Healing The Inner Child

0:00BouchikowAtwowWhat's up party people Thank you for tuning in to another episode of ElKivate Your Life I Am Your Hostess with the mostess L is in the letter L and key as in the key to your heart So, if you're a first-time listener, thank you for tuning in, thank you for deciding to partake and elkevate your life. Generally on Mondays, it is Mindful Monday, and Wednesdays are wisdom, wellness, Wednesdays. And I'm Mama Elgi, your hostess with the Moses, and just a little background about me, if it's your first time. I work at a school in Dublin, and as a special education aide, I've been doing that for

1:07the past four years. I came from a background of customer service and sales, and just always was the ear that listened without judgment, and that's how I got here. Whether I was driving Uber or Lyft, or a friend to lean on. So that's how I evolved into Mama Elgi. So I was coming on here and was going to talk about the strike that's happening, and ask you, have you ever been in a strike? This is a first-time thing for me, and I'm still learning how to navigate it. Our teachers are striking for smaller classrooms and better benefits, and more money, and just various different things that we have been fighting for.

2:15But then I realized, or I stumbled across something, and something, once again, happened as it always does, to make me come back to our inner child of the past. And what is that exactly? Our inner child of the past is, well, how do I explain it simply? Simply. Great question. There is no simple way to explain it. So let me start with this. Do you take things personally? Do you isolate? Then you're stressed out. Do you have perfectionist attitudes?

3:17But at the same time, you also procrastinate. These could be symptoms of having an injured inner child of the past. What I mean by that is, you have a wounded inner child, and what is a wounded inner child? It's unresolved trauma. Basically, what happens is our wounded inner child sort of dictates how we feel, how we process our emotions. And the reason that happens is because of the things that happen in our childhood. Maybe our parents didn't show up for us in the way that we needed.

4:17Maybe we were blamed for things that weren't our fault. Wow, I could give you some great examples. So let me start with this. Mom, I love you, Rest in Peace. I know you're in heaven. Peace, fully, with your dad and our other family members. So my mom used to totally freak out when we had to go somewhere and be somewhere. And it was all about, we have to be perfect and we have to be on time. And my mom, I know now in hindsight, my mom had some mental health issues, but obviously growing up, you don't know these things. She had a very bad temper that the family would blame on the Irish temper. And she could be very hot or cold. And so when we had to get ready to go to grandma's house for Easter or Thanksgiving or birthday

5:19or celebration or whatever, it'd be like, okay, we have to be ready at this time. And my brother and I would be ready at that time. And but because she was so anxious and had such anxiety, she would start yelling at us. What do you mean you're not ready? Where is the dish that we're bringing to grandma's house or why are you dressed like that? All of a sudden, the shift, the blame, would be put on us, even though we were standing there like, okay, we're ready to go, mom, she would be yelling at us because of things she didn't think of. And she wasn't prepared for, but the blame shifted to us. So I don't know if any of you can relate to this experience that I'm sharing with you. I'm sure we all had different households, different experiences, different kind of parents,

6:21different parenting styles. Like I said, hindsight is 2020 and now I realize there was a diagnosis there, my famous line. And I can speak on that, honestly, truthfully and confidently because of where I work. I work in a school with special education kids, I've done so for several years now. I also read patterns, I'm a pattern person. And so what all of this has revealed to me and taught me and speaking on this podcast, which has helped me to be, it's proved to be cathartic, is that I realize myself, my friends, my husband, we have not fully healed our inner child of the past because we probably had parents or role models that didn't love us in the way that we would have

7:30wanted to be loved, didn't show us that we were worthy of love. They may have blamed us for the problems that were going on, like the example I just gave you. And so what we end up doing as an adult that has these inner child traumas is we end up blaming ourselves, taking everything personally. Not trusting our instincts, questioning our instincts because we didn't have role models that knew how to give us the emotional support we at that time wanted needed. And so we're spending all this time trying to be perfect, taking everything personally.

8:37And what does that do to you? It takes up so much space in your head that you feel like you can't get anything done and so you end up procrastinating because it all seems too overwhelming. And why? Because we didn't nurture those feelings and learn how to heal our inner child of the past. So I want to encourage a lot of you out there to do so. How do we do that? I'm here to tell you some of the steps you can take, how to do that. One of the things I want to recommend is to listen to your feelings. Don't shame yourself for them. Hold them as if you were to hold a child.

9:38Maybe your child, right, as an example. Think of holding your inner child of the past or hold them like you would a small child. Do not shame yourself for having those feelings because those are your feelings and you are entitled to those feelings. Also comfort yourself the way you would a small child or your own child or your inner child of the past. If we learn to start doing things we can heal that inner child of the past and move to a healthier, stronger, more confident, adult. Give yourself grace, love, compassion because that's what a healthy adult would do.

10:49I hope all of these things resonated with you. Maybe made you think of, if not yourself, maybe someone you know that could benefit from this information. I find myself in these situations when I'm talking to people, it constantly reminds me of the book I read your inner child of the past. Just when I think I'm fully healed, something comes up between me and my husband or me and a friend or a coworker or a colleague or a family member and it reminds me why did I or this person handle this situation this way? Oh yeah, probably because of this. And if you think about it and you go back to how you were raised, who your role models

11:50were, what that looked like for you, it might help you to uncover some things that you haven't thought about, you haven't dealt with and it will give you a new way of looking at things, treating things and healing that inner child of the past. There's something very freeing about doing this as an adult and I'm 57 years old and I'm still learning these new practices. I'm still learning how to reprogram my brain the last week I talked about the fight or flight mode and how my body just goes into a somatic way of doing things and it has a lot to do with the way I was raised. So think about that if you're ever punishing yourself for something that you shouldn't

12:51be punishing yourself for or taking something seriously and asking yourself, why did I take that so personally and why did it upset me so or why am I such a perfectionist? Why do I put myself in that category? Why do I put such expectations on me? Think back to those moments of who your role model was and what they did for you and how they raised you and what kind of person you were then and now and maybe you can comfort that person and offer that inner child of the past, the love, the compassion, the comfort, all of the things that you were missing back then. It's never too late for us to be better, be better, love ourselves, be in a healthy

14:00space, learn to be a healthy communicator and person and partner and mom, dad, brother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew. All of the things I share with you on this pod are to help you to get to a better, stronger place. So I hope this resonated with you today. I hope that it helped you to have some realistic moments with yourself. And I have to say it's very humbling to talk about it because it's making me think not only of my own inner child of the past or even my husbands, but it's making me reflect on, gosh, I hope I was a good parent and I hope I provided those things.

15:01And if I didn't provide those things, I can start being a better parent right now and providing those things because I don't want them to feel empty or sad or like I didn't validate them or it's funny, my love language is words of affirmation and physical touch and why? Because I definitely didn't get enough of that growing up. I felt like I really had to work for those things and even when I did, it still felt short, it still felt lackluster and empty and half-assed. So thank you for tuning in today. Thank you for listening. I hope that it helped you in thinking about how you handle things and go through life and communicate with others and with your partner.

16:06If it did, I would like to invite you to give a thumbs up, give a like, share your feedback, share your comments, I would love to hear your experiences and what kind of adult you are and if this was helpful or not, if this resonated with you, or maybe you know of somebody that it would resonate with, so you want to pass it on to that person. That would mean the world to me. Thank you to all my loyal monthly subscribers, Jeff Potter, Creative Cara, Mike Kaufman, Lisa Roberts, Cervello, Roger Havens, Kyle Fu, thank you all for being loyal subscribers and thank you to all my loyal listeners who religiously like and comment and I really

17:12appreciate you. For when you like and comment and share, it helps the algorithm to go to the next level. So thank you for tuning in, thank you for listening, until wisdom wellness Wednesday. Ciao for now.