A Talk About Inner Child Work & Reparenting Techniques

And welcome everyone to this recorded live replay and it's all about inner child and reparenting.

I want you also to know that I have left in all comments and questions from the audience that were relevant to the conversation so that you can hear those.

Thanks so much and enjoy.

Today's talk,

We're going to discuss about inner child and reparenting.

Before I start off even about the whole reparenting,

I just want to make sure that everybody here does know what inner child is.

And again,

My primary practice is hypnotherapy.

So I help people connect to this aspect of them.

And let me define it a bit.

And I wrote a couple of notes just to make sure that I really clearly explain this aspect because inner child,

The best way to explain it is a very innocent,

Fun,

It's an emotionally sincere aspect of us.

And inner child purely is acting on emotions.

It just wants to feel good.

Like literally inner child just only cares about feeling good because it's just a very sincere emotional aspect is what I like to say.

It literally is like a frozen part of us in time.

And we all have inner children,

Everybody.

It doesn't matter how old you are,

How many children you even actually have in physical reality.

It is this really authentic aspect of you that is always going to be there.

And in its most pure existence,

The inner child is joy.

It's love,

It's bliss.

However,

The experience of this physical life we have from birth does not represent a pure existence.

Again,

This reality that we're in does not represent that pure existence or perfect existence.

And that's because the people that raise us,

Those around us,

Society,

All are carrying around their own wounds and hurts.

And basically that's projected onto us.

And then we create our own wounds and hurts.

And then we continue to project that onto society and also our children possibly.

So it's that cycle.

So as children,

We are very impressionable.

We're very vulnerable.

And we take in these energies because we're like little sponges.

And so the stories that we are told,

The ideas,

Beliefs,

Or things that people say to us that we may be are those that we then identify as us.

And so as little children,

We create these stories from our authority figures.

And these authority figures are really our parents,

Those that raised us.

It doesn't have to be our mom or dad.

It could be aunts,

Uncles,

Or grandparents.

It could be anybody that really had authority over you.

And society is an influential authority figure as well.

So doctors,

Priests,

Teachers,

Those that just had authority over you that may have told you how it should be.

And so this part of us,

The inner child then almost becomes in a way like split.

And it creates a new aspect that is called the inner parent.

And the inner parent,

And it's important that you know this because so that you understand how the inner child then gets suppressed.

Because inner parent is an aspect of us that is also developed from childhood from those authority figures that basically turns into that hypercritical self.

That self that says that you should do this or you should do that or really it usually comes through as the should.

When you hear a lot of shoulds,

You should have done this,

You should have done that,

Why did you do this,

Why did you do that.

It's a very lecturing aspect.

So I call that the inner parent and it is a hypercritical aspect of you.

And then there's our adult self.

So again,

I just want to make sure briefly introductory that everybody understands the aspects of really what makes up who we are.

So we have our inner child and inner parent,

Which is really our hypercritical self,

Which is developed by childhood and childhood.

But then we have our adult self.

And everybody that is here right now is in your adult self.

You're very here,

You're right now,

You're present.

Adult self is less emotional and really objectively takes in the reality that you're experiencing and then makes the best decisions for you.

Adult self is usually the reason why we're able to learn from our past and even make decisions and say we don't want to be like that.

And decide to meditate or decide to seek out self-help books or do what it is that helps us grow.

Because we've seen the patterns that maybe our parents live or that society has done that we don't want to be a part of.

We want to be better.

So adult self very much feels like your chronological age and it is you.

Inner child and inner parent don't typically feel your chronological age,

They either feel much older or inner child of course feels very young.

Because inner parent again is that we've literally taken in our parents' authority figures and those that are older than us,

So it does tend to feel older.

And then we have the inner child that really is that innocent part of us.

This will make sense when I start talking about the reparenting aspect because usually two things happen.

Our inner child either one,

Gets suppressed.

And if it gets suppressed,

It's typically because inner parent kind of takes over.

It's all about what you shouldn't do,

Should do.

Let me give you an example of what that looks like by telling you about me.

For me it was almost like I had a stick up my butt just because it was all about what I needed to do.

Because my inner child was very much suppressed.

I was raised in,

I was in a foster home,

I was pretty much adopted and became emancipated at 16.

My mother wasn't really around much and so was my father,

So I didn't really have those authority figures to really guide me.

And so those,

I really took on any information that I could from those other authority figures like the therapist or the counselors or my foster parents,

They were very influential.

And I wanted them to all accept me.

And so I was very scared of maybe doing certain things because I didn't want to be rejected.

And so my inner child was very suppressed.

I didn't know how to be a kid.

And when we suppress inner children,

They usually become very hurt,

Lonely,

Scared.

And feeling and have beliefs.

For me I had a lot of beliefs that I am alone,

That I am not worthy,

That I am not good enough.

So my inner child was very scared to open up.

And then we have another scenario that I do tend to see,

Which is also an inner child that is acting out.

An inner child that is acting out where there is no inner parent that kind of took over and that inner child is just running amuck.

You do tend to see this a lot in substance abusers,

For example,

Where inner child is just taking over their life and just wants to feel good.

They don't care about anything else.

They just care about feeling good.

And so they'll abuse substances just to feel good,

Not considering the consequences of what that brings.

And so for that inner child that's acting out,

It's usually feeling very angry,

Also very hurt,

Upset,

Frustrated,

Defeated.

It's just,

You know,

It's feeling all of these hurt feelings and not knowing how to self-soothe.

So those are two very common,

Common themes that I'll see in particular.

So in order to help you re-parent your inner child,

Some of the techniques that I just want to bring to the table are,

One of the first parts is going to be acknowledged,

Of course.

I created a meditation just to meet that inner child.

Because the hardest part about connecting with that inner child or just meeting it is it can be a bit scary for some.

It can be a bit emotional for others.

It could be very hard to even look at that aspect because if you do,

If you do,

If you cannot objectively see it from a distance in a way,

You cannot help it.

It's that saying that you can't see the label when you're in the jar.

So when you're in the jar,

You can't really recognize the label.

So we don't want to step into that being 100% that child.

Because child then,

When you are in that place,

Doesn't know how to help child.

That's why it is child.

The re-parenting aspect is being able to objectively see child,

But to create a relationship with it objectively,

Really create a relationship with it.

So the first part is to actually acknowledge and see it as that.

So I created a meditation that just allows you to really get into that deep meditative space where you can visualize and really feel that inner child at that distance.

And create that dialogue,

Starting to create that dialogue,

And literally just acknowledging it and acknowledging that it's there.

Acknowledging what it feels.

And then even acknowledging what it feels like it needs,

What it enjoys.

Really just getting to know yourself all over again as a child,

As an inner child.

And becoming a friend almost at first so that you can start to build a relationship.

Because what I have seen happen is that people will almost reject so much aspects of themselves which turn into inner child.

I'll give you an example of a client that I worked with that had really bad panic attacks and didn't want to leave their home and just really bad panic attacks.

And we worked for some time and we found in doing some of these exercises of just visiting this panic,

Literally this part that we even label it something just to identify it.

For example,

We'll call it panic.

It almost takes on this visual aspect of panic.

Okay,

This panic.

For this person,

They literally imagined this big boulder type of thing and it's like gloomy,

Dark boulder and it had a door on it and they're like,

This is all panic.

It was very scary for them to go towards it.

That's why they even built a thick wall around it,

Almost like a boulder.

But it had a door so we slowly began to connect with this just so we can.

.

.

It was very scary for them to step into panic,

Of course.

No way it would be terrifying for this person.

So we just slowly started to get to introduce them to this by first passing notes.

And so we would pass notes.

Literally,

Just to start some dialogue with this part and what we found out.

Eventually passing notes back and forth,

We got to know it.

And then slowly after passing notes,

We finally got to open the door.

And then they got to see inside.

And then they saw a figure far in the distance.

And it was turned away so it wasn't facing them.

It was scared,

Very scared.

And so then,

To make a long story short,

Basically over time we finally got it to turn around.

And we finally got to see what it is.

And literally,

I was not guiding them in that direction.

It just comes very naturally in the style of my approach.

I allow things to unfold very naturally because I don't know what part it would be.

It may not turn into seriously that inner child,

But this turned into inner child.

They turned around and sure enough it was their younger self.

And they were shocked.

They couldn't believe it.

They would have been rejecting and pushing down just this inner aspect of them that was really just wanted to be heard.

So that was the panic.

The panic was the part that was screaming and yelling and they were so scared of because of the things that they suppressed for so long.

They didn't want to look at.

So it turned into inner child.

And so I'm giving this example just to show that for you,

Finding your inner child may be very different.

I don't know if you have,

For those that are on,

If you have or have not even met your inner child,

But this is an example of someone that has,

They could not even meet their inner child because the idea of inner child was just so blocked.

These are the blocks that we build around ourselves because of things that we experienced in our childhood because it's the only thing that we knew to do.

Nobody showed us how to open and to let down those barriers.

Those barriers were created around this child because it needed to protect itself somehow.

It didn't know how else to protect it.

And so that is the re-parenting that we're doing is we're teaching,

We're re-parenting our child to learn how to let these blocks and barriers down so that it can feel safe to come out or feel safe to express itself.

So then we can start to help it heal because that is one of the biggest things is allowing it to feel safe to come out or not feel rejected,

For example.

So I hope that example was helpful in explaining how it can come through.

Don't know,

But being open to that and just acknowledge that you do have this part of you and when those really high emotions of fear and scared and they usually are from inner child.

I would say majority of the time they come from inner child and it needs something.

So however your mind works and everybody's mind works differently,

That visual aspect that are just feeling it and just connecting with it somehow and just recognize it objectively though,

Starting to just see it objectively from a distance,

However you need to do it.

And the meditation that I created is just meeting that,

But you can create any dialogue.

It doesn't have to be a verbal dialogue.

Just like I did with the client,

I sent notes just to start some conversation and that took time.

I would say it took a couple sessions of us passing notes,

For example,

Just to acknowledge so that we can begin to basically soften the relationship.

Actually in the very beginning,

They didn't even want to step close to the door to be able to pass notes.

So we had them sit at least semi-distance because they could feel it.

Even though there was a door and boulder and everything kind of blocking this aspect of it,

They could still sense it was there.

So it was more like the sensations and fear.

So talking them through,

You're protect,

There's nothing,

They're not going to come out,

There's a boulder,

There's a door,

Just sit by the door and listen to what it may be saying or what you're feeling and what you're picking up on.

So I'm not sure how it's going to come through for you,

But just sitting with it and looking at it.

I'm going to run through these again.

So acknowledging,

Paying attention,

Imagining your inner child or imagining that just hurt,

Feeling,

Whatever it is,

You can start off with the feeling and just seeing it from a distance.

Then getting to know it and then the last one is starting to just send it.

Whatever it is that you feel that it just needs,

Even if it's just knowing that someone's here,

Knowing that you do want to help,

Just sending that as basic as being a friend of just saying,

I'm here,

I'm here to help,

I want to get to know you.

Someone just wanting to get to know you is going to kind of drop down some of those barriers that you may have around it already so then you can start to reparent.

You can't just walk into someone's life and be like,

Hey,

Do this and then do this.

You're just basically doing what your actual parents may have done.

You want to get to know fully that individual,

That authentic inner child,

Who they are,

Which is who you are.

Just understand that a childlike self positively responds to that presence of just being with them and getting to know them.

If we authentically sit with ourselves and just really get to know this aspect of our inner child,

It will automatically just start to soften.

For me,

Getting to know my inner child literally was like sitting in a garden area.

I loved a garden and just being in nature and playing in the dirt and imagining me just starting to connect with my inner child by playing in the dirt to build that relationship back.

Sometimes it takes that in order to build the trust because you're building trust.

The example that I gave earlier about my client with the panic attacks,

The trust was so far gone that little by little they had to build trust.

You're building trust with your inner child so that you can reparent them in a loving manner.

To help with the process,

I use a therapy called gestalt.

What it is is just a back and forth conscious back and forth of different parts within you,

Such as inner child and your adult.

This is something I facilitate,

But it is something with practice that I teach my clients to do it on their own because they can.

You have to be very aware,

Which is why getting into a very objective,

Calm,

Relaxed space and seeing it objectively can help you start to teeter and talk between them so that you can ask the question and then go back and give it what it needs.

Then keep on going back and forth and asking questions,

What do you need,

And then giving it that.

You just need a hug.

I'll give you a hug.

You just need acknowledgement.

I'm giving you acknowledgement.

A question here.

I realize through addiction recovery how hurt my inner child is.

Sometimes I visualize hugging him and telling him I love him.

It's really healing for both of us.

It's all inner child when it comes to addiction recovery.

I've done the same modalities with my addiction clients as well of just visualizing that and they need it.

It's just her inner child that just needed that more than anything and feeling worthy of receiving that.

I applaud you for being here and going through what you went through.

You're not alone.

I've done this work.

I've definitely done a lot of inner child work and I still do.

Here's a question.

Can you give us more about trauma work?

When we have past memories or events that were very traumatic for us,

As you are starting to step into working with inner child by seeing them,

Slowly stepping into them and building that trust and connecting with them more and more and more,

It's the same thing for a memory.

If you're doing.

.

.

I would not recommend that this be done on your own if it's a very triggering event.

The techniques that I use in helping with trauma is similar to that with inner child where I have them slowly step into it.

Example would be seeing it from a distance,

Literally as if it is a movie and it's black and white and it has no sound and really disassociating from that event just so we can start to process it.

This is an NLP technique actually,

Neurolinguistic programming technique,

Where you change it up however you need to change it up in order to disassociate yourself but it's manageable for you to look at it.

Then we slowly pace into it.

But we heal what we need to heal in order to be able to slowly step into it closer and closer and closer so then the memory or event is not as triggering as it was.

The thing is it has nothing to do with the traumatic event,

Honestly.

It does not have to do with the actual traumatic event.

It has to do with the way that we feel about it.

I'll give you an example of being scared of water,

Large bodies of water.

Me,

I live in Florida.

I love to swim.

I love to go to the beach.

I don't live far from it and I have no issue with water.

It's not the water that's the issue.

It's how we feel.

I had a client that couldn't go to be around big bodies of water because they were so terrified.

Every time they got close to big bodies of water,

They felt scared.

They were like,

I'm an idiot.

This is retarded.

They were just talking so bad about them,

About being so scared of the water.

Come to find out,

They did have a traumatic event that occurred when they were a child where they almost drowned.

The first memory or event that they had when they first came to consciousness after drowning was their parents running to them and basically calling them an idiot and how stupid they are and just really talking.

You weren't wearing your floaties and just talking to them about,

Very angry at the kid for swimming without his floaties after he had this traumatic experience.

He took that in,

So created an association with the water and that memory.

Any time he went to the water,

Subconscious mind just flashes those events and ties stupid,

Fear,

Scared,

Not good,

All that to the water,

But it has nothing to do with the water itself.

It has nothing to do with just how we feel about the water and what we believe the water identifies about us.

That is the issue in regards to trauma.

Here's just a comment from someone in the audience.

I wish there was a magical solution on insecurities.

Yeah,

Me too.

We got to go through the work though in order to heal insecurities.

The thing is though,

The work makes it that much more valuable in honoring the value you put in yourself is part of building securities for you,

Of putting the work in yourself starts to build how valuable you are in order to put the work in yourself to grow,

Which does take time,

But the reward is the security that you create by creating value for yourself.

I hope that makes sense.

Here's a comment from someone in the audience.

Nothing happens by chance.

There's always a root cause.

There's always a root cause because I like to explain that we are like a computer and that the most advanced computer and the experiences that we take on is the programming.

Experiences is the programming.

The events and relationships that we experience create stories,

Which creates beliefs,

Which then creates emotions,

Which then creates our behaviors that we repeat.

This is the self-sabotage loop.

If you want to know more about this,

You can listen to the podcast named Self-Sabotage Loop.

I go over this and how we are programmed.

There is a root cause and that root cause is the events,

The events that we experience as a child.

You can go back and listen to that Self-Sabotage Loop.

It's in the podcast link that goes into detail about that.

Here's a question from a parent that wants to know if they can do anything for their 18-year-old son and his smoking pot.

Well,

If it's not a phase of them wanting to be accepted,

It may be because they just don't know how to handle some of their feelings and emotions.

I've worked with adults that have smoked pot for many years,

For like 20,

30 years because they want to stop smoking and it usually goes down to just those feelings that they didn't want to feel.

It's kind of like,

What is the intention behind smoking the pot?

I don't know what it is for your son,

But for those that I have worked with,

Where the same exact thing where it's like you're coming home and it's like sitting on the couch and watching TV.

You just want to wind down and not think and not be.

You just want to eliminate the day or drinking a glass of wine.

The intention behind it is to relax.

They haven't learned how to relax on their own or just feel good on their own.

We find alternative ways for them to feel good on their own,

But the thing is they have to want it.

When it comes to kids,

Usually they don't really recognize why they're doing it and maybe the intention is to be accepted.

I don't know if they're smoking with other people and it's socially acceptable or if they're doing it on their own.

That would depend on it and depending on how much and when and the time of day that they're doing it.

But you can't get them to force.

.

.

You can't force them to stop if they don't want to do it of course.

The people that do come to me,

It's because they want to stop and they found that it is interfering with them living a life that they want to live.

For one person it was getting in the way of their relationships,

So they needed to stop.

There was also this positive tie to it because they felt that smoking pot,

For example,

Gave them creativity.

They became almost dependent on it for another person because of the creativity that they thought they acquired from it.

How the mind works is that it becomes conditioned.

Thinking mind has stepped away.

When we are fully in that very meditative type of place,

We do become creative because that's the subconscious mind.

That's the flow state.

That is getting in the zone.

When I get people into a hypnotic trance,

That is the zone where they're very open,

Creative,

And able to take in more information.

You're in a learning state.

That is a childhood brainwave actually called theta.

We have binaural beats that have our music on insight timer,

For example,

That create these brainwaves that are aligned with that meditative or hypnotic state that helps us enhance creativity.

These people that smoke pot,

They think that because conscious mind is quiet,

That they make this creativity state because of the substance.

The thing is,

It's not because they can't do it on their own.

They need to learn how to be creative on their own because you can.

You can experience the same exact states of being relaxed and calm and cool,

Collected,

Whatever,

But you have to train your mind so it takes more time to get there,

To be there.

It's a long journey for this particular person that wants to build their creativity without needing to smoke pot because their mind is so conditioned to let go of that thinking mind when they're smoking pot,

To allow them to tap into their subconscious mind.

Here's some additional information regarding that last question.

Smoking pot started at 14 outside of the home for years.

Yeah,

It's a tough one with teenagers.

They need to see first what it is that that is taking away from in order for them to even want to change.

My prior career was,

Prior to opening my practice,

I was an executive leader for substance abuse and mental health facilities.

We had multiple locations across the nation.

We had a child and adolescent facility.

The reality is,

And I've talked to parents exactly like this,

And when I have parents call me,

I tell them,

And I talk to the kids first.

If they're not open and willing or wanting help,

They're not going to do it.

They're not ready and they're not going to do it.

They have to be willing and wanting to do it first.

Helping them see what they're losing or what it is that they,

Why they would want to stop is the number one first part,

The challenge.

For them to be driven to want to do it first.

Otherwise they're not going to stop.

They're not going to stop.

It's an unfortunate thing.

You're kind of on the opposite end in regards to my mother.

My mother was in substance and it took a moment for me to finally recognize that I can't help my mother until she's ready or wanting to help herself.

So there came a point where I just kind of let go and trust that and just had to be there at my ability to just let her know I'm here,

But I'm not going to enable you.

I'm here,

But I'm not going to enable you to continue to harm yourself,

But I'm here.

Emotionally for you to know that you're worthy.

You deserve better,

But I'm not going to enable you.

When you're ready,

You're ready.

That's just kind of the hardest part about dealing with family that are using substances.

I hope that helps.

Here's another comment from someone in the audience.

Programming is easy.

Reprogramming is challenging.

I agree with you on that.

Having someone help you with the reprogramming process,

Depending on what the goal is,

Can help speed it up if you're really on a time crunch and you want to create the change.

Hypnotherapy is the most fast type of therapy and that's why I named my company Rapid Realization just because I've been able to help people come to a rapid resolution or a rapid understanding of what they're going through and a faster means as opposed to traditional talk therapy.

I've done talk therapy before.

Here's a question.

Do you facilitate past life regressions?

I do facilitate past life regressions.

However,

It really depends on what it is you want to achieve.

I don't typically do them unless it comes naturally.

I educate on what past life regressions are.

For me,

Past life regressions is like having a distant mirror in front of you.

It's like having a mirror across the room and looking in a distance because whenever you do a past life regression,

You're still trying to heal or resolve a theme that is related to your life.

I make sure that they understand that so that it can naturally come because if you force it,

Then you may be taking away from being able to see a mirror that's right in front of your face,

Which is your life you're experiencing.

Usually with past life regressions,

I usually don't do them until we really focus on the present mirror in front of you,

Which is your current life as opposed to past life.

We look at current life and what's going on.

If someone is at a point of really living their idea,

Present life,

And there's still something that keeps on coming up,

Then we look at past life because it could be coming through from past life.

There's a lot of misunderstanding about past life and how it works.

There are some people out there that only focus on past life regressions.

I'm not saying that it doesn't work.

It works for sure.

It's just the way that I work is I like to go from the near and dear and then to the distance because for me personally with my clients,

I find that having the most associated conscious understanding of your current life helps change present life faster,

More rapidly.

Why are we doing all these things if we're not going to be able to reap the benefits,

Meaning living the most ultimate best life that we can live right now?

That's what it's all for.

That's what it's for me is like living now and living my life now.

That is the end.

I hope you enjoyed this recorded live replay from an Insight Timer event.

If you'd like to check out that meditation,

You can do so called meeting inner child.

It's a 24-minute meditation and it's available right now in my profile.

Have a great one everyone.

Until next time.