I want to be friends

[Sojourner17]

I just completed an exercise in Shiraldis self esteem workbook  called the corrective experience of embracing the inner child.  It was really difficult and I couldn't help but cry for my younger self. 
I wrote the following about the experience:

I couldn't get through it without crying.  Crying for that beautiful, sweet, shy little girl with the silky blonde hair and the shy lopsided grin.  I want that little girl back. That innocent little one who loves nature, beauty, purity, goodness and sweetness.  I didn't want to take her forward with me because at her age she was safe.  Her life, for the most part was safe.

  I wanted her to come because I want her to  shine out of me now.  The sweetness, goodness, the beauty that was her.  I love that little one.  Others would love her too.  I want to protect her from the pain/evil, bad choices that I made and others made, the hurt.  I want her to grow up.  I want her to mature but keep those sweet, cute, beautiful  and good qualities I saw in her, but as a mature, sweet, beautiful woman.  I don't want to visit her as a child. I want to visit her as an adult and be her friend.
How can I help her grow up and mature?

[SonofThunder]

Hi SoJourner17,

Merry Christmas to you if you celebrate this season.  😊.  Your writing was very moving and beautiful.  The little-girl-you traits listed are filled with such purity. 

Imo, you being able to name them and identify who you are as a child is powerful mindfulness of who you really are, and will always be, regardless of the experiences of "pain/evil, bad choices that I made and others made, the hurt". 

I believe that those qualities you listed ARE mature traits.  So are you welcoming your true mature traits to once again rise to the surface?  The ones you listed have apparently been riding along with you the whole time, but sheltering in place among the "pain/evil, bad choices..." 

In the last year I have been on a discovery mission of who I actually am, and what I have found, once I finally shed who/what others wanted me to be, and shed the bad-choice traits I substituted to help me cope with the "pain/evil".  I fell in love with myself all over again, but in a healthy adult manner.  My brave inner-child has been quietly riding shotgun this entire time, and once I realized and allowed those traits to be known once again; embraced for who I really am, i was thrilled to welcome myself home.  Finally home.  Im purposely and proudly practicing those pure and good traits. 

Your true traits sound amazing!  L-O-V-E that lopsided grin also!  I hope it still exists! 

Best wishes to you as your true traits as a little girl come bubbling to the surface in purposeful, proud and fully accepting practice, while all the unwanted traits get sent floating away down the river. 

SoT

[JustKeepTrying]

Sojourner17 and SOT,

SJ17 - I needed this post today.  I needed to know that I am not the only one on this path reaching out to bring forward that lost part of themselves.  To embrace it and love them - to give them the encouragement and tender nurturing - to bring forward those parts that I had suppressed for so long.  Your description and writing is so provocative and full of wonderful images.  Thank you.

SOT - as always you cut through the BS and get to the truth.  Thank you.

Thank you both.

[Sojourner17]

SOT,  thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful response.  May you be blessed in this season as well. 
I do still have the lopsided grin and while my hair has darkened to a definite brown (with a little gray coming in  ) people usually comment that I look young for my age.  I'll go with that! 

I was thinking about what you wrote yesterday.  It led to me thinking that yes, those qualities have always been there but over time they had dirt and spots and blemishes thrown all over them by myself and others.  I want to get that dirt and grime cleaned off and polish up those traits so they shine through more consistently.  In some ways the stuff flung on by others (aside from my mom, unfortunately) are easier to get off than the stuff I flung on there myself.

I've got some layers off already but there is more work to do.  Work that will take the rest of my life. 

I'm working on getting the mom stuff off.  I'm working on getting the dirt I flung off. 

I want to have the qualities of goodness, purity, sweetness, shyness (nothing wrong with being shy ) come to the forefront with grace, strength and a level of maturity befitting my age.  I want to level up in the next year.

Jkt,  I'm so glad the post helped you.  I love your name btw.  Many times I have repeated that exact phrase to myself.  May  you be blessed as well.

[treesgrowslowly]

Sojourner17,

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

IMHO, you DID just visit her as an adult and you showed her a lot when you went inside yourself and produced this loving passage about her. You showed her love and respect, and she is beaming!

If you re-read the post you wrote here, consider the fact that at age 3 or 4 or 5 years old, she could not write those words. Yes, as a small person she could feel awe and joy and she had a great smile, but as she grew up, she became someone who could now do new things too - such as write a beautiful passage to herself - as you did here.

Look at what she and you were able to express through written language. It is beautiful.

That strong desire for a loving, caring, sense of self-expression that you had as a child was with you the entire time you wrote about her in your workbook exercise.

My former therapist helped me with some of this work. That therapist told me "You (adult self) gave her the words to express the longing she's had. She's wanted to reconnect with you for such a long time.". And I agree with you Sojourner, it is hard not to do this work without crying. Such a release when we listen to our inner child's longing.

I think that she's already here - holding the hand of your mature, grown up self. Otherwise, you would not have been able to put into beautiful written words, what you did.

I love inner child work. Our inner child knows how to thrive...when our other parts have had to take over and do the survival stuff for us (maybe for years). Throughout all of the survival mode times, our inner child is the one who held on to our capacity for joy, self-love and healthy self-expression.

With practice we can show her what sorts of delights we now feel at our current age in life. Some activities were for her to enjoy as a small person. As a kid I loved to play on the swing sets. As my body aged, vertigo set in and swinging high above the ground led to some physical un-ease. No worries. I can show her some yoga I've learned, some new ways I've learned to move my body and have some similar enjoyment of senses. She can remind me of what I enjoyed as a small person, and I can show her what new things I now enjoy as a big person (with vertigo issues lol). The part of me that loved being on a swing set as a child is now carried forward in my middle-age body, and expressed through other movements (that work for an aging body). She learns that joy comes in many forms as we age.

Most people seem to have no idea that they can have a relationship with their inner child. Bravo to you for this work.

Trees