Monday, September 14, 2009

Notes from my Inner Child


I first learned about this technique back in the John Bradshaw days, when he was introducing each of us to our inner child, and it is powerful stuff, and I carefully filed it away with the rest of my treasured discoveries that are gathering dust in the cluttered nether regions of my mind. No matter how successful and happy and charmed a life you've led, you've taken some emotional beatings along the way, times when the Universe didn't seem to know your name, and times when you wanted to crawl under the covers and stay there, but we're resilient creatures, and we bounce back and present our smiley face to the world.........but we all have issues that nag at us and tell us that even though the sun is shining, there's every chance that we'll mess up today, and most of those issues developed before we crashed headlong into puberty.

All my followers are creative and intuitive and insightful, and you've probably been aware of your inner child, but do you ever talk to her or him?
If not, it's high time you did. When I do, I invariably have an emotional reaction, whether it's bubbling over with joy or a deep sadness, or sometimes remorse that I've waited so long in between talks.

Go to a comfortable quiet place, preferably when you're home alone, and take a notebook and pen. The first time I read about writing notes to myself, I was like, well, that's just strange, but I'll try most anything once, and I liked the idea of the different halves of my brain conversing with one another. It turns out that our dominant hand (for me it's my right hand) speaks for the grown-up part of us, and the non-dominant hand connects with the inner child. That inner child knows about the issues we've sloughed off, knows the real reasons behind our actions, and would actually like to voice them if given half a chance. Draw a line down the middle of the page and take a couple of deep, slow breaths. On the left side of the page with your dominant hand, write something, anything, like Hello or How are you doing? or What would you like to talk about? Take another deep breath. Now with your non-dominant hand, respond on the right side of the page. The child-like, unschooled scrawl will regress your thinking to about age 4 or 5. I don't know exactly why or how, but it does. Once you're into writing notes yourself, it can become a very useful tool. Maybe you've been wondering why you can't seem to meet your goals or why you're putting something off that on the surface is what you've been wanting to do. Your inner child knows, and she or he will tell you, maybe gently, maybe in a burst of anger at your failure to grasp the obvious. I find that the process is exhausting, and I can't do it for long periods, maybe only a few minutes, but I promise to come back soon.

Let me know what you think, no matter which half of your brain it's coming from and even though my Comments gadget seems to have gone AWOL. Oh well, maybe it will find its way home.
Blessings

1 comment:

  1. I have never heard of this. I will most definitely try it and get back with you.

    ReplyDelete