Why can't you make that change you keep telling yourself to?! Hint: It's about your Inner Child
So often in life, you keep telling yourself something that you know you should do or know you should believe.
I need to end this 'situationship'
I need to stop drinking as much
I need to learn to speak up for myself
But for whatever reason, you keep going against that or you just can't quite let it sink in or stop the thing you tell yourself you should.
Can you relate?
If you feel like you keep telling yourself to do something and YOU never listen, consider this.
You don't have to tell your ADULT self this, you have to tell your INNER CHILD this.
Hear me out.
So often, the parts of us that don't make sense or that don't listen, are actually the scared, confused, misguided or hurt inner child part of us.
For some reason, they are holding onto unhealthy habits, or people or are terrified to make change. This is often because your Inner Child has been clinging onto, or utilising that thing that now you're ADULT self wants to get rid of, but it doesn't want to or doesn't understand why it should because it has been using it for SOOOOO long.
You see, it makes sense to your Inner Child, so they're not going to let go.
For examples,
Your inner child might feel lonely or abandoned, so any attention from a guy feels really good even though you know he is SO beneath your queen status, so why would we want to let that situationship go when he makes you feel desired and chased?
Your Inner Child HATES being alone so you developed ways to distract yourself from feeling lonely or isolated. In High-school it might have been endless TV or talking to strangers online (MSN Chat was the BEST), but now it's a few more glasses of wine than you'd like after work when you're craving social connection but all your friends are busy with their kids, partners and bloody impressive careers 🙄
Your Inner Child probably got the message it wasn't safe to speak up or tried to but was humiliated, dismissed or there were strong repercussions for speaking up as a child, so you learned to stay quiet, stay nice and fly under the radar. To your inner child, speaking up = something bad will happen. So why would it let your adult self speak up when something bad is going to happen!!?!? It's protecting you.
To your Inner Child, all of it makes sense but your adult self doesn't understand because you haven't yet gone back to understand the thinking or rationale that your Inner Child is hanging on to.
And then you're probably just beating yourself up for not being tougher, stronger or more disciplined. Right?
You're not any of those things, you just have an Inner Child clinging to an outdated way of being that your Adult self is ready to let go of.
Yet, your Adult and Child self haven't yet met and had that conversation.
Then you go see that awful F-boy again or open another bottle of average Vino and feel SO confused as to why you do this, again and again.
That's where part-time therapists who specialise in Inner Child healing, like Viola Prinz, come in.
If you have not made the gentle, considered and expert journey back to tell that to your inner child, you are going to forever be in this loop of wanting to change something, not doing it, and then beating yourself up for it.
Now, why I say it's an expert journey is because you can't just go, "Oh, okay, inner child, let's stop this now, mmmkay?" and you stop. It's actually often quite hard to connect to your Inner Child as they love to hide from you and your Adult self that is trying to take away their comfort Teddy bear aka the bad habit that weirdly feels good.
When you work from a parts-work perspective/Internal Family System like Viola, the actual end goal of this WHOLE therapy style is to connect to your Inner Child.
But, you have to actually go slowly and masterfully, because we have to make sure that we take care of all of the protectors and all of the fears that come up along the way when you start to get closer and closer to your inner child to try and change that behaviour they're clinging to which makes TOTAL sense to them.
The work here is about unburdening your inner child with the belief, habit, craving, expectation or responsibility that they have taken on, which they haven't let go of yet, but secretly, they really want to!
When you truly connect to your Inner Child and have a thoughtful conversation with them guided by Viola, it will all make sense to you.
That, beloved, is when you can make the changes your adult self desires because your Inner Child will tell you all the Tea once they're comfortable with you.
You may already be working with one of our brilliant therapists, but if not and you'd love to connect to your Inner Child by working with Viola Prinz, please reply INNER CHILD and we can book you in.
Inner Child healing can help so much more than just this example, but I'm sure everyone can relate to being split down the middle, not doing the 'right thing' and feeling all sorts of confusion about it.
Just like me in Italy, who couldn't stop eating Gorgonzola pasta even though I'm allergic to dairy 🤣 #worthit
From my many inner children and confused, allergic, un-listening parts, 🤣
Gabriella
P.S. We are about to close our books for new clients for 2024, so please reach out if you'd like to see one of our brilliant therapists in person or online Australia-wide, ASAP. Your inner child will thank you.
