Hello beautiful Souls,
Welcome to Somatic Balance.108, I am Caroline Hey, your mindfulness practitioner. In this Blog Post, I’d like to talk to you about the inner child.
What is the inner child, and why does this phrase keeps showing up more often than ever before?
Well, the beauty of this ‘new-life-2nd-century-awakening-generation’ is, that we are actually starting to “unlearn” all the BS industrialization has taught us.
And don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that industrialization was a bad thing in general. It was just very unhealthy when it comes to connection, affection and tribal communication.
When industrialization hit, all the sudden humanity moved from colonial, tribal, village, family, community to isolation, disconnection, status achieving, and comparing each other instead of growing together.
Dad’s and brother’s basically left over night, first into war, then to the factory production mill, and wives and sisters were left at home with little room for self, and raising a fatherless generation of new adults, left to figure themselves out… a recipe for a disastrous generation of broken children.
Roughly a hundred years later we’ve realized this isn’t working and more and more humans start questioning the good of such structure, and tuning in to what their true “calling” of their heart really desires.
Surprise - (sarcasm implied), connection is what humans need and desire most. And, with that, questioning oneself where we lacked that the most, and how we can learn to connect to others later in life.
Et voila! – The realization of not having had one’s needs met as a child, became the most common nominator to western society. As we need to give everything a name, we’ve called it the “Inner Child Wound”.
Your “inner child” is a part of your subconscious that has been picking up messages way before we were able to fully process what was going on (mentally and emotionally). It holds emotions, memories, and beliefs from the past as well as hopes and dreams for the future.
What causes a wounded inner child?
In some cases, that wound to our inner child could be the result of trauma, abuse, or abandonment/ neglect. In other cases, the source of the pain may be more subtle – experiencing unmet emotional needs, the illness of a parent or sibling, growing up in a broken family, or even a childhood friend moving away.
These experiences shape our love-language and attachments styles.
I know… so annoying that everything is sort of tied up together. But… no one said healing is an easy fix.
Becoming whole again is a bit of a painful process.
One has to go through it to get through it.
Hence, I am here to lead you, guide you, hold your hand, provide a safe space and be your cheerleader at the same time.
Holistic therapists like me are still rarity. The reason why I studied what I’ve studied is simply based on having had a hard time finding a non-textbook-psychologist myself, at times in need.
Standard textbook psychology still has its valid place in the field of neurological distress and mental wellbeing. Yet, specifically for trauma it is more and more evidence based that just “talking and taking pills” does not resolve trauma.
Like Dr. Stephen Porges states beautifully, “Trauma is an injury to the safety neuro-system response. When suffering an “injury” from those whom we trust, those we give up our defenses to, we go through a rapid reorganization of the autonomic nervous system.”
The autonomic nervous system comprises two parts- the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system activates the fight or flight response during a threat or perceived danger, and the parasympathetic nervous system restores the body to a state of calm. If this is been scrambled during ones upbringing, one has a hard time to unlearn these initial wirings.
It is scientifically proved that trauma is embodied. Somatic therapists are here to help you to realign what got wacked out of line along the way.
It is never too late to start your healing journey.
Book a free consultation now, to see if this type of therapy is right for you.
With loving kindness,
Caroline