HEALING THE INNER CHILD.
Our inner child lives within us whether we are 20 or 70. During the time of our inner child, our inner maiden our brains are most malleable & we lack an analytical mind. Any experiences, traumas, or words can and are taken on as truth. From zero to seven our brain is like a sponge that fully receives any experience as certainty. This time of the child, the maiden creates the lens that many of us are still seeing the world through.
The experiences of childhood creates the foundation of life moving forward. If your childhood experience was not pleasant, if there was trauma, abuse, neglect, dismissal, abandonment, if your needs were not met this lens will create how your external world is reflected to you. It can show up in your intimate relationships, your relationship with your children, parents, friends, etc. It is most likely showing up in all facets of your life.
Even if your childhood was full of love and being seen and heard there is quite possibly trauma that you are carrying forward in this life time from generations of the past. We carry the ancestral lineage of 7 generations behind us, when your mother was in her mothers womb, your eggs were already developed in your moms womb. You were in form inside your grandmothers womb space and were absorbing her experience while your mother came into fruition. You absorbed your mothers experience when you were in her womb. An egg in the cosmic womb receiving the imprints that have been embedded as you were in gestation.
These imprints & truths decided at a young age and throughout life are creating the lens you are seeing the world through. There are many things that we can all agree on about what is tangible in this world however our individual lens creates a completely different experience for each and everyone of us.
If there was abuse as a child a truth that may have been decided is ‘it is not safe for me in my body, it is not safe for me to be vulnerable.’ This belief that was quite possibly truth at that time is still creating truth for you now. It might be showing up in intimate relationships, in distrust towards the feminine or the masculine, in fear of vulnerability. It could be showing up in many facets of your human experience. What starts to shift the belief system, the underlying lens is to bring it into awareness and to give the one that decided this truth the nurturing she didn’t receive or hear when it was decided.
To bring your unique lens into awareness is to start the healing journey of the maiden, to nourish and heal the inner child within. When our maiden is seen and heard, fully loved and nourished it allows us to move into our mother archetype. The healing journey of the maiden is to not dismiss her, leave her or abandon her it is to mother her and bring her with you. To create a relationship of love between you and your inner child. Quite often we shush our inner child, we hear her screams and get annoyed, drown her out with our chosen numbing mechanism. What if rather than dismissing her you sat with her and honoured and acknowledged her. Listened to her? My inner maiden would get very loud when men would come into my life, she would scream of their lack of safety. Rather than listening to her I would binge drink and drown out her voice - she was still screaming in the inside, I wasn’t listening and so her screams turned into an internal hell of shame, guilt, regret, unworthiness. She was a caged animal kicking and screaming to get out. I held the key.
The unlocking was simply to see her, acknowledge her, allow her to process what was never processed. To give her space however we aren’t taught that as children. How many times did you hear stop crying? Don’t act out, you don’t want to stand out? Just try to fit in? Try to be normal. All of these seemingly ‘harmless’ commands communicate to our inner child, be quiet, don’t show your emotions, dim to fit in, don’t be seen - it’s not safe. Theres consequences if you do.
How was your inner maiden silenced? Start to become increasingly aware of where you hold yourself back, silence yourself, retreat and back away. There is no shame in doing so, no shame in retreating or silencing - it is simply bringing it into awareness and communicating with the one that decided she had to retreat or dim herself. Consoling her & mothering her, gently coaxing her back into her fullness. Into feeling safe to be fully seen and heard.
Into the nurtured maiden.