps Todd. I know I’m a little silly right now but have you noticed in every company, there is always the goofball.

And now that I’ve brought Todd back. Let’s look at this story from a different angle. So let’s say he has the reputation of not finishing any of his projects because he’s afraid of what his friends will think of him if he gets promoted.

However, deep inside, he doesn’t like his job. He doesn’t really like staring at his computer screen all day. What he loves doing most is talk with people.

The story of the child playing in the puddle of water is an analogy between unconsciously wasting your life or choosing to watch your life on the sideline because of fear of “what if.”

Do you play to win or not to lose?

Let’s say Todd goofs around because he is afraid of criticism from his friends. What goes on deeper is because he had bad grades in school his dad always told him he wasn’t going to amount to anything in life. Todd grew to believe this to be true and thought for the longest time: “why bother being a high achiever.” Todd chose friends that would justify that behavior.

However, Todd has now a new baby girl. And there’s a sudden shift in his heart. He wants the best for his daughter. That shift, which I like to call it “taking-a-sharp-right-turn, can break the status quo.

CLARITY IS KEY TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM

You know, all of us can get what we truly desire in life. We simply need to be clear as to what we want and go for it. Then not only decide to improve but also by taking conscious action. It’s important to be committed to your success, not just interested! And be willing to say no to non-supportive behaviors to go after our goals.

So Todd realizes that he wants more in life. He also realizes he left a not-so-good impression on his superiors. He can take small steps to coast correct the situation. Like what if suddenly he can finish a project? Or brings new ideas to the table. He decides to arrive a little early to work and leave a little later. He spends a little more time in the office and doesn’t talk as much.

Or, he can let his boss know that since his new baby girl arrived, he is now ready for something more serious, and he would like to be in sales instead of working in the office.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BEING “WRONG” —AIM JUST TO BE

An important point I should address, whatever you choose to do, there is no right or wrong. The better question to ask is whether your situation is serving you or not. Knowing where you are heading, then you can better say or discern if your inner child is controlling you or not, and is this serving you right now? And what will you do about it once it’s brought to your conscious awareness?

So hopefully, you understand the importance of knowing your inner child. You see, for me, I didn’t feel I was allowed to “play,” like having fun or go see a movie. In short, to live!

ARE YOU STRESSED OR EXHAUSTED?

I had become a warrior. We are not meant to live like warriors. Being overstressed and exhausted doesn’t bring us closer to God after we pass. When we are continually living in warrior mode, it may lead to high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.

YOU CAN NOT KEEP DOING THE SAME THING AND EXPECT DIFFERENT RESULTS

However, I felt trapped, and in that state of mind, I didn’t feel to do much. It was like having a boulder on my soul. Getting my inner child out was what I needed to do to break down my old me and create new pathways.

It’s only after I let my inner child go crazy, did I see changes in me. You cannot expect different results if you keep doing the same thing.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN TO YOU?

What if you dive into your being and ask how you truly feel inside. See it from a place of curiosity and please withhold any judgment. There is no point going on about the wasted time. What matters is now!

As you ponder your life and wonder why you are not where you wish to be today, what if a part of your old programming was the root cause?

POSITIVE THOUGHTS MIXED WITH ACTION YIELD TO HAPPINESS

If you are not in a happy relationship, don’t like your work, or feel stuck in an unsupportive environment, think of the small steps you could implement today that would have huge implications in the future.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to the choices you make on a daily basis.

You may have made the best choices you could until now. Something tells me that if you’ve come across this blog post, it means something deeper is calling you. And you have come to the right place!

Because this means you know your life can be better than what you’ve currently settled for. You may not be clear as to where you are heading, and this is perfectly OK. This Podcast is designed to open your horizon.

UNCOVER WHAT BLOCKS THE FLOW OF YOUR SUCCESS

Just know that not long ago, I was in your shoes. So I understand how you feel. I’m here to bring clarity.

The first thing we need to identify is your inner child because only then can we address together what is blocking the flow of your success and anything you desire to achieve in life.

LISTENING TO YOUR INNER CHILD’S NEEDS CAN BRING CLARITY TO YOUR LIFE

The key here is to reconnect with your inner child, not to eliminate it. To bring that inner child into the spotlight to identify to realize it’s there. Once you know, it’s there and realizes it exists; you can address what’s at the inner core affecting you. What is it that inner child wants that you’re not giving it?

CONCLUSION

In conclusion to this Podcast, I’ve described two different viewpoints on your inner child: you either stifle it or let it control you.

And they are opposite. Now the best approach is to understand that your inner child is inside you and communicate with it on a daily basis to understand its needs. It becomes a problem in your life when it’s either stifled or uncontrolled.

All I’m doing is bring to you awareness for you to adjust as needed in your life. If you’re like me and not paying attention to your inner child like stifling it, preventing you from enjoying your life, having a good laugh or taking a walk on Saturday afternoon, you need to revisit what you doing if you want to have more joy in your life.

Now, I get it that there are times when you are working on a certain project and certain things needs to happen and needs to finish. I’m not saying you should constantly be in your inner child.

All I’m saying is to take time to simply listen in and see what that inner child has to say to you. The problem comes when you are stifling your inner child, it may come out at the worst moment. It’s like going to the bank, with a toddler. The moment you need to be most focus—yet you have this little one who suddenly has a temper tantrum. It could have happened at home before or after in the car. No, it’s happening now. This is the case of an inner child that is not being addressed.

Often time the trigger is fear. You were at the bank. You were trying to get something sorted out with the manager and something didn’t get resolved and you didn’t get your way so you got yourself into a tantrum.

What does this do to you, to your system, to your body?

AWARENESS IS KEY TO LIVING A FULFILLED LIFE

That’s the key. Just bring that to your awareness so that you can live a more fulfilled life.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you feel it would help anyone you know, please share it out and stay tuned for more.

If you have any questions please reach out at my email: ask@nadiafleury.com.