Otteranimus – I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had a similar experience. Your experience sounds even more difficult than mine. I really appreciate your honesty.

I totally agree with you that the internal dissatisfaction I am creating is a very selfish thing. It took losing someone very important to realize how selfish it was, which is exactly why I’m finally ready to start dealing with it. I’ve been realizing more and more that loving myself is probably the single most important step to begin the process of healing. I’m wondering if you’ve also felt that by not ‘doing the one thing,’ you are not able to respect or love yourself. I know that I’m guilty of feeling that I can’t love myself or be loved unless I feel like I’m fulfilling my ‘purpose.’

What you said about negative voices and not believing them reminds me of what I’ve read in a lot of articles about therapy. These voices are persistent and pervasive, they don’t seem to go away. The only thing I or anyone else with them can chose is whether they listen to them and act on them. I’m still learning to accept them as they are: just thoughts. It’s tough though, especially when they feel like they keep coming in massive waves. I’m trying my best to find ways to act in a manner that is consistent with what I want: a sense of direction, purpose, and meaning.

Thank you again for sharing and I’m glad to know that the daily struggle isn’t just a sign that I’m failing. It’s a real struggle.

Anita – My rational mind is something that I’ve worked really hard to develop. It’s a part of who I am and I don’t hate it, but I feel it tends to override a lot of what I want to do and say. I know that I’ve used it to try protect myself form many things – criticism, rejection, and humiliation. You’re right when you point out my emotional mind is much more quite than the rational. What’s even more interesting is the link you pointed out between my inner child and my emotional side. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there is a faintness to my emotional voice and that I describe being a child in very negative terms.

I like your suggestion of looking into what the child would say. Trying to turn off the intellectual filter is a struggle, but I’ll give my best attempt:

“I feel lost. I feel alone. All I want is to love and be loved. I just want to be accepted for who I am. I don’t care about my job or money. I want a place to come home to. I want to feel free with myself. I don’t want to keep holding on to this hurt inside of me. I don’t know why I can’t be more honest and accept myself for who I am.”

I don’t know if that’s the voice of a child, but it’s my honest feelings. I can tell you that my immediate gut reaction to your idea was to break down crying. There’s a lot of hurt behind what that child is saying – I had to fight back tears as I was writing it out.

Anita, how would you recommend further talking to my inner child? Are there ways you found helpful for working with both your emotional and rational voice in a balanced manner?

Thank you so much for the ideas and advice.

anita,

Thanks again for the guidance. I’m signing up to see a therapist in June when I get back to the states.

I’ve sat on this post for a while and I can’t seem to write from the child’s perspective. At least not at this point. The voice that came through last time was from a place of deep hurt. I know where the source of that hurt comes from and have already come to terms with it. I was bullied at a very young age and I know that has impacted how I accept myself as we’ll as how I view acceptance from other people.

I know that my emotions tend to flare up when I feel I’m having the most difficulty working towards what I value the most – love and connection. I’m in a place where I’ve lost both and am having trouble building up both and it bothers me. The part of me that doesn’t want to write from the child’s perspective is the part of me (I think both the rational and emotional) that wants to actually do something about the hurt. I’m not saying that the child’s voice isn’t valid and that I don’t want to hear it. More than anything, I do not want it to define who I am. I want to be able to move forward without always feeling so sorry for myself.

I accept that at my very worst, I feel lost, without a home, and hopeless. I know that these are the worst fears my inner child clings to, mainly because it hasn’t really tried to embrace other ways of feeling or acting.

I’m guess I’m writing all of this out as a way to talk about my fears (something I haven’t really done at all), as well as try to find ways to move beyond my fears. Perhaps the most important step I’m trying to take is not letting my greatest fears have such an enormous effect on how I view myself and dictate how I work towards what I value the most.

Maybe in my next post I can talk about what the inner child wants.

DH

anita,

That’s an interesting point you are touching on. I’m curious if you sense that the issue lies in my judgement of the part of me that feels sorry for myself. Does that same part of me judge my inner child?

I definitely tend to be hard on myself and I do struggle with perfectionism. The judgement I level against myself might be another form of perfectionism where I don’t want to feel hurt, weak, or vulnerable.

The more I think about this as I’m writing this post is that, yes, I am very critical of myself. I judge myself for what I feel was my part in losing my partner, I judge myself for not being able to get over it and find someone else, and I judge myself for not being in a career path where I can have more stability in my life. I can certainly see how the part of me that is judgmental is very resistant to letting myself be vulnerable in any way.

My emotional side is reacting to what I’m saying so I’m going to go ahead and say that this is an accurate statement of what’s going on.

My rational side has helped me get to places I never would have dreamed of going. Yet, in each place I find myself critical of my situation and what I’m doing there. Perhaps letting go of excessive criticism is what will help bring out the voice of the inner child.

I appreciate what you said about rewiring the brain. I’m hoping that a dedicated effort with different types of exposure therapy will help me think differently about myself. In the meantime, here’s another attempt at letting my inner child speak:

I want to be more carefree. I want to stop questioning everything I do. I want to be able to just be. I want to trust myself and I want to love myself. I want to enjoy who I am.

DH

Anita,

I know it’s been a while, but I just wanted to say thank you for your posts. I’ve been steadily working on listening to my inner child and trying my best to manage the critic. Talking to you has been helpful, so thank you again for hearing me out.

Daniel