February 10, 2020 • 34 mins
So often, we're living life on autopilot. Our actions, the way we think, how we respond to things... it's often being run by something we may not even know we have, but can impact us as adults: our inner child and childhood trauma.
The things that happen to us at an early age can really be cemented into our inner core when we didn't even realize it. These things can affect the patterns we see in ourselves as adults later down the road.
If you find yourself stuck or find some really bad habits tough to break as an adult, there's a good chance something happened in your past that is helping you stay in that cycle.
Dan is here to help you get out of it.
In this episode, Dan will talk about...
- The neuroscience behind the inner child.
- The cure for 99% of the patterns and problems that we have as adults.
- The three types of childhood trauma that most of us encounter and how it shows up as we become adults.
- The five inner child archetypes that show up in adulthood and keep us stuck.
Register for Dan's upcoming training session at http://amplify.danmasoncoaching.com/blueprint
Join Dan's Life Amplified Facebook Tribe! facebook.com/groups/lifeamplified
Follow Dan on Instagram for daily tips and motivation: @cscdanmason
To learn more about Dan and his one-on-one coaching programs, visit creativesoulcoaching.net
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Dan is already shaping up to be another
year of overwork and overwhelm in your life. Have you
promised yourself that you would slow down at work as
soon as you finished the next project or met the
next deadline, only to bury yourself in a new project.
Your deadline that's eating up your time are the hours
you're spending attached to your smartphone or laptop, keeping you
(00:23):
from creating deeper, more soulful relationships with your friends and family.
If so, I'm inviting you to join me February twelve
for a free live master class called the Life Work Blueprint.
In this interactive Q and A training, I'm gonna help
you understand why advice like work Smarter not Harder isn't
(00:43):
working for you and finally unlocked the underlying subconscious reasons
that you are overworked. Plus, I'm going to give you
a special six step blueprint to be more successful by
working less and creating more balance and freedom at home
and at work. I'd love to see you in this
training February twelve. Do it for yourself, do it for
(01:06):
your family, Do it for your employer, so that you're
bringing your most lit up, focused, energized self into the
office and bringing that energy back home to the people
that you love. You can get the link in the
show notes. I'll see you February twelve for the Life
Work Blueprint master Class and now episode ninety two. Do
(01:28):
you have an eight year old running your life? I'll
explain what I mean coming up next. My name is
Dan Mason. I was overweight, getting divorced, battling depression, and
feeling trapped in a career where I was successful, but
bored and unfulfilled. And it's actually the greatest gift I've
ever been given. I use my pain as a springboard
(01:49):
to discover my life's purpose. Now I want to share
the same tools and strategies which helped transform my life
with you so you can live life and plify. Paulo Quello,
one of my favorite authors, has this quote. He says,
hold the hand of the child that lives in your soul.
For this child, nothing is impossible. Hello, and welcome back
(02:12):
everybody to Life Amplified. Congratulations for taking a few minutes
out of your day to improve yourself and work on
your personal growth. And from the bottom of my heart,
thank you for making this podcast a vehicle in which
you're doing that. It means the world to me. And
this is a topic that I believe will provide so
much value for you, especially if you're a person who
(02:34):
has just been running the same patterns over and over
in your life and you don't know why you aren't
taking new action. If you're a person with a big
dream in your life but you don't go for it.
If you're a person who plays small, if you're prone
to over the top emotional outburst at home with the
(02:55):
people that you love, or conversely, you're a person who
shuts down and collapse says on yourself. If self expression
is a challenge for you and you put on a
mask to be what other people want you to be,
or if you're like me and you can be prone
to having a stick up your butt sometimes and just
can't engage in fun activities, well, these are all signs
(03:18):
that you have some inner child work that needs to
be addressed. Full disclosure, I am a guy who really
resisted the idea of the inner child for so long.
I thought that that was some psychobabble nonsense. I pushed
away from doing any of that work around healing that
part of myself. And as Joseph Campbell says, the cave
(03:38):
that you're afraid to enter is usually the one that
will lead you to freedom. So coming up in this episode,
here are my intentions. Number one, I want to give
you an actual definition for what the inner child is,
not in some Granola Newage proofers sort of way, but
actually talk about the neuroscience involved about why we disconnect
(04:02):
from the wounded part of ourselves as children. We're gonna
talk about what is the cure for of the patterns
and problems that we have as adults. I'll talk about
the three different types of childhood trauma that most of
us encounter in our early years and how that affects
us as adults. And we're gonna talk about the five
inner child archetypes that show up in adulthood and keep
(04:26):
us stuck. Imagine with me for a moment that you're
getting ready to leave for work in the morning, and
you get out to your car and you got your
coffee and you're looking for your car keys, and an
eight year old child walks up to you and starts
to boss you around and tell you everything that you
need to get done that day. What would you do,
some idiot eight year old kid you'd be like, shut up, kid,
(04:47):
I got this, I'm gonna handle this. I appreciate your inputs.
You might not even be mean to the child, but
you would set a boundary and be like, look, I'm
a grown ass adults, I know what I need to
get done today. You go over there and go play
in the sandbox. But the thing is is, if you
are stuck in any aspect of your life, what's really
(05:10):
going on from a subconscious level is there is an
eight year old part of you that is running the show.
If you continue to get into the relationships with the
same type of person and date the same person in
different shoes, well, an eight year old part of you
is choosing that. If you're a person who is overworked
and overwhelmed in the office, and you're always saying yes
(05:33):
to your boss, but you're usually saying no to yourself,
it is because a childhood version of you is making
that decision unconsciously. If it's time for you to speak
up and voice your opinion in the office, in that
corporate meeting in the conference room, but you want to
check in engage the room to make sure it's safe
(05:54):
and that it's okay for you to speak up so
you don't rock the boat. That is a childhood version
of you that is showing up in your career. And
depending on how you learn to get your needs met
as a child, it's also going to inform how you
show up. Are you a person goes straight to anger
and throws temper tantrums where people walk on eggshells around you?
(06:17):
Are you a person who shuts down, isolates and goes
into the turtle shell as a means of survival. Again,
all related to the inner child. The reason we get
stuck in any emotional situation or find ourselves repeating a
pattern is because as a child, we were stuck in
a similar circumstance that generated the same emotion. Now, usually
(06:39):
as a child we learned that we have to bury
that emotion. But the problem is is the repression gets
carried with us into adult life, so we drag that
suppressed emotional energy with us. So being stuck as a
child means that you are going to get stuck as
an adult. And the problem is is repression over a
(06:59):
number of years will equal depression, And up until now
you might have tried to take medication for it. We're
all looking for the prescription answer for what is really
a spiritual problem. This is why when you look at
the data, eight percent of people who are on antidepressant
still suffer depression because we never really get to the
root cause of what's going on. And a lot of
(07:21):
times the root cause is all locked away with that
subconscious part of ourselves, the inner child that we buried.
So the first thing we'll start out talking about today
is what is the inner child. It is the part
of your psyche that retains its innocence, its creativity, it's
awe and it's wonder toward life. And most of us
(07:42):
do not live connected to that part of ourselves. And
and if you're wondering, am I connected to my inner child?
Here's the best way to know. Do you feel excited, invigorated, playful,
and inspired? Is you go through your interactions day today
or are you a person that may you're feeling a
little lethargic, stagnant, board empty. That's a sign that you're disconnected.
(08:07):
I promised you a little bit of neuroscience on this.
How is it that we end up disconnecting from that
part of ourselves. One of the things that you need
to understand is that our emotional foundation comes from the
early years, like when we are newborn up until the
time that we're about seven to eight years old. During
that period of our life, we live in a theta
(08:29):
brain wave state. Now, in Layman's terms, imagine just walking
around living in a deep meditative state most of the time.
Most people who are active meditators are trying to get
to that Theta state, but we don't have to. Is children,
up until age eight, we live there most of the time. Now,
that number fluctuates a little bit depending on your emotional
(08:52):
or psychological situation. So here's the good news. As a child,
you're living in a pretty meditative state. The downside is
that you're being in a meditative state because a child
absorbs everything up until about eight years old, because there
is no development in the brain or ability to reason.
(09:12):
So an example is is if your father yelled at
you as a child, you don't have the capacity to say,
you know what, Dad's having a bad day. There's a
lot of pressure at work. It's not my fault. What
happens is is you get shattered by that energy. You
believe that it's your fault, and there is an emotional
reaction to the situation. Typically, if you grew up at
(09:34):
a home where you got yelled at or there was
a withholding of love. Fear would be a common reaction
for other people. That could be confusion, disbelief, but there
is an unpleasant energy attached to that, and to survive,
we protect ourselves by immediately suppressing the reactive emotion. It
(09:55):
just gets pushed away back into the warehouse of the
unconscious mind, and it can there for a period of time.
So when these things happen over an extended period of time,
we repress it further and further, and it pretty much
just creates a child and eventually an adult who lives
stuck into anxiety or fear. So when you face those
(10:16):
same situations as an adult, there is so much emotional
baggage built up, emotion on top of emotion on top
of emotion. The worst the situation gets and our reactions
as an adult will be out of proportion to the
current event that we're facing. If you're a person who's
ever experienced road rage, if you lash out in scream,
(10:38):
but if you think of these people who've been in situations,
what do they say, Well, something came over me and
I had no control over my actions. You know, so
if there's a huge amount of suppressed pain that is
built into rage, the actions may become out of control. Now,
you know, having a parent who yelled at you often
is just one example. Let's talk about some other ways
(11:00):
that you might have been made to feel unsafe as
a child. You might not have been allowed to speak
up and have your own opinions. Did you grow up
in a home where you were told children should be
seen not heard. Were you punished when you tried to
speak up or act differently? Maybe you were a little
bit more eccentric and creative and your parents told you
(11:20):
to stop being weird. You might have been discouraged from
playing or having fun. Did you grow up in a
home where there was a little room for spontaneity and
that was not encouraged or allowed. Were you not allowed
to show strong emotions such as anger or joy? How
many times have I talked to clients as adults who
(11:41):
were told as children, And this is a big one,
especially from my female clients. You know, if they went
into an emotional fit and cried, a lot of times
dad was like, well shut up, you're being a little girl.
Well yeah, no, ship, dad, I am a little girl.
But then in those moments, they really cut off that
feminine energy, emotional part of themselves. There are other men
(12:04):
who were emasculated as little boys for crying, you know,
the archetype of the tough guys guy dad who told
the little boy, well, you know you're soft, you're being
a pushover, you're being a baby. These are all examples
of ways that we weren't allowed to feel safe. You
might have been shamed by parents or family members. You
(12:24):
may have been verbally criticized or abused, physically punished or abused. Uh.
You might have been a person who was made to
feel responsible for your parents and their level of happiness.
And that was a big theme growing up in my life.
You know, I've been talking a lot about workaholism and
the effects not just on the individual, but on the family.
(12:46):
You know, I had a father who was very focused
on his career. And even though my dad was a
great man, he was always when he came home. He
was always at my school events. He always had w
w E wrestling tickets. But there wasn't a lot of
bandwidth left to give to my mother because he was
always working and he was traveling. My mom struggled so
(13:07):
much with her own mental health that she began looking
to her children to make her feel safe, which is
the complete opposite of what a healthy childhood should be.
So as my mom, you know, who already had mental
health struggles, began to come unhinged, I believed at an
early age that it was my place to walk on eggshells,
(13:27):
that I had to shut up, that I had to
do what mom needed because I just had to keep
her stable. And that was a pattern that totally took
over in my relationships into adulthood. You know, where I
would lose myself and be focused on pleasing someone else. So,
you know, ask yourself, is that any of these dynamics
that play out in your life also just a lack
(13:49):
of physical affection. By the way, if you didn't grow
up in a place where there was a lot of touch, hugs, kisses, cuddles,
these are all signs that you weren't safe as a
kid and that your inner child was damaged. If we
want to break it down, there are pretty much three
types of childhood trauma. There was the emotional neglect, where
(14:11):
your parents didn't really have a strong interest in your
emotional needs for love or protection or guidance. They might
have just been working all the time trying to keep
food on the table. And if that was a situation
for you, typically that is the groundwork for somebody who
developed low self worth and low self esteem. So that
(14:31):
is a place where the inner child gets wounded, and
a lot of times you just ignore your own emotional
needs because you believe that you're either needy or flat
out wrong for having needs. Now, the second sort of
neglect that goes on is psychological, and that's when your
parents or caretakers failed to listen to, or embrace or
(14:51):
nurture the person that you were. And the third sort
of childhood trauma that we go through is the physical neglect.
So at the most basic level, physical safety and nourishment.
If we think about this, physical safety and nourishment are
the most intrinsic elements of a loving relationship. You see
(15:11):
that in nature if you ever watch Animal Planet, where
you get like, you know, the mothers and fathers nourishing
their pups and their cubs with food, shelter, and protection.
But if this was lacking for you as a child,
then absolutely it's going to cause some inner child issues. Again,
low self worth, intense safety seeking behaviors. You know, this
(15:34):
is where some of the complexities like O c D
will show up, or people who engage in extreme risk
taking behaviors. By the way, many addictions can sprawl out
of that physical neglect UH and many times sexual issues
as well. You know, So if you didn't feel physically safe,
this is where people, you know, particularly if they grew
(15:55):
up in a home with sexual abuse, there's some sort
of dysfunction. Either you shut down and become cold and
cut off physically, or you can become promiscuous. While there
is variance in the three types of abuse and trauma
that we experience as children, what it really creates as
an adult or sort of five inner child archetypes that
(16:17):
get in the way and keep us stuck. Remember, there
is part of you that you've got. You learn how
to get your needs met one way or the other.
The question is is whether you're doing it in ways
that lifts you up and empower you or ways that
disempower you. So Dr Joe Weber has UH these five
archetypes that she discusses is being ways that the inner
(16:38):
child seeks approval and attention as an adult. Number one,
you become the either tantrum king or queen. Think of
the child. Every time that they don't get what they want,
they cry, they scream, they throw themselves on the floor,
you know, kick their legs, and this can manifest an
adulthood where there can be huge emotional outburst whenever we
(16:59):
hear no from a partner or from a family member.
If people in your life believe that they have to
walk on eggshells around you, you very well might be
playing out the tantrum archetype. And if you are a
person who is prone to go straight to anger or
rage or acting out, so helpful that when you feel
(17:20):
yourself activated, you can feel that anger come up, but
don't respond from that place. Take ten minutes, go to
another room, take the dog on a walk, go take
a shower, do something just to get away for a
moment before you act on that impulse. And then after
you've stepped away, then you can revisit the original feeling
(17:44):
and see if you can either let it go or
communicate it in a less intense manner. Now, the second
archetype of the inner child is the manipulator. Think about
this as if you're a parent, you know how good
little kids are Tricking adults into giving them what they want.
You know, they will rationalize with you all day, I
have been good all day, therefore you need to give
(18:04):
me blank. Uh. They'll find ways to get adult sympathy
so that they will receive the things that they want.
It was really interesting for me growing up as I was,
you know, putting together these notes and reflecting back on
my own childhood. If there were times that I knew
that my mom was unhinged, I would look for ways
to get sympathy, to deflect away from the anger, hoping
(18:28):
somebody would swoop in and rescue me. And this is
almost sort of embarrassing to admit, but I remember being
the kid who, at five six years old, would try
to jump off the top of the monkey bars, hoping
that I would break my leg or break my arm,
because if I could do that, maybe it would distract
Mom from being in a temperamental place and she would
(18:50):
come and love me and rescue me. And you know,
as much as I jumped off like my playhouse or
off the monkey bars, I could never seem to make
it happen, Thank God, and hindsight right could have been
seriously injured. But there are places in our adult lives
where we can manufacture a sense of trying to be
rescued is a way to manipulate people into showing up
(19:13):
for us. Many people out there confuse pity with love
and we'll take it, you know, We'll take it however
we can get it. So how does this play out
in adulthood other ways? Many people use manipulation as a
way to get every need gratified, and it's really just
a way to avoid being direct with people. If this
(19:34):
resonates with you where you might be a manipulator, you
want to be able to talk more directly with your
partners about what you need and why, which also means
you need to be emotionally present with yourself. Many times
we don't speak up and ask for our needs because
we don't even know what they are. You know, if
you're disconnected from your inner child, you're just not in
(19:54):
a place of feeling anyway. You suppress feelings, and when
you're when you don't know how you've feel, it's hard
to know what it is that you need in those moments.
Third archetype that I want to talk about today, this
is what Dr Joe Webber calls the good soldier. This
is a person who is so intolerant of conflict or
upset at home or at work that they continually put
(20:17):
on the brave or happy face even when their internal
feelings are more complicated. So think of a child whose
home life is really out of control and hostile, but
at school the child appears functional, incompetent. One of my
clients was telling me recently about growing up with a
mother who had a bad drinking problem, and mom would
pass out in the car while dad was driving the
(20:39):
family home, and it would be the dead minnial winter,
and dad would just leave her in the car, and
the child was just so afraid she'd have to sneak
out of the house and take three blankets and put
them on top of her mother in the car until
she woke up, but then had to go into school
the next day and pretend as if nothing was wrong.
You know, that was a big architect. It came up
(21:00):
in my life also. I very much relate to this
as a kid, when you know, my dad was traveling
and mom was unhinged, and there was a lot of
physical abuse in the house. I was the kid that
went into school and became the class clown. You know,
I would do stand up at the school talent shows
and really try to put on a mask. Usually being
the funny guy is a way to avoid vulnerability. So
(21:23):
good soldiers are afraid of conflict. Another way that they
can do this, by the way, it is just burying
themselves in work and working hard to make other people happy.
That's a way to circumvent your own needs. And again
a great cure here. If you are a person who
is a good soldier, you've got to find some safe
(21:43):
relationships in your life, some places where you can be
more real, and your adult relationships where you can open
up and really start to communicate about how you feel.
For the archetype we're going to talk about today when
it comes to inner child, this is the rebel without
a cause. Think of all the times that you get
a little defiance. Normally when a client comes to me
(22:04):
and they express a huge goal that they want to
go after, we have to start putting some structure in
their life to help them make time for the goal.
And you would be surprised how many people push back
and rebel against this. So many people avoid structure because
the caretakers who should have put structure in their place
growing up didn't do a good job of making them
(22:27):
feel safe. So actually the idea of structure means I'm
losing myself and I'm not safe at a subconscious level.
Now we can actually take this to the extreme when
we talk about sabotage behaviors, people who get into substance abuse,
who might have multiple sexual partners and be promiscuous. But
(22:48):
like you know, I'm not talking about the people out
there who were in the ethical non monogamous group, but
the people who are leading a double live and sneaking around.
They are all sorts of ways. You know, binge eating
was a big way for me back in the day.
But when somebody feels bored, upset, or frustrated, instead of
(23:08):
talking it out, they act out behaviorally, and that is
a big sign that you might be the rebel without
a cause. If you're a rebel, the problem is is
if you continue down that path, you're going to burn
out physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually. So you want to start
to become your own parents and tell yourself know that
(23:31):
things that are going to make you feel worse after
the fact. Now, Dr Joe Weber gives those four archetypes,
but there's one that I believe is missing that I
see come up with so many clients, and that would
be the invisible archetype. If the thought of speaking up,
of being seen, of being experienced in the world, of
being witnessed is such a threat to the inner child,
(23:54):
then we will go invisible. We go into the turtle shell,
We isolate, shut down, and there are many behaviors for
that as well. There's the people who become shut ins
and never leave the house. There are the people who
will work compulsively because they just don't even want to
go home, you know, to be in a situation where
they might have to speak up. But typically these are
(24:17):
people who just isolate, withdraw and collapse on themselves. You know,
I know that the rebel without a cause can lead
to many dangerous behaviors. But when we look at the
effects of loneliness and isolation and all of the statistics
that are out there that it's really the same as
smoking twenty eight cigarettes a day. According to research, this
(24:39):
is such a dangerous pattern for people. Dr Stephen Porges
is the one that has the quote that says safety
is the cure. So having a relationship even with if
it's with a coach or therapist that you can open
up to at first, but certainly building out some safe
social connections corregulating with other people. Happiness is an experience
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that requires more than one person. More often than not,
we do better in connection to other people, because when
you're isolated over an extended period of time is when
we really start getting into the things of suicidal ideation,
uh and people, which, by the way, one of the
best definitions I've heard of suicide in the past years.
Somebody actually referred to it as abandonment depression, which I
(25:26):
think so succinctly encapsulates what's really going on under the
hood of the car and tremendous empathy for the person
who is the isolator because they learned growing up that
nobody is going to have my back if I cry out,
nobody's gonna come answer for me. And while that may
have been an experience in childhood, it's only because your
(25:47):
parents a couldn't accept the responsibility of being a parent
or being more than likely they didn't know how to
meet the needs of their child, because your parents were
probably ineffective of meeting their own needs. So I'm curious
which of those five archetypes resonates more. For you would
love to continue this conversation, you can join us in
(26:07):
our Facebook group, the Life Amplified Power Tribe and let
me know there. You know, you can talk to me
directly there in the Facebook group. So the question is
is how do you begin to acknowledge and reconnect to
this lost part of yourself? Number one, I would suggest
you get some professional help with it. This is something
(26:28):
where you really need a trauma and form coach, or
you need a therapist or a professional somebody who has
done this work. I'm so grateful that I get to
do this with my clients because I've spent many years
doing it on myself. So there's no one size fits
all here, But there's a couple actionable steps that I
would tell you would be the best place to start.
(26:50):
Number one, can you create a storyboard of your childhood?
If you took out a piece of paper and almost
made a timeline where you broke it out into your
infant self from zero to twelve months, the toddler version
of you from one to three years, the preschool part
of yourself from three to six, and the school itself
(27:12):
you know, from six years old to puberty. If you
could start to look and just go back and do
your best to remember how did you feel at each
stage of your life? What was life like? Were you saved,
did you feel supported? How accepted did you feel? Keeping
in mind that feeling safe as a kid didn't always
(27:32):
have to do with the family environment. You might have
had very wonderful parents who did their best, but you
went to school and you got bullied or picked on there.
Maybe you had some siblings that we're acting out and
we're very threatening to you. So let's get clear on
what those memories are. What are the physical sensations, What
do you feel in your body? Is you go back
(27:55):
and think about these parts of your life, start jotting
down any memories that come up, and any emotionally charged
material that comes up at a certain age range, that
is something that you should absolutely speak to a licensed
professional on. You can also, by the way, go back
and write a letter to your inner child. You know,
(28:17):
part of what we talk about in self help and
in mental health is reparenting and becoming that inner protector
to the wounded part of yourself that you never had
growing up. So imagine you now is a more wise
and loving you know, the fairy Godmother archetype. Imagine that
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you could go and adopt that inner child. Could you
write a letter telling you how lovable that version of
you is, how much you want to spend time with them,
and write the letter in a way that makes you
feel safe, cared for and understood. The other variation that
you could do on this, by the way, is to
write a letter from your inner child to you. There
was one piece of advice I saw online about this
(29:00):
that said, you can write that letter with your non
dominant hand so that you can bypass the logical side
of the brain. But really coming from the perspective of
your inner child, Um, what were your inner child's needs?
What did it want? You know? Did it not want
to feel alone? Didn't want to feel protected? Right? And
you can write back and forth, by the way, from
the higher version of yourself to the inner child and
(29:23):
begin to just acknowledge. Right, one of the big things
when there is a wounded inner child, as we are
disconnected emotionally, we are living in the logical side of
our brain and we have given up feeling. And the
problem is is when you are out of touch and
you're suppressed from an emotional level, you're also suppressed from
your intuition, which is why you stay stuck. You can't
(29:44):
access the wisest part of yourself to take the next
step forward in your life. And then also you want
to be able to share this pain and the things
that you uncover with a trusted professional, get a trauma
informed coach, get a mentor find somebody who can hold
space for that. You need an empathetic witness to validate
(30:06):
these parts of you in a very loving, compassionate way.
Whatever you do, and I guess I should add this,
whatever you do, it's not a good idea to share
these letters and some of these raw emotions that come
up with the family members, particularly if there are people
who have proven over and over again that they cannot
show up for you in the way that you need.
(30:29):
This is just a groundwork. It is not a cure all.
It is the first step on a very long journey
to getting unstuck. It is the first step in a
long journey to self love. It is the first step
in a long journey to reconnecting to the parts of
yourself that you have disowned but now are crying to
(30:49):
be integrated and to be loved and to be healed.
So I hope this serves you a couple of key points.
To remember that before the age of eight, you were
living in a fat brain wave state. So basically everything
that happened around you, both the messages that were said,
the things that were unsaid, both the things that happened
to you and the things that you observed just in
(31:11):
the dynamics between your parents and your family. You were
a sponge for all of it. You took it all
in unfiltered and you made some certain meanings about what
life is, what life can be, and what life can't be.
Safety is the cure for your inner child. You know.
We talked about the three types of emotional trauma. We
(31:32):
talked about those five different archetypes that could keep you
stuck and by the way, you might resonate with more
than one of them. Would love to hear your AHA
moments in our private Facebook group. And finally, we gave
you the three best strategies that I have to help
you take the first step to moving beyond it. This
is the most important work that you will do. This
(31:54):
is coming from a man who again used to mock
the idea of inner child. I just thought it was
so granola life, coachy, b as sort of stuff until
I had to do the work myself. You know, I
had to reach the point of emotional collapse and I
had to walk through that dark night of the soul
(32:15):
before I realized that there was just part of me
that needed to be loved and reconnected to. And it's
an honor for me right now to help my clients
through this work. So if it's something where you need
some mentorship, if you need some advice, if there is
part of you that feels disconnected from who you really are,
that you know what you do every day, but you
don't know who you are, it's a great time to
(32:36):
get a coach. I do have some spots open. You
can register right now and apply from one on one
v I P coaching. Go to Creative Soul Coaching dot
net for info on that. Also, don't forget February twelve
a live master class with me. It is absolutely free.
The Life Work Balanced Blueprint. And why do I talk
(32:58):
about this inner child stuff because it will absolutely show
up in your career. The part of you that you
have separated from, that you have disavowed from, that is
seeking approval, that wants to be loved, that wants to
be liked. That might be overworking because you don't trust
other people to delegate to. Maybe you don't work well
(33:18):
in a team. Whichever extreme you fall on, it's all
related to these same issues. So we're gonna be doing
a really deep dive on that and specifically about how
it a fix the balance of your life, coming up
February twelve. I would love to see you for that.
We have the link to register in the show notes.
Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with
me this week. If you love the podcast, please leave
(33:41):
us those five star ratings and reviews up on Apple
helps us with the algorithm, or you can give us
a follow here on the I Heart Radio app or
whichever platform you're listening on, and you can also screenshot
the podcast uploaded to Instagram or Twitter. Tagmate at c
SC Dan Mason. In the meantime, turned to the volume
on your negativity, Turn up the volume on your purpose
(34:03):
so you can live life amplified. Top to you next week.
Hey, it's Dan is already shaping up to be another
year of overwork and overwhelm in your life. Have you
promised yourself that you would slow down at work as
soon as you finished the next project or met the
next deadline, only to bury yourself in a new project.
Your deadline that's eating up your time are the hours
you're spending attached to your smartphone or laptop, keeping you
(00:23):
from creating deeper, more soulful relationships with your friends and family.
If so, I'm inviting you to join me February twelve
for a free live master class called the Life Work Blueprint.
In this interactive Q and A training, I'm gonna help
you understand why advice like work Smarter not Harder isn't
(00:43):
working for you and finally unlocked the underlying subconscious reasons
that you are overworked. Plus, I'm going to give you
a special six step blueprint to be more successful by
working less and creating more balance and freedom at home
and at work. I'd love to see you in this
training February twelve. Do it for yourself, do it for
(01:06):
your family, Do it for your employer, so that you're
bringing your most lit up, focused, energized self into the
office and bringing that energy back home to the people
that you love. You can get the link in the
show notes. I'll see you February twelve for the Life
Work Blueprint master Class and now episode ninety two. Do
(01:28):
you have an eight year old running your life? I'll
explain what I mean coming up next. My name is
Dan Mason. I was overweight, getting divorced, battling depression, and
feeling trapped in a career where I was successful, but
bored and unfulfilled. And it's actually the greatest gift I've
ever been given. I use my pain as a springboard
(01:49):
to discover my life's purpose. Now I want to share
the same tools and strategies which helped transform my life
with you so you can live life and plify. Paulo Quello,
one of my favorite authors, has this quote. He says,
hold the hand of the child that lives in your soul.
For this child, nothing is impossible. Hello, and welcome back
(02:12):
everybody to Life Amplified. Congratulations for taking a few minutes
out of your day to improve yourself and work on
your personal growth. And from the bottom of my heart,
thank you for making this podcast a vehicle in which
you're doing that. It means the world to me. And
this is a topic that I believe will provide so
much value for you, especially if you're a person who
(02:34):
has just been running the same patterns over and over
in your life and you don't know why you aren't
taking new action. If you're a person with a big
dream in your life but you don't go for it.
If you're a person who plays small, if you're prone
to over the top emotional outburst at home with the
(02:55):
people that you love, or conversely, you're a person who
shuts down and collapse says on yourself. If self expression
is a challenge for you and you put on a
mask to be what other people want you to be,
or if you're like me and you can be prone
to having a stick up your butt sometimes and just
can't engage in fun activities, well, these are all signs
(03:18):
that you have some inner child work that needs to
be addressed. Full disclosure, I am a guy who really
resisted the idea of the inner child for so long.
I thought that that was some psychobabble nonsense. I pushed
away from doing any of that work around healing that
part of myself. And as Joseph Campbell says, the cave
(03:38):
that you're afraid to enter is usually the one that
will lead you to freedom. So coming up in this episode,
here are my intentions. Number one, I want to give
you an actual definition for what the inner child is,
not in some Granola Newage proofers sort of way, but
actually talk about the neuroscience involved about why we disconnect
(04:02):
from the wounded part of ourselves as children. We're gonna
talk about what is the cure for of the patterns
and problems that we have as adults. I'll talk about
the three different types of childhood trauma that most of
us encounter in our early years and how that affects
us as adults. And we're gonna talk about the five
inner child archetypes that show up in adulthood and keep
(04:26):
us stuck. Imagine with me for a moment that you're
getting ready to leave for work in the morning, and
you get out to your car and you got your
coffee and you're looking for your car keys, and an
eight year old child walks up to you and starts
to boss you around and tell you everything that you
need to get done that day. What would you do,
some idiot eight year old kid you'd be like, shut up, kid,
(04:47):
I got this, I'm gonna handle this. I appreciate your inputs.
You might not even be mean to the child, but
you would set a boundary and be like, look, I'm
a grown ass adults, I know what I need to
get done today. You go over there and go play
in the sandbox. But the thing is is, if you
are stuck in any aspect of your life, what's really
(05:10):
going on from a subconscious level is there is an
eight year old part of you that is running the show.
If you continue to get into the relationships with the
same type of person and date the same person in
different shoes, well, an eight year old part of you
is choosing that. If you're a person who is overworked
and overwhelmed in the office, and you're always saying yes
(05:33):
to your boss, but you're usually saying no to yourself,
it is because a childhood version of you is making
that decision unconsciously. If it's time for you to speak
up and voice your opinion in the office, in that
corporate meeting in the conference room, but you want to
check in engage the room to make sure it's safe
(05:54):
and that it's okay for you to speak up so
you don't rock the boat. That is a childhood version
of you that is showing up in your career. And
depending on how you learn to get your needs met
as a child, it's also going to inform how you
show up. Are you a person goes straight to anger
and throws temper tantrums where people walk on eggshells around you?
(06:17):
Are you a person who shuts down, isolates and goes
into the turtle shell as a means of survival. Again,
all related to the inner child. The reason we get
stuck in any emotional situation or find ourselves repeating a
pattern is because as a child, we were stuck in
a similar circumstance that generated the same emotion. Now, usually
(06:39):
as a child we learned that we have to bury
that emotion. But the problem is is the repression gets
carried with us into adult life, so we drag that
suppressed emotional energy with us. So being stuck as a
child means that you are going to get stuck as
an adult. And the problem is is repression over a
(06:59):
number of years will equal depression, And up until now
you might have tried to take medication for it. We're
all looking for the prescription answer for what is really
a spiritual problem. This is why when you look at
the data, eight percent of people who are on antidepressant
still suffer depression because we never really get to the
root cause of what's going on. And a lot of
(07:21):
times the root cause is all locked away with that
subconscious part of ourselves, the inner child that we buried.
So the first thing we'll start out talking about today
is what is the inner child. It is the part
of your psyche that retains its innocence, its creativity, it's
awe and it's wonder toward life. And most of us
(07:42):
do not live connected to that part of ourselves. And
and if you're wondering, am I connected to my inner child?
Here's the best way to know. Do you feel excited, invigorated, playful,
and inspired? Is you go through your interactions day today
or are you a person that may you're feeling a
little lethargic, stagnant, board empty. That's a sign that you're disconnected.
(08:07):
I promised you a little bit of neuroscience on this.
How is it that we end up disconnecting from that
part of ourselves. One of the things that you need
to understand is that our emotional foundation comes from the
early years, like when we are newborn up until the
time that we're about seven to eight years old. During
that period of our life, we live in a theta
(08:29):
brain wave state. Now, in Layman's terms, imagine just walking
around living in a deep meditative state most of the time.
Most people who are active meditators are trying to get
to that Theta state, but we don't have to. Is children,
up until age eight, we live there most of the time. Now,
that number fluctuates a little bit depending on your emotional
(08:52):
or psychological situation. So here's the good news. As a child,
you're living in a pretty meditative state. The downside is
that you're being in a meditative state because a child
absorbs everything up until about eight years old, because there
is no development in the brain or ability to reason.
(09:12):
So an example is is if your father yelled at
you as a child, you don't have the capacity to say,
you know what, Dad's having a bad day. There's a
lot of pressure at work. It's not my fault. What
happens is is you get shattered by that energy. You
believe that it's your fault, and there is an emotional
reaction to the situation. Typically, if you grew up at
(09:34):
a home where you got yelled at or there was
a withholding of love. Fear would be a common reaction
for other people. That could be confusion, disbelief, but there
is an unpleasant energy attached to that, and to survive,
we protect ourselves by immediately suppressing the reactive emotion. It
(09:55):
just gets pushed away back into the warehouse of the
unconscious mind, and it can there for a period of time.
So when these things happen over an extended period of time,
we repress it further and further, and it pretty much
just creates a child and eventually an adult who lives
stuck into anxiety or fear. So when you face those
(10:16):
same situations as an adult, there is so much emotional
baggage built up, emotion on top of emotion on top
of emotion. The worst the situation gets and our reactions
as an adult will be out of proportion to the
current event that we're facing. If you're a person who's
ever experienced road rage, if you lash out in scream,
(10:38):
but if you think of these people who've been in situations,
what do they say, Well, something came over me and
I had no control over my actions. You know, so
if there's a huge amount of suppressed pain that is
built into rage, the actions may become out of control. Now,
you know, having a parent who yelled at you often
is just one example. Let's talk about some other ways
(11:00):
that you might have been made to feel unsafe as
a child. You might not have been allowed to speak
up and have your own opinions. Did you grow up
in a home where you were told children should be
seen not heard. Were you punished when you tried to
speak up or act differently? Maybe you were a little
bit more eccentric and creative and your parents told you
(11:20):
to stop being weird. You might have been discouraged from
playing or having fun. Did you grow up in a
home where there was a little room for spontaneity and
that was not encouraged or allowed. Were you not allowed
to show strong emotions such as anger or joy? How
many times have I talked to clients as adults who
(11:41):
were told as children, And this is a big one,
especially from my female clients. You know, if they went
into an emotional fit and cried, a lot of times
dad was like, well shut up, you're being a little girl.
Well yeah, no, ship, dad, I am a little girl.
But then in those moments, they really cut off that
feminine energy, emotional part of themselves. There are other men
(12:04):
who were emasculated as little boys for crying, you know,
the archetype of the tough guys guy dad who told
the little boy, well, you know you're soft, you're being
a pushover, you're being a baby. These are all examples
of ways that we weren't allowed to feel safe. You
might have been shamed by parents or family members. You
(12:24):
may have been verbally criticized or abused, physically punished or abused. Uh.
You might have been a person who was made to
feel responsible for your parents and their level of happiness.
And that was a big theme growing up in my life.
You know, I've been talking a lot about workaholism and
the effects not just on the individual, but on the family.
(12:46):
You know, I had a father who was very focused
on his career. And even though my dad was a
great man, he was always when he came home. He
was always at my school events. He always had w
w E wrestling tickets. But there wasn't a lot of
bandwidth left to give to my mother because he was
always working and he was traveling. My mom struggled so
(13:07):
much with her own mental health that she began looking
to her children to make her feel safe, which is
the complete opposite of what a healthy childhood should be.
So as my mom, you know, who already had mental
health struggles, began to come unhinged, I believed at an
early age that it was my place to walk on eggshells,
(13:27):
that I had to shut up, that I had to
do what mom needed because I just had to keep
her stable. And that was a pattern that totally took
over in my relationships into adulthood. You know, where I
would lose myself and be focused on pleasing someone else. So,
you know, ask yourself, is that any of these dynamics
that play out in your life also just a lack
(13:49):
of physical affection. By the way, if you didn't grow
up in a place where there was a lot of touch, hugs, kisses, cuddles,
these are all signs that you weren't safe as a
kid and that your inner child was damaged. If we
want to break it down, there are pretty much three
types of childhood trauma. There was the emotional neglect, where
(14:11):
your parents didn't really have a strong interest in your
emotional needs for love or protection or guidance. They might
have just been working all the time trying to keep
food on the table. And if that was a situation
for you, typically that is the groundwork for somebody who
developed low self worth and low self esteem. So that
(14:31):
is a place where the inner child gets wounded, and
a lot of times you just ignore your own emotional
needs because you believe that you're either needy or flat
out wrong for having needs. Now, the second sort of
neglect that goes on is psychological, and that's when your
parents or caretakers failed to listen to, or embrace or
(14:51):
nurture the person that you were. And the third sort
of childhood trauma that we go through is the physical neglect.
So at the most basic level, physical safety and nourishment.
If we think about this, physical safety and nourishment are
the most intrinsic elements of a loving relationship. You see
(15:11):
that in nature if you ever watch Animal Planet, where
you get like, you know, the mothers and fathers nourishing
their pups and their cubs with food, shelter, and protection.
But if this was lacking for you as a child,
then absolutely it's going to cause some inner child issues. Again,
low self worth, intense safety seeking behaviors. You know, this
(15:34):
is where some of the complexities like O c D
will show up, or people who engage in extreme risk
taking behaviors. By the way, many addictions can sprawl out
of that physical neglect UH and many times sexual issues
as well. You know, So if you didn't feel physically safe,
this is where people, you know, particularly if they grew
(15:55):
up in a home with sexual abuse, there's some sort
of dysfunction. Either you shut down and become cold and
cut off physically, or you can become promiscuous. While there
is variance in the three types of abuse and trauma
that we experience as children, what it really creates as
an adult or sort of five inner child archetypes that
(16:17):
get in the way and keep us stuck. Remember, there
is part of you that you've got. You learn how
to get your needs met one way or the other.
The question is is whether you're doing it in ways
that lifts you up and empower you or ways that
disempower you. So Dr Joe Weber has UH these five
archetypes that she discusses is being ways that the inner
(16:38):
child seeks approval and attention as an adult. Number one,
you become the either tantrum king or queen. Think of
the child. Every time that they don't get what they want,
they cry, they scream, they throw themselves on the floor,
you know, kick their legs, and this can manifest an
adulthood where there can be huge emotional outburst whenever we
(16:59):
hear no from a partner or from a family member.
If people in your life believe that they have to
walk on eggshells around you, you very well might be
playing out the tantrum archetype. And if you are a
person who is prone to go straight to anger or
rage or acting out, so helpful that when you feel
(17:20):
yourself activated, you can feel that anger come up, but
don't respond from that place. Take ten minutes, go to
another room, take the dog on a walk, go take
a shower, do something just to get away for a
moment before you act on that impulse. And then after
you've stepped away, then you can revisit the original feeling
(17:44):
and see if you can either let it go or
communicate it in a less intense manner. Now, the second
archetype of the inner child is the manipulator. Think about
this as if you're a parent, you know how good
little kids are Tricking adults into giving them what they want.
You know, they will rationalize with you all day, I
have been good all day, therefore you need to give
(18:04):
me blank. Uh. They'll find ways to get adult sympathy
so that they will receive the things that they want.
It was really interesting for me growing up as I was,
you know, putting together these notes and reflecting back on
my own childhood. If there were times that I knew
that my mom was unhinged, I would look for ways
to get sympathy, to deflect away from the anger, hoping
(18:28):
somebody would swoop in and rescue me. And this is
almost sort of embarrassing to admit, but I remember being
the kid who, at five six years old, would try
to jump off the top of the monkey bars, hoping
that I would break my leg or break my arm,
because if I could do that, maybe it would distract
Mom from being in a temperamental place and she would
(18:50):
come and love me and rescue me. And you know,
as much as I jumped off like my playhouse or
off the monkey bars, I could never seem to make
it happen, Thank God, and hindsight right could have been
seriously injured. But there are places in our adult lives
where we can manufacture a sense of trying to be
rescued is a way to manipulate people into showing up
(19:13):
for us. Many people out there confuse pity with love
and we'll take it, you know, We'll take it however
we can get it. So how does this play out
in adulthood other ways? Many people use manipulation as a
way to get every need gratified, and it's really just
a way to avoid being direct with people. If this
(19:34):
resonates with you where you might be a manipulator, you
want to be able to talk more directly with your
partners about what you need and why, which also means
you need to be emotionally present with yourself. Many times
we don't speak up and ask for our needs because
we don't even know what they are. You know, if
you're disconnected from your inner child, you're just not in
(19:54):
a place of feeling anyway. You suppress feelings, and when
you're when you don't know how you've feel, it's hard
to know what it is that you need in those moments.
Third archetype that I want to talk about today, this
is what Dr Joe Webber calls the good soldier. This
is a person who is so intolerant of conflict or
upset at home or at work that they continually put
(20:17):
on the brave or happy face even when their internal
feelings are more complicated. So think of a child whose
home life is really out of control and hostile, but
at school the child appears functional, incompetent. One of my
clients was telling me recently about growing up with a
mother who had a bad drinking problem, and mom would
pass out in the car while dad was driving the
(20:39):
family home, and it would be the dead minnial winter,
and dad would just leave her in the car, and
the child was just so afraid she'd have to sneak
out of the house and take three blankets and put
them on top of her mother in the car until
she woke up, but then had to go into school
the next day and pretend as if nothing was wrong.
You know, that was a big architect. It came up
(21:00):
in my life also. I very much relate to this
as a kid, when you know, my dad was traveling
and mom was unhinged, and there was a lot of
physical abuse in the house. I was the kid that
went into school and became the class clown. You know,
I would do stand up at the school talent shows
and really try to put on a mask. Usually being
the funny guy is a way to avoid vulnerability. So
(21:23):
good soldiers are afraid of conflict. Another way that they
can do this, by the way, it is just burying
themselves in work and working hard to make other people happy.
That's a way to circumvent your own needs. And again
a great cure here. If you are a person who
is a good soldier, you've got to find some safe
(21:43):
relationships in your life, some places where you can be
more real, and your adult relationships where you can open
up and really start to communicate about how you feel.
For the archetype we're going to talk about today when
it comes to inner child, this is the rebel without
a cause. Think of all the times that you get
a little defiance. Normally when a client comes to me
(22:04):
and they express a huge goal that they want to
go after, we have to start putting some structure in
their life to help them make time for the goal.
And you would be surprised how many people push back
and rebel against this. So many people avoid structure because
the caretakers who should have put structure in their place
growing up didn't do a good job of making them
(22:27):
feel safe. So actually the idea of structure means I'm
losing myself and I'm not safe at a subconscious level.
Now we can actually take this to the extreme when
we talk about sabotage behaviors, people who get into substance abuse,
who might have multiple sexual partners and be promiscuous. But
(22:48):
like you know, I'm not talking about the people out
there who were in the ethical non monogamous group, but
the people who are leading a double live and sneaking around.
They are all sorts of ways. You know, binge eating
was a big way for me back in the day.
But when somebody feels bored, upset, or frustrated, instead of
(23:08):
talking it out, they act out behaviorally, and that is
a big sign that you might be the rebel without
a cause. If you're a rebel, the problem is is
if you continue down that path, you're going to burn
out physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually. So you want to start
to become your own parents and tell yourself know that
(23:31):
things that are going to make you feel worse after
the fact. Now, Dr Joe Weber gives those four archetypes,
but there's one that I believe is missing that I
see come up with so many clients, and that would
be the invisible archetype. If the thought of speaking up,
of being seen, of being experienced in the world, of
being witnessed is such a threat to the inner child,
(23:54):
then we will go invisible. We go into the turtle shell,
We isolate, shut down, and there are many behaviors for
that as well. There's the people who become shut ins
and never leave the house. There are the people who
will work compulsively because they just don't even want to
go home, you know, to be in a situation where
they might have to speak up. But typically these are
(24:17):
people who just isolate, withdraw and collapse on themselves. You know,
I know that the rebel without a cause can lead
to many dangerous behaviors. But when we look at the
effects of loneliness and isolation and all of the statistics
that are out there that it's really the same as
smoking twenty eight cigarettes a day. According to research, this
(24:39):
is such a dangerous pattern for people. Dr Stephen Porges
is the one that has the quote that says safety
is the cure. So having a relationship even with if
it's with a coach or therapist that you can open
up to at first, but certainly building out some safe
social connections corregulating with other people. Happiness is an experience
(25:02):
that requires more than one person. More often than not,
we do better in connection to other people, because when
you're isolated over an extended period of time is when
we really start getting into the things of suicidal ideation,
uh and people, which, by the way, one of the
best definitions I've heard of suicide in the past years.
Somebody actually referred to it as abandonment depression, which I
(25:26):
think so succinctly encapsulates what's really going on under the
hood of the car and tremendous empathy for the person
who is the isolator because they learned growing up that
nobody is going to have my back if I cry out,
nobody's gonna come answer for me. And while that may
have been an experience in childhood, it's only because your
(25:47):
parents a couldn't accept the responsibility of being a parent
or being more than likely they didn't know how to
meet the needs of their child, because your parents were
probably ineffective of meeting their own needs. So I'm curious
which of those five archetypes resonates more. For you would
love to continue this conversation, you can join us in
(26:07):
our Facebook group, the Life Amplified Power Tribe and let
me know there. You know, you can talk to me
directly there in the Facebook group. So the question is
is how do you begin to acknowledge and reconnect to
this lost part of yourself? Number one, I would suggest
you get some professional help with it. This is something
(26:28):
where you really need a trauma and form coach, or
you need a therapist or a professional somebody who has
done this work. I'm so grateful that I get to
do this with my clients because I've spent many years
doing it on myself. So there's no one size fits
all here, But there's a couple actionable steps that I
would tell you would be the best place to start.
(26:50):
Number one, can you create a storyboard of your childhood?
If you took out a piece of paper and almost
made a timeline where you broke it out into your
infant self from zero to twelve months, the toddler version
of you from one to three years, the preschool part
of yourself from three to six, and the school itself
(27:12):
you know, from six years old to puberty. If you
could start to look and just go back and do
your best to remember how did you feel at each
stage of your life? What was life like? Were you saved,
did you feel supported? How accepted did you feel? Keeping
in mind that feeling safe as a kid didn't always
(27:32):
have to do with the family environment. You might have
had very wonderful parents who did their best, but you
went to school and you got bullied or picked on there.
Maybe you had some siblings that we're acting out and
we're very threatening to you. So let's get clear on
what those memories are. What are the physical sensations, What
do you feel in your body? Is you go back
(27:55):
and think about these parts of your life, start jotting
down any memories that come up, and any emotionally charged
material that comes up at a certain age range, that
is something that you should absolutely speak to a licensed
professional on. You can also, by the way, go back
and write a letter to your inner child. You know,
(28:17):
part of what we talk about in self help and
in mental health is reparenting and becoming that inner protector
to the wounded part of yourself that you never had
growing up. So imagine you now is a more wise
and loving you know, the fairy Godmother archetype. Imagine that
(28:37):
you could go and adopt that inner child. Could you
write a letter telling you how lovable that version of
you is, how much you want to spend time with them,
and write the letter in a way that makes you
feel safe, cared for and understood. The other variation that
you could do on this, by the way, is to
write a letter from your inner child to you. There
was one piece of advice I saw online about this
(29:00):
that said, you can write that letter with your non
dominant hand so that you can bypass the logical side
of the brain. But really coming from the perspective of
your inner child, Um, what were your inner child's needs?
What did it want? You know? Did it not want
to feel alone? Didn't want to feel protected? Right? And
you can write back and forth, by the way, from
the higher version of yourself to the inner child and
(29:23):
begin to just acknowledge. Right, one of the big things
when there is a wounded inner child, as we are
disconnected emotionally, we are living in the logical side of
our brain and we have given up feeling. And the
problem is is when you are out of touch and
you're suppressed from an emotional level, you're also suppressed from
your intuition, which is why you stay stuck. You can't
(29:44):
access the wisest part of yourself to take the next
step forward in your life. And then also you want
to be able to share this pain and the things
that you uncover with a trusted professional, get a trauma
informed coach, get a mentor find somebody who can hold
space for that. You need an empathetic witness to validate
(30:06):
these parts of you in a very loving, compassionate way.
Whatever you do, and I guess I should add this,
whatever you do, it's not a good idea to share
these letters and some of these raw emotions that come
up with the family members, particularly if there are people
who have proven over and over again that they cannot
show up for you in the way that you need.
(30:29):
This is just a groundwork. It is not a cure all.
It is the first step on a very long journey
to getting unstuck. It is the first step in a
long journey to self love. It is the first step
in a long journey to reconnecting to the parts of
yourself that you have disowned but now are crying to
(30:49):
be integrated and to be loved and to be healed.
So I hope this serves you a couple of key points.
To remember that before the age of eight, you were
living in a fat brain wave state. So basically everything
that happened around you, both the messages that were said,
the things that were unsaid, both the things that happened
to you and the things that you observed just in
(31:11):
the dynamics between your parents and your family. You were
a sponge for all of it. You took it all
in unfiltered and you made some certain meanings about what
life is, what life can be, and what life can't be.
Safety is the cure for your inner child. You know.
We talked about the three types of emotional trauma. We
(31:32):
talked about those five different archetypes that could keep you
stuck and by the way, you might resonate with more
than one of them. Would love to hear your AHA
moments in our private Facebook group. And finally, we gave
you the three best strategies that I have to help
you take the first step to moving beyond it. This
is the most important work that you will do. This
(31:54):
is coming from a man who again used to mock
the idea of inner child. I just thought it was
so granola life, coachy, b as sort of stuff until
I had to do the work myself. You know, I
had to reach the point of emotional collapse and I
had to walk through that dark night of the soul
(32:15):
before I realized that there was just part of me
that needed to be loved and reconnected to. And it's
an honor for me right now to help my clients
through this work. So if it's something where you need
some mentorship, if you need some advice, if there is
part of you that feels disconnected from who you really are,
that you know what you do every day, but you
don't know who you are, it's a great time to
(32:36):
get a coach. I do have some spots open. You
can register right now and apply from one on one
v I P coaching. Go to Creative Soul Coaching dot
net for info on that. Also, don't forget February twelve
a live master class with me. It is absolutely free.
The Life Work Balanced Blueprint. And why do I talk
(32:58):
about this inner child stuff because it will absolutely show
up in your career. The part of you that you
have separated from, that you have disavowed from, that is
seeking approval, that wants to be loved, that wants to
be liked. That might be overworking because you don't trust
other people to delegate to. Maybe you don't work well
(33:18):
in a team. Whichever extreme you fall on, it's all
related to these same issues. So we're gonna be doing
a really deep dive on that and specifically about how
it a fix the balance of your life, coming up
February twelve. I would love to see you for that.
We have the link to register in the show notes.
Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with
me this week. If you love the podcast, please leave
(33:41):
us those five star ratings and reviews up on Apple
helps us with the algorithm, or you can give us
a follow here on the I Heart Radio app or
whichever platform you're listening on, and you can also screenshot
the podcast uploaded to Instagram or Twitter. Tagmate at c
SC Dan Mason. In the meantime, turned to the volume
on your negativity, Turn up the volume on your purpose
(34:03):
so you can live life amplified. Top to you next week.
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