Healing the Inner Child

When dark clouds surround us, like the current situation the world over- with this dreadful pandemic that has changed our lives, we tend to recollect our past, our good times and bad; our follies and our lost friendships; our loved ones who have passed on; those relationships that we'd rather keep under wraps  and important events that have dotted our journey.

Today, I have reached a place in my life where I can see things from a different perspective- where all those clichés make sense. No, I do not claim to know it all but I am willing to delve deeper into issues that trigger unpleasant emotions. I need and I am ready for a cleanse from all things that stop me from being the person I am meant to be- and thus, I begin my inner child healing.

My aim, with every piece that I write to share with an audience (including the light-hearted, frivolous ones), is laced with the hope that I might benefit even a single soul with my words while bringing solace to my own self. It is my endeavor to be as honest and from the heart as I can be, for, I believe that is the only way to heal.

Like all things first, be it the first time you learn to mount and dismount a cycle on your own, your first time on stage, your first dentist appointment (ugh), the first time you got caned in school, your first crush (George Michael! Sigh!) or much later in life, your first marriage (this, to shock my husband!!) or the first steps your child takes, first love also takes an unforgettable and even an exalted place in your life. It is the sweetest, most innocent, shy and naïve expression of your heart for someone who walks into your life and changes it under your nose without you realizing it since you are in a trance with those proverbial rose-tinted glasses.

Lucky are those who settle down with their first loves as their last but luckier are those who lose their purest love for an ache so strong and debilitating, that their broken selves have no choice but to admit in the light to their deepest, darkest crevices and transform. Of course, it doesn’t feel that way! I always used to make fun of dialogues in our Hindi movies especially the term “meetha dard” (sweet pain) because I never understood how pain could be sweet! At least, not until the heartbreak! (At this point I would like to mention, that this triggering that takes place does not necessarily have to be in a romantic context. Any type of relationship can trigger a transformation when there is a perception of loss though the “meetha dard” or bitter-sweet memories are usually an outcome of heartbreak!) Well, some psycho health freaks (my husband, for one) even describe the lousy ache after exercise as “meetha dard”!! I strongly disagree!

When I fell in love for the second time, with my husband to be, I used to laugh and tell my nearest and dearest ones to whom I had confided about my first love, that the first time around, I fell in love with my Dad and now I was about to marry my Mom. Even today, there are times when I stare at my husband in disbelief and I have to stop myself from calling him Mum!!! My brother admits being in a similar situation in reverse. He says some comments from his wife make him look up to confirm it isn’t our Dad talking!! All I can say is, Hail Freud! There is a lot of truth in the Oedipus and Electra complexes, as you can see.

Credits: pinterest.com

It is only after so many years and after getting on with my spiritual journey, that I have started revisiting my hurts from the past and a whole lot of them lead to my inner child wounds. Each and every one of us have wounds from the time we hardly remember, because we subconsciously have soaked in everything our parents, teachers and those around us have told us and somehow, the negative stays on and festers more than the positive does. We might even recollect them and laugh them off and yet, these episodes turn out to be the little voices in our heads that limit us from reaching our potential. As adults, these repressed emotions get triggered when we enter relationships. In fact, we actually subconsciously look for partners who might have attributes of those people who were important to us as kids whose validation we are still seeking. Now, the “loving your Dad and marrying your Mom” suddenly stops being funny! You know that you have a deeper problem that needs sorting.

And No! It isn’t your parents that need to change but it is your need for validation from someone other than yourself that needs to be worked on. No one, but you, knows what you are thinking, feeling, the efforts that you put in whether or not the results show-NO ONE. And so, NO ONE should tell you how good you are. You validate yourself and you are the only one who has to love yourself completely. We are born whole and we do not need anyone to complete us. When we unite with someone, it is the union of two wholes and neither should need validation from the other to feel good.

A few years ago my father recollected an episode where I was about two or three years of age and holding on to my mother's saree pallu in a market and somehow I let go of her and wandered about. After a while I began to cry for I couldn’t see her without realizing my father was following me throughout and just letting me have fun as I walked about and picked me up only when I began to cry. Now, unlike my father and brother who have elephantine memories, I remember very few instances from my early years- a proper memory forming only around sixth grade but I remember the above episode vividly and remember being disturbed by it. My father had my back so there was nothing wrong from the adult point of view but from the child’s point of view there was fear and only fear. At that stage a smile would come up when cuddled and given a candy but what that tiny little brain had soaked up, none of us know!

Again, when we used to travel by train, my father would get off at stations to buy us something to eat or some toy/ magazine and then the train would begin to move while he was on the platform and I would panic as he would smile and wave at us. I used to be heartbroken that we lost him and my mother looked unfazed making me believe she didn’t love him too much and then five minutes later Daddy would turn up and I would breathe easy. I was not inquisitive enough to ask how he made it, just relieved that he did. It was much later that I learnt about the vestibule when I had to cross it for an urgent loo requirement and that too holding my father’s hand. I am jittery around it, till date! And to this day, I hate it when someone accompanying me leaves me on a train and gets off.

Perhaps, fear of abandonment sets in like this as well, not necessarily from a broken home. Little instances like this might lead to clingy behaviour or possessiveness as we grow up without our realizing it. Then again, the human psyche and its defense mechanisms are so varied that it could lead to absolutely opposite behaviour as well. It is possible for one to be so independent or portray the same, not let anyone in and build walls around oneself, showing that no one else was needed and that one was okay alone.

From extreme cases of sexual abuse, domestic violence, broken homes, or losing a dear one to growing up with a grandparent or in a hostel as opposed to living in the basic family unit to simple things like being labelled as useless by a teacher or parent, laughed at for your buck teeth or for being an awkward, lonely child or some such thing by people you trust can scar you in a deep way that you may not be able to pinpoint as an adult. However, the effect on your psyche is deep and can change your personality in myriad ways. I mentioned the same in my blog  “A Grand Masquerade”, where I talked about how we wear masks to protect our vulnerable selves and this is a result of wounds that have been repressed and are yet to heal.

I have been meditating for over three years now and have been doing a lot of soul searching. I have been trying to let go of situations and be in the here and now mode. It works when I stay the course. The tarot journey, however, has given me a huge push forward and helped me a whole lot. It is the reason behind my delving into the root of my problems in the way that I am doing now.

Ancient Indian wisdom be it Sanskrit, yoga, meditation, chakra healing so on, has been used more by the Westerners than it has by present day Indians which on one hand is really sad but at least it has been made famous by them in addition to whatever else they have to offer. Our ancestors were in tune with Nature. They worshipped Nature and thus, they were in tune with it like all animals and plants are. As progress was made to make life comfortable and religion came into existence, the need for power and control became strong and this natural instinct and reverence for nature was labelled Paganism and was done away with. Slowly and steadily, we left our basic natural instinct, our intuition, our gut feeling for logic and rational thinking. This is when things began to get muddled.

Guess what, after thousands and thousands of years, we are coming back to that ancient wisdom packaged under different garbs/names and seeing the truth. Inner child healing forms a part of psychology but in India, these are looked upon as problems of the elite, considered stylish and taken seriously only if things are bad in which case a psychiatrist is required! In underdeveloped and developing countries there is so much to take care of that issues such as this aren’t even given a second thought. Criminal behaviour has its basis here so do a million other problems but no one has the time to sit and heal.

Credits: sacredcircleholistichealing.com

                                    

Parents and all adults for that matter are not perfect and do not know it all. They must have had their own childhood issues that are unresolved, coupled with a variety of current survival issues and then when they begin a family, they pass on some of their personality, insecurities and reactions to their children. Their intention is always noble but nothing works by the book, does it? I am a parent today and I dread what I have filled my kids heads with. It really helps when my daughter says that I have marred her and her brother for life with my down-market songs and moves to go with it!! On a serious note, I know I can say sarcastic, mean and cold things when I fly off the handle. I also know that the minute I cool down, I apologize and make up for it but now I wonder about what my babies have soaked in, during their initial years. As adults we don’t remember, for we don’t mean half the nonsense we utter, especially in irritation, but that young baby doesn’t know that!

Whatever is done is done, we cannot go back but if we know that we can heal it now and make up for lost time, wouldn’t we like to do it? The moment we begin to see self -sabotaging, self-defeating patterns or self-worth issues, we need to stop and ask ourselves, “Where did these come from?” You don’t need a doctor unless your wounds are caused by extreme situations. You can heal yourself by setting aside quiet time, each and every day and deliberately quietening those negative voices in your head. Get into your meditative state and address your inner child, go back to those blocked memories; they do take a while to come out, talk to your inner child, heal her/him from shame and fear, show her/him love and thank her/him for walking down the path with you. Believe me, it helps.

Another method is to write letters to every single person who has impacted you in your life and thank them for the positives and lash out at them for the negatives, with all your heart and then forgive them and set yourself free. Once you have done this (and it may be draining but you will feel light afterwards), tear the letter. Repeat it if you have to, till there is nothing but love left in your heart for yourself and then for everybody else. We don’t realize our energy blocks and most of us have no place for this “nonsense” in the “real world” but what we don’t understand is that unless we make place and set aside time for our own healing we will never get past negative patterns and a self- limiting life.

The people we love the most, hurt us the most because we show them our vulnerable side but they are also the ones who help us let the light in. After all, they don’t hurt us deliberately to cause pain. They have their own issues that we have no idea about.

In the future, I will talk about twin flames and soulmates, karmic relationships and soul tribe, as I understand it and how this mystical aspect of the unknown is uncanny in its accuracy and great to help you heal. And romantic as it may sound, some of this can be really painful and brutal but it is all headed in one direction for that final outcome which is not union with our ultimate divine masculine/divine feminine(sorry to break that romantic bubble) but to stand in our own power, as the best version of ourselves!