REINVENTING THE PAST

"Healing Your Inner Child"

As we tread our individual pathways in life, we can acquire what some refer to as emotional baggage. Much of it is easy to recognize, but that which was picked up when we were very young is often hidden deep within the subconscious. The inner child or child within can harbor decades of old hurt that can cause us to react to situations and people using childhood pain as a template. This means that sometimes your reactions have less to do with the situation at hand and more to do with things you experienced long ago but have not forgotten. The inner child is an important piece of your emotional makeup. It can be playful, spontaneous, intiuitive, and spiritual -- but it can also be fearful, distrustful, and critical. Painful childhood experiences can negatively affect adult ones. Healing the inner child addresses your child-self's wounds and frees your grown-up self to make decisions based on the present. There are steps you can take to gently begin healing your inner child. Working with this hidden part of you is very much like solving a mystery, and the first step to unlocking it is analyzing your own behavior:

1. Ask yourself why you are attracted to certain people; why you react the way you do in particular situations; and what makes you feel helpless, scared, angry, or lonely. As you do so , remember that there is nothing wrong with your feelings and no shame in being influenced by your inner child.

2. Inquire of yourself how those feelings have been shaped by past experiences. Then mentally revisit your childhood. Visualize yourself as you were when you were young. Feel what your child self is feeling.

3. Finally, approach him or her and offer comfort in the form of a hug infused with positive, loving energy. In doing so, you are both healing and letting go of the wounded childs' pain.

Attempting to discount the fact that the inner child has an effect on the adult denies the impact of old wounds and past experiences Acknowledging this part of you honors your former self and can help you recover painful memories that have been repressed. However, recalling specific ones is not vital to healing. It is enough to be aware that you can change the way you unconsciously learned to react in your youth by nurturing your inner child and, in doing so, foster a loving and wise present self."
By: Madisyn Taylor