I’m starting to do “content themes” every month! Each week of March we’ll explore the relationship to our Inner Child, aka our Deep Sensitivity. We begin here, with our tender young formation and how that influences our lives NOW. And we’ll end the month with our initiated selves, our more fully formed power—and the promise of even greater unfolding.
I’ll also be posting beautiful support content on @daniellelaporte all this month. Hang with me. xo D
I had a hard time seeing how my “inner child” was having an effect on my grown-up life. I didn’t get it, didn’t want to get it. Now I really get it—so glad I get it. My interaction with my Inner Child has become one of the most important—and empowering—relationships of my life.
Interjection. Before we talk about how your relationship with your Inner Child is affecting your partnerships, communication style, career, and emotional and physical health (yes, everything), let’s expand the definition first. This reframe cracked my understanding open:
OUR INNER CHILD represents our DEEP SENSITIVITY.
Your Inner Child is an energy within you that’s always there, no matter how old, experienced, or spiritually sophisticated you become. Again… your Inner Child symbolizes your deepest sensitivity.
To care for our Inner Child, our Deep Sensitivity, is the most fundamental and profound healing we can experience. Tending to our Deep Sensitivity is medicine for every personal issue in our lives.
Inner Child work is THAT important.
. . . . .
Back to current time implications of an unattended to Inner Child…
Imagine a hungry baby. Or a beautiful, exhausted three-year-old. The four-year-old wanting to be held and seen. Or an amazing seven-year-old kid who got scared. And those little ones don’t get properly fed, comforted, nourished, encouraged, or well-protected. So they scream-cry, get angry and confused, and maybe act defensively or aggressively. The child who is craving to be seen might start to negotiate for attention—be good, be funny, be quiet. All of the child selves will use their heightened senses to figure out how to simply stay alive or thrive.
Are there any times that you scream-cry, get angry, confused, act defensively or aggressively? Has anyone here been negotiating their worth for most of their adult life?
That kind of behaviour, which so often creates more damage, is very possibly your Inner Child still trying to get their needs met. Love me! See me! Know me! Hold me! Stand up for me! Don’t hurt me! Protect me! I need rest!
And the longer we go without tending to the needs of our as-of-yet unhealed Inner Child, the louder they’ll ask for help. Those pleas can come in the form of illness, depression, exhaustion, anxiety. Pay attention to me. I need you to… be… more loving.
Self love can feel labyrinth-like. But when we consider what our Inner Child Self needs, it’s immediately easier to act on. Little humans need: gentleness, fun, rest, understanding, and enthusiastic, unbridled adoration. Adults… same… And giving this loving care to ourselves, on behalf of our Deep Sensitivity, will revolutionize our life—deeply and across the board.
. . . . .
Even if we had an idyllic upbringing, no one gets out of childhood unscathed. Our micro and macro societies shape us. Life bumps against our sensitive hearts. When we’re mature, we can intentionally reshape—and reparent—ourselves.
Our actual childhood is only one part of our Inner Child story. She/he/they is a metaphor for the vulnerable, innocent, and tender part of our being. And AT ALL TIMES—even in our most adult life circumstances—our inner sensitivity should be honoured. It’s actually a hugely powerful aspect of ourselves. (I’ll say more about that next week.)
HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH YOUR INNER CHILD
You’re connecting to your four or five-year-old self—your most gentle nature. Keep it profoundly simple. Close your eyes and tune in.
What do you need?
What would you like to tell me?
How can I support you?
As for what your Inner Child might say that she-he-they needs… your linear mind might think, “I’m a kid, I want ice-cream, I wanna stay up late and eat pizza!” Um, that’s probably not your Inner Child responding. Your Deep Sensitivity will likely ask for more feeling-related things. The heart is simple. Like maybe, “Sleep, rest, hugs, colours, more trees… I love Sundays. More playing. Take me to the ocean.” Or they will have very sweet, pure things to say to you like, “I just love you so much.”
And then you listen closely. And then you ASSURE your sensitive inner self that you will tend to their simple, beautifully human needs at all times. You’re in charge. Parent them with the greatest love possible. You are immensely capable of loving them the way they need to be loved—even if you didn’t get that love as a child. It’s in you. And you’re bringing it all out.
Tell them all the things: I love you. I adore you. I will protect you. No matter what. Always.
And everything you do to care for your sensitive self will benefit your whole self in potentially transformative ways. Caring for your Inner Child—like getting enough sleep and time in nature—makes you a more vibrant grown up. And the honour and protection that you give to your Deep Sensitivity will translate in the outer world: into asking for what you’re worth, and hanging out with people who speak kindly to you, and taking breaks when you need them, so you have more time to play.
And you’ll finally get it. You will really get it: the most personal love, ever.
With Love,
Danielle
Danielle LaPorte is an invited member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, a group who, in Oprah Winfrey’s words, “is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.” She is author of White Hot Truth: Clarity for keeping it real on your spiritual path—from one seeker to another. The Fire Starter Sessions, and The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul—the book that has been translated into 8 languages, evolved into a yearly day planner system, a top 10 iTunes app, and an international workshop program with licensed facilitators in 15 countries. Named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes, millions of visitors go to DanielleLaPorte.com every month for her daily #Truthbombs and what’s been called “the best place online for kickass spirituality.” A speaker, a poet, a painter, and a former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, Entrepreneur Magazine calls Danielle, “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” Her charities of choice are Eve Ensler’s VDay: a global movement to end violence against women and girls, and charity: water, setting out to bring safe drinking water to everyone in the world. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her favourite philosopher, her son. You can find her @daniellelaporte and just about everywhere on social media.
