February 6, 2022 • 53 mins
Inner child. Trauma. Reparenting. The Little Prince. In this episode, we sit down to talk about the first time that we confronted our inner child and how we rekindled that relationship. We dive into our definition of inner child and how we practice hanging out with our inner child. Angie also shares her experience with imaginary exposure therapy which exposed some of her deep inner child wounds.
Takeaways:
- Connecting with your inner child can be done by interacting with a younger version of yourself
- Don’t stop doing things you enjoyed doing as a child
- You don’t need a therapist or a counsellor to heal your inner child but you must want to do the work to heal
- Inner child wounds that go unattended can turn into toxic behaviours as adults
- We can now provide for our wounded inner child
Mentions & Resources:
- The Little Prince and You (Angie’s story)
- Le Petit Prince
- 6 Signs You Have a Wounded Inner Child (Psych2Go Youtube)
- Finding and Getting to Know Your Inner Child
- Healing Your Inner Child
- Deep Secrets and Inner Child Healing
---
The best way to support this show is by listening and sharing with a friend. If you would like to buy a coffee or bubble, you would love that too.
----
Tell us what shit YOU haven’t told your mom and be featured on our next episode!
Website: www.shitwedonttellmom.com
Send us an audio message by clicking here!
Instagram @shitwedonttellmom
Email: shitwedonttellmom@gmail.com
----
Interested in creating your own podcast?
We use Buzzsprout as our host because they seamlessly link to major podcast platforms and make it really easy to read analytics. They also have an awesome support team. Sign up today and get a $20 Amazon gift card and we get a little somethin
The best way to support this show is by listening and sharing with a friend. If you would like to buy a coffee or bubble tea, we would love that too.
----
Instagram @shitwedonttellmom
Email: shitwedonttellmom@gmail.com
Send us an audio message by clicking here!
----
We use Buzzsprout as our host because they seamlessly link to major podcast platforms and make it really easy to read analytics. They also have an awesome support team. Sign up today and get a $20 Amazon gift card!
We also use Descript as our editing software because editing with text is much easier than with soundwaves. We are not audio geniuses and want to focus our energy on creating content rather than editing. Sign up today and get your first 3 months free!
Yes these are affiliate links because we like them and we use them too.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristy Yee (00:00):
We need to have like vocal exercises before we just
like jump on, man, blah, blah,blah.
(00:31):
Hey in today's episode, we'regoing to be talking about
hanging out with our innerchild, what that means, why we
do it, how we do it, and sometips on how you might want to
reach out and hang out with yourinner child
Angie Yu (00:47):
Okay.
Welcome back to another episodeof shit.
We don't tell mom, this isAngie.
Kristy Yee (00:52):
This is Christie.
Angie Yu (00:53):
And today we're going to talk about connecting with
our inner child.
Kristy Yee (00:57):
And what does that mean?
How would you define innerchild?
First of all?
Angie Yu (01:01):
Okay.
Well, we all have a inner childbecause we were all a child
once, right.
To get to.
Kristy Yee (01:09):
Well, start.
Angie Yu (01:10):
that is a good, so scientifically, we were all a
child once, you know, butthere's a lot of like wounds
from our childhood, whether ornot you had a great childhood,
uh, kind of like typically kindof sad childhood where anything
like, there's always going to besome sort of a wound so everyone
has this like inner child inthem that needs healing.
(01:31):
And the inner child is just kindof how I would describe it is
it's the version of you thatformed when you were a child and
that you kind of suppress inyour adulthood?
And I don't know how scientificthat is.
I would say it's a term that'sbecoming more and more common.
(01:53):
Thanks to Instagram and thanksto everyone's need for mental
health.
Resources during this difficulttime on precedent to time.
God, I hate that word now, butit's like everyone has an inner
child.
everyone has the ability toaccess and heal their inner
child.
It just depends on how willingyou are to do that.
(02:15):
And that's kind of the hurdle toovercome is like, you have to
want to heal your inner child toactually heal it.
Kristy Yee (02:25):
Yeah.
Or like you have to want to gothrough some sort of healing
journey for yourself.
Not just, not just your innerchild, but like just me.
Like, I want to get some of myshit together or like, you know,
feel more at peace with myselfand a place to start for some
people could be diving into yourinner child and like healing
(02:46):
that barrier
Angie Yu (02:47):
Yeah.
And it's
Kristy Yee (02:48):
and doing work,
Angie Yu (02:49):
and some people might find a cliche to, you know, talk
about your childhood as anadult.
Like, oh, that's so textbook orthat's so predictive, like, oh,
something happened in yourchildhood and blah, blah, blah.
But I do think that there's alot of validity in it,
especially since that's what theexperts have found to be helpful
and useful in the work ofpsychology.
(03:13):
And, there's a lot of resourcesout there.
Like if you just type intoGoogle right now, what is inner
child and how do I, how do I doit basically?
How do I inner child?
I'm sure you'll find lots andlots of resources, but of course
we're going to link some in ourshow notes as well.
Kristy Yee (03:35):
so we wanted to talk about, you know, hanging out
with our inner child becausethat's something that Angie and
I have been doing separately,and it's not something that we,
we really talk about with eachother.
Like we kinda joke around itsometimes here and there, or,
you know, I'm like, I'm going tohang out with my inner child
today, we don't ever reallylike, have a conversation about
(03:55):
it.
So how did you learn about yourinner
Angie Yu (03:59):
Oh, I was just going to ask you that, like, what was
your first exposure to that?
So how I first learned about itwas actually a therapy session.
It was with my, it was the thirdexpert that I've consulted,
which ended up being mylong-term therapist.
She had asked me in one of oursessions.
(04:19):
So, you know, like the firstthing.
You do at a consultation slashassessment, at least from my
three experiences is that theydo kind of like a little
background about you.
They ask you about yourchildhood.
They ask you about your parents,your family, your friend
situation, like all that stuff.
So this was the one of thesessions.
And we had basically discoveredthat the one of the toughest
(04:39):
time for me, one of the mosttraumatic time for me in my life
was when I moved to Canada.
And that was when I was nineyears old.
So in one of the sessions, sheasked me to say something to my
nine-year-old self andimmediately I felt so awkward.
Say something to my nine yearold self, I don't know.
(05:00):
I don't know what to do there.
And she was like, okay, howabout let's?
let's why don't you tell me alittle bit more about your nine
year old self?
So I was telling her about how,like, you know, I had to hide at
home because I was only nine andtechnically in Canada, you're
not allowed to be at home alonewhen you're nine.
So I had to just play by myself,not let any other people know
that I was home.
And I would sometimes like playhide and seek by myself.
(05:25):
And there was one time where Ihid in the closet and I thought
to myself, Hey, if I died inhere, nobody would even know.
And of course, when I said thatI was crying because it was the
first time I had brought it upwith anybody.
so as I was crying, she said,okay.
And in that moment, Now as your29 year old self, what would you
(05:45):
say to nine-year-old Angie?
And then immediately I've likecried even more.
And it was like the silent kindof crying where like tears were
just streaming down my face.
And, and I think what I said tonine-year-old Angie was it's
okay.
You're not alone.
And that was the first time Iwas really exposed to the
(06:06):
concept of inner child.
What about you?
Kristy Yee (06:09):
Well first, let me validate you.
Angie Yu (06:12):
Okay, thanks.
Kristy Yee (06:18):
Because it's extremely painful to be
recalling that memory from whenyou were nine years old,
especially when you haven'treally tapped into that memory
in a long
Angie Yu (06:30):
Oh yeah.
It was so painful.
It felt like picking a exposedunhealed wound
Kristy Yee (06:36):
and you didn't even think that that wound really
existed because it's been buriedso deep and nine year old is
really far away from 28 year oldAngie.
And so that distance makes itfeel like, oh, it's not really
part of me anymore, but it is.
And that's why it's so importantto reconnect with your inner
(06:56):
child because your inner childbuilds up to who you are as a,
as an adult.
'cause you're still carryingthat pain and you're still
carrying all those emotions andall those feelings that you felt
when you were in that closet asa nine year old
Angie Yu (07:12):
That's really well put, and again, back to the
wound analogy, if I couldcompare it to something
physical, it's like wrappingthat wound in a really, really.
Bandaging and then just neveractually healing it.
Just keep covering up for 20years.
Just keep putting bandaging onand yeah, it's never going to
heal and like, if you don't wantdress it, and then when you
(07:34):
finally do, it's like rotten andit smells and it's painful and
it's gross.
So when you look at it, you'relike, oh man, this sucks.
But yeah.
Anyway, that, that was my, thatwas my first exposure to, in a
child.
And it was very painful, butlike, I can kind of joke about
it now and I can talk about itvery comfortably now because I
have been on that journey ofhealing it and I have accepted,
(07:58):
you know, that version ofmyself.
So I come from, a place ofhealed, a place of healed, a
healed place.
and honestly, like, I guessmaybe a warning, an emotional
warning to those who arelistening, who have never heard
of the term inner child before,when you first connect with your
inner child, it might be reallypainful.
So it'll be good for you to doin a place where you're
(08:20):
comfortable in a place where,you can kind of pull yourself
out of those painful feelingswhen you have to.
And I think one of the reasonswhy it's helpful to do it with a
therapist, or maybe a friend,someone you trust, basically it
doesn't have to be a therapist.
Is that there's somebody thereto kind of pull you out.
Kristy Yee (08:40):
I had a different experience.
It wasn't as raw as the one thatyou had mentioned.
When I first connected with myinner child, it was through an
exercise and we were like partof this group.
And one of the exercise was towrite a letter to yourself, but
(09:04):
as a child.
so we were, told to, you know,visualize ourselves in our
childhood, whatever age that maybe.
There was no limit, but justvisualize yourself in your
childhood and then whateverimage that pops into your head
(09:25):
first, that's the age thatyou're going to write from.
So I think mine was nine yearsold too.
This is so super freaky becauseI was 29.
Angie Yu (09:36):
oh, there you go.
You freaky deaky.
Kristy Yee (09:39):
Okay.
What's going on?
Okay.
So I was 29 years old and then Ivisualize my nine year old self.
And then I had, I had to write aletter as my nine-year-old self
to addressed to my 29 year oldself.
So I did that.
And then, you know, as nine yearolds, what do you write?
Like, how are you?
I hope you're rich, blah, blah,blah.
(10:02):
So it was very, a lot of, youknow, surface level things, but
I started crying
Angie Yu (10:08):
Oh.
Kristy Yee (10:10):
and I think it's the rekindling.
That inner child, we're going touse this word a lot.
I mean, I know it's in thetitle, We all know that our
childhood is a part of us, butwe just, we often don't reach
back and, and be with thatperson closely.
(10:31):
It seems like that person isreally far away.
And so, you know, distance, youtend to forget about them
Angie Yu (10:40):
distance and time.
Kristy Yee (10:42):
yeah, exactly.
And in this case, time.
is the
Angie Yu (10:46):
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Sorry.
That's what I meant.
Yeah.
Laws.
Kristy Yee (10:50):
So bringing her back into the forest, Was really me
reaching back into my childhoodand pulling that person forward
into the present and then seeingthem and seeing everything about
them, all the things that weregreat about them, their
innocence, but then also thatpain that they are carrying as
well.
And then I had to be thisperson, even though I was once
(11:14):
this person, but I had to putmyself back into their shoes.
And that was what was reallyemotional.
So then that's, that's when thetears started coming down, even
though I was writing about, youknow, stuff a nine-year-old
would write about.
And that was the first time Ihad really rekindled with my
(11:34):
inner child.
And from, from then on what hadhelped me was actually
separating this inner child awayfrom myself.
Let me explain what that means.
So we think of our childhood asa part of us, right.
The foundation of who we are asan adult.
(11:57):
And we think of our childhood asour childhood and us as one.
But now I think of my innerchild as a separate person from
who I am as an adult.
So when, so when I say I'mhanging out with my inner child
it's as if I'm hanging out withan imaginary friend, you know,
(12:18):
like it's two separate entities.
And sometimes like, I will givemy inner child to hug.
You know, you can't can't reallydo that with one person.
You can like wrap your armsaround your shoulders, but it's,
it's different.
Right?
So I actually visualize me who Iam now as an adult physically
hugging my nine-year-old self astwo different bodies.
(12:40):
So for me to separate my innerchild and who I am as an adult
actually feels like I can bringthe two close.
Otherwise that time distanceexists when I combine them
together.
Does that make sense?
Angie Yu (12:58):
It makes sense to me because I am a bit more familiar
with the concept.
but if I'm listening to it assomeone who doesn't know what
inner child means, it soundslike you are separating this
concept of who you are as achild, it gives you the
opportunity to treat yourselfwith more kindness to see
yourself.
(13:19):
Okay.
A person, a human being on thisplanet that you are normally
treat with kindness, but becauseit's your own self, you don't
treat them with the samekindness you treat other people.
So being able to, like you said,separate that from who you are
now.
So right now, separate from whoyou are, but separate that too,
to see yourself as a child, tofeel more sympathy for that
(13:44):
child allows you to be more kindto that child's future version,
AKA your present.
Kristy Yee (13:54):
that is way more profound than what I had
actually meant.
So I didn't, I didn't, I wasn'tgoing
Angie Yu (14:04):
That's how I
Kristy Yee (14:05):
that road, but that was way better.
Angie Yu (14:11):
No, no, no.
It just different.
See, that's the thing, right?
Like everyone experiences innerchild differently.
And that was my interpretation.
from what you have said, whatwas your interpretation?
Kristy Yee (14:21):
what I was trying to say is our childhood is so far
away from us that we forgetabout them.
We sometimes don't evenacknowledge that they exist.
And for me to actually gothrough this journey with my
inner child, I have to likeacknowledge the exist.
I have to know that they'rethere and I need to bring them
closer to me and to do that, tolike reach back and, and, you
(14:42):
know, get closer with them.
I have to pull that inner childforward to where I am today.
And, and how do I do that?
Well, they have to be separatefrom who I am now.
So I just treat them as likeanother person.
But you're totally right.
(15:02):
When you say that we are thehardest on ourselves and we are
also the most unkind toourselves.
So when I, maybe Isubconsciously did this, when I
separated me and my inner child,I'm actually able to better
treat them as another person,the way I would treat, you know,
a friend or whatever, because weare kinder to other people.
(15:25):
Huh.
Much.
Brilliant.
Angie Yu (15:38):
If you haven't checked out our website already take a
look at shit.
We don't tell mom.com.
Every episode is on there,including some resources and
takeaways.
Kristy Yee (15:48):
We're going to have a bunch of resources about inner
child and we have lots ofresources on all sorts of
different topics.
And you can find that on ourwebsite as well and in the show
notes.
Angie Yu (16:00):
And if you like our podcast and you want to support
us, share our podcast with yourfriends and also you can maybe
buy us a Bolty to help us coversome of the costs of producing
this podcast.
Kristy Yee (16:15):
Okay, now that we've established, we all have this
inner child, they're a part ofwho we are, whether we have
acknowledged them or not.
And now that we've establishedall that.
Angie Yu (16:25):
Yeah,
Kristy Yee (16:26):
How do you do it?
What do you do?
Angie Yu (16:29):
Okay.
What do I personally do?
I guess at first, when I firstwas, exposed to it, I practiced
now this isn't the sound very,you know, but this I practice
mindfulness and what that means,and the thing is when you say
mindfulness it's, so it's becomesuch a buzzword that it has
almost lost meaning.
when I first.
(16:49):
I realize that there is thisinner child that needs healing
in terms of being mindful.
Was that every time I gottriggered, anytime something
made me an extra emotion.
So anytime something made meextra happy, anytime something
(17:11):
made me extra sad or extra mador something that like measures
my emotions a little bit higherthan what would be considered,
what my logical brain willconsider to be a reasonable
response.
So of course everyone'sthreshold for a reasonable
response is different, right?
So it was more like my emotionalmind versus my logical mind.
(17:34):
So my logical mind would belike, okay, this is the type of
response that's logical to me,but I'm reacting in a way that's
way more exotic.
And I'll be like, why, why am Idoing that?
so of course that's differentfor everybody, but for me, for
example, if you know, like Ididn't get flowers from my
boyfriend and then I get extraupset about it.
(17:57):
Logically it's like, well, hedoesn't know.
I want flowers.
I never communicated to him thatI want to flowers, but
emotionally it's that it hasthis like huge, I have this huge
emotions about not gettingflowers on my birthday, for
example, because I feelforgotten.
And why do I feel forgotten?
(18:19):
And why am I so scared of beingforgotten and being forgotten
was one of the key triggers thatI had identified in my therapy
sessions.
So, so this is what I mean bymindfulness.
It's not being like, oh,something happened.
I'm going to go, do you.
Like that's great on its own,but in terms of being mindful of
(18:41):
your reactions, it's more abouttrying to figure out why you're
reacting a certain way.
that's how I practicedmindfulness in terms of
connecting with my inner child.
So in terms of that kind ofconnecting, it's kind of like
what has wounded my inner childto make me feel this way as an
(19:04):
adult, it's still, it's still ahundred percent valid.
And I, and I wasn't invalidatedmyself as in like, oh, I
shouldn't feel upset.
It was more like, why do I feelupset?
So that was one of the ways Iquote unquote connected with my
inner child.
And another way was just to dothings that I enjoy doing as a
(19:24):
kid.
And that's how, that's how Istill connect with my inner
child.
Kristy Yee (19:31):
let's see another example of how much of an impact
our inner child has on who weare today because of how we
react to things because of whatcan trigger.
And it all comes from not all,but I think
Angie Yu (19:50):
Yeah.
Kristy Yee (19:50):
a lot of it comes from the pain and trauma that we
have felt when we were, when wewere kids.
Angie Yu (19:57):
Yup.
Kristy Yee (20:01):
So the difference between someone going to therapy
and someone who is not going totherapy, AKA me, is I, the way I
hang out with my inner child isway less profound.
And maybe it's because, youknow, the, the journey is slower
or everybody goes through itdifferently.
One of the things that I did wasI went back and I looked for
(20:28):
photos of myself as a kid, andthen I actually printed one of
them and I have it in my room.
So I see her every.
This is back in Vancouver.
I actually don't have her withme, but I have her there where
(20:49):
my dresser is and my dresser islike in front of my bed.
So every time I get up and Igotta like walk past my door, I
see her, I see her in everymorning.
I give her a hug
Angie Yu (20:59):
that gave me major goosebumps.
And that's like a great exampleof how you don't need therapy to
help yourself heal yourself.
Kristy Yee (21:14):
And I mentioned hugging my inner child twice
now.
And I think the reason for thatis because I didn't get a lot of
hugs when I was a kid.
I'm a pretty big hugger as anadult.
Angie Yu (21:26):
Yeah.
You are.
Kristy Yee (21:27):
admit that I'm a huge fucking hugger.
I love hugging everybody exceptmy mom, but I love hugging
people.
And I think, I don't know.
Maybe it's like I have, I have alack of oxytocin or.
I just like that emotionaltouching, the five love
languages, like physical touchis number one for me all the
(21:49):
time.
And when I think back to myinner child, I think it's
because I didn't get a lot ofhugs when I was younger.
I mean, I grew up with my dadwith my like 59 year old dad who
is not going to be emotional oraffectionate.
And because I lacked thatintimacy, I now want to not make
(22:14):
up for it, but, but provide thatfor her because she didn't get
it.
Angie Yu (22:19):
I think, I think you're right.
I think that is one of your lovelanguages.
I didn't get hugged as a childeither, but I'm not like, oh, I
want to hug myself.
I don't know.
I'm just not as much of a hugperson.
So yeah, everyone's differentand you are definitely a hugger.
So the fact that
Kristy Yee (22:36):
you for hugging me as a non hugging person.
Angie Yu (22:39):
know I will only tolerate it for some people.
Kristy Yee (22:44):
I'm so glad I'm on that list.
Angie Yu (22:46):
So anyways, I was going to say the fact that you
are going back and you're givingyour inner child that need, that
is like prime example ofconnecting and healing your
inner child.
Because now it's on, it's on youto do that because we can not
ask anybody else to heal ourinner, inner children, our inner
(23:06):
child.
Like Kirsty takes initiative.
So she's really good at reachingout to find resources for
herself and find ways to, helpherself do these things.
I'm not so good with that stuff.
So I need somebody there to.
Get my ass moving.
So that's why for me therapy wasreally, really helpful.
And I don't actually go totherapy anymore, but the tools
(23:27):
and the knowledge that I havetaken away with me from my
course of therapy over like ayear and a half, has allowed me
to really reach a good place inmy life.
But again, it's not foreverybody.
I think the key concept is thathave to be willing because even
(23:48):
if I go to therapy and I don'twant to heal, it's not going to
do anything for me.
Yeah.
Kristy Yee (23:55):
I mean, like anything, right?
Like going to a physio, going tothe dentist, if you're not going
to fucking floss,
Angie Yu (24:02):
brush your teeth
Kristy Yee (24:04):
they'll help you in that moment, but long-term wise
it's you got to want to do thehealing.
You're going to want to put inthat work.
Like you have to,
Angie Yu (24:15):
you got to do your emotional.
Yeah.
You gotta do your emotionalstretches.
Yeah.
Kristy Yee (24:21):
Okay.
So you mentioned like playing.
I think playing is superimportant part of hanging out
with your inner child, becauseit's not all just about like,
let's talk about my pain and,and give them hugs that they
never had before.
It's it's not just about thatfor, for me sometimes it's like,
I'm gonna watch magic schoolbus.
Cause that was one of myfavorite shows or I'm going to
(24:42):
watch recess or something that
Angie Yu (24:45):
sailor moon.
Kristy Yee (24:47):
Yes, exactly.
Like, I feel like sailor moonhas become such a big part of my
brand now
Angie Yu (24:51):
it has.
Kristy Yee (24:52):
that everyone's just like sending me sailor moon
stuff and I love it, but thatwasn't always the case.
Like in high school, I don'tthink you knew me as like the
sailor moon fanatic.
It wasn't always a part of mybrand and it wasn't until I
started to hang out with myinner child that I allow that
love for sailor moon to comeout.
And actually this mereconnecting with sailor moon
(25:13):
event.
It wasn't like, I was like somecloset sailor, moon lover in
high school.
No, it was just, I just forgotall about.
You know, it was just like, Iput that aside.
It was like, I loved it when Iwas a kid.
And I'm going to put that aside.
Although I did rewatch theentire thing in, in original
Japanese, in high school.
However, I put it aside becauseit wasn't part of my life
(25:36):
anymore.
I didn't understand that Ineeded to hang out with my inner
child that I needed to play and,you know, engage in activities.
And that I used to love untilnow as an adult.
And now everybody fucking knowsthat I love sailor moon and I
continue to enjoy loving sailormoon because it reminds me of a
time when I was just a kid.
And it was one of my favoriteshows and blah, blah, blah,
(25:59):
blah, blah, and shows the side.
It's like other things too theother day.
I saw, do you remember ring pops
Angie Yu (26:11):
yes, of course.
Kristy Yee (26:13):
Oh my God.
Those are the shits man.
I was a seven 11 the other dayand I saw ring pop.
I'm like, I'm going to fuckingbuy a ring pop and you know
what?
I didn't eat it right awaybecause I didn't want to, but I
saved it.
I had it on my dress.
I had it on my dresser for, forany time.
If I do feel like I want toring, pop and reconnect with my
(26:34):
inner child in that way, it isthere for me when I need it.
I will also do things that Iused to love as a kid.
And I do them in adult versions.
Now this is, this is what'sinteresting.
I have noticed that things thatI'm into as an adult kind of
align with things that I wasinto as a kid.
(26:56):
So a direct and very obviousexample, our jigsaw puzzles
growing up, I spent a lot oftime alone and sometimes I will
hang out with my dad and wewould do a lot of fucking jigsaw
puzzles.
I didn't really do that in highschool or even in university
(27:19):
because it was just, it wasn'tpart of my life.
I don't fucking have time to doa jigsaw puzzle.
Like it just, wasn't a thingthat I did.
I like grew out of it, quoteunquote, and now I fucking love
them again.
And then I remember that, Hey, Ithink part of the reason that I
love it is because I did thesethings a lot when I was a kid
and I'm not doing the hundredpieces anymore, you know, I'm
(27:41):
doing the adult versions now,but it reminds me of a time.
Angie Yu (27:45):
you still, you're doing the 200 pieces
Kristy Yee (27:48):
Yes.
A hundred percent of gray.
It reminds me of.
Like, it's not like I'm doing apuzzle and I'm like, Ooh, I
think about my inner child.
No, I'm doing the fucking puzzleas an
Angie Yu (28:02):
because you enjoy
Kristy Yee (28:03):
out with me.
I'm just hanging out with me.
I'm not hanging out with myinner child and just hanging out
with me.
But I noticed the correlationthat, Hey, I do these things as
an adult, but it came from aplace that I had liked to do
them when I was a
Angie Yu (28:14):
That's right.
It's more so just hanging outwith yourself, and, for me, I,
all the things that I've beendoing to quote unquote, hang out
with my inner child or to, tokind of heal that indirectly to
just hang out with myself areactually things that I never did
as a child.
But in my adulthood, I regretnot doing as a child.
Well, maybe not regret, butgoing, why didn't I do that?
(28:35):
Like, how come I missed out?
So for example, reading all theHarry Potter books, I never read
them because my English wasn'tquite there yet.
And I think when everyone wasreading Harry Potter, I was
still watching like SpongeBob.
just, just cause like I knew Iwouldn't enjoy it because
reading was just not on thetable for me.
(28:56):
And, but I watched the moviesand I was like, okay, they're,
they're fun.
They're entertaining.
And when I actually read thebooks, I was like, oh my God,
it's so good.
I was like, no,
Kristy Yee (29:09):
Now, you know, what's
Angie Yu (29:10):
I know, I know, It's not exactly.
I was like, no, I know what'sup.
Like why everyone was soobsessed with it.
And everyone's like, oh my God,like the seventh book is coming
out.
Oh my God.
I'm just like, oh, why iseveryone so excited over a book?
But now I understand.
And that was one of the waysthat I healed my inner child as
well, because of thecircumstances I was in, and I
guess for awhile, I was reallylike resentful of where, how I
(29:33):
grew up, because I didn't get todo all these things that other
children did.
So obviously as an adult, I'mjust like, you know what, I'm
just going to make it up tomyself.
Right.
So I see that's our different,different kinds of love language
for you.
It's like physical touch for me.
It's quality time and liketrying new things.
And so for me, like, I did horseriding classes I started
(29:55):
learning a new instrument andread all the Harry Potter books,
like all that stuff to reallyjust kind of make it up to
myself.
Kristy Yee (30:05):
I love that because now you have the power.
Like you can do these things asan adult.
I can buy ring pops before itwas just like something I
drooled after.
You know, it's not, it's notlike something that we w we had
a lot of money to go and buycandy and growing up in an Asian
household, like you don't reallyget candy.
(30:26):
It'd be a really specialoccasion to get a ring pop.
And now it's like, I can fuckingbuy ring, pop whenever the fuck
I want, and I can choose to eatit.
And whenever I want, you know,and I love that you are doing
the things that you felt likeyou missed out on, and now you
have the power to do that.
And you're, you know, you'rerecognizing like, Hey, I didn't
(30:48):
get to do that when I was a kid.
And I'm going to do that now.
Angie Yu (30:52):
exactly.
And that's the beauty in beingan adult like being an adult.
Of course, there's a lot ofthings that are like bills or
responsibilities, but also likethis stuff, this stuff is also
fun.
As long as you don't forget thatyou are still able to enjoy
(31:13):
life, you have to life.
You have to find some
Kristy Yee (31:18):
which
Angie Yu (31:19):
yes.
Kristy Yee (31:20):
reminds me.
Okay.
So hanging out with the innerchild, a lot of times I do this
kind of on my own, like, like, Idon't know, it's not like where
I'm going to invite all myfriends, be like, let's have an
inner child party.
You know what I mean?
Like,
Angie Yu (31:36):
That actually sounds like kind of cool,
Kristy Yee (31:37):
there was one time where I did do that, where
invited a whole bunch of friendsto my house.
And I had made a giant Fort inthe living room and I bought all
the fucking snake.
do you remember those, likeLichi
Angie Yu (31:51):
Yes.
Kristy Yee (31:52):
with the coconut jelly in the middle?
Yeah.
Angie Yu (31:54):
hazards.
Yes.
Kristy Yee (31:55):
like Paki all the pop pen, green onion crackers.
Angie Yu (32:02):
oh, the onion rings.
The onion rings, the
Kristy Yee (32:05):
Oh yes.
The, the Korean onion rings.
Yes.
I actually did have that aswell.
So I bought a whole bunch offucking snacks from when we were
teenagers and kids and I justpiled them all up in the living
room.
And I invited a bunch of myfriends over and we just hung
out in the forest and watchedcartoons and ate snacks all day.
And that was one of the bestdays ever.
(32:28):
So you can invite all yourfriends and have an inner child
part.
Angie Yu (32:31):
Yes.
It doesn't have to be so low.
I just remembered that one ofthe things that really reminded
me and inspired me to be morechild.
Was actually, my friend will,who passed away.
(32:55):
So, I'm not sure for those ofyou who haven't heard my story
before.
I think I mentioned this inepisode two, episode three,
episode three, so will, was afriend of mine that I met,
during my year abroad.
And he was younger than me.
He was very childlike.
It was very, it was kind of ainteresting juxtaposition
(33:17):
considering his physicalappearance.
He was like six foot, fourstocky.
Like by him, his attitude wasalmost like a kid.
He was very childlike and Ifound that incredibly annoying.
Like we did not get along.
I was like, how is somebody soemotional?
Like, how could somebody be sointelligent, but so immature
(33:38):
and, bothered me like toprobably an unreasonable extent
again, probably because he wascomfortable with who he was and
I wasn't, and I actually wroteabout this.
there was one of the pieces Iwrote at the start of the
pandemic one, I was alreadystarting therapy.
It was when I was grieving onhis three years, three year
(34:02):
death anniversary.
Is that a thing?
Kristy Yee (34:04):
I don't know how you would call
Angie Yu (34:05):
yeah, it was, it was like the three years since he
passed and, you know, he passedaway from depression and it
really opened my mind up.
And one of the things thatstayed really vividly with me
was that I was walking through abookshop.
It was a really hot day.
(34:26):
And we had just gotten off work.
We were both interns and wedecided to go into this like
seven story bookshop in themiddle of the Plaza.
So we walk in, we walk all theway to the forum book, section
it K English books.
And we were walking past and hewas pointing all these classic
books and I'm like, Nope,haven't read them.
Haven't read them.
(34:47):
You know, before you askedanything, I also haven't read
Harry Potter, you know, I'm justnot much of a reader.
And he was, he was kind ofreally blown away.
Like how can somebody not readbooks?
Because he loved books.
Whereas for me, I'm like, howcould you not have any common
sense?
Because I love common sense, youknow?
And, one of the books that hewas so enthusiastic about was
(35:08):
the little prince.
And I was like, oh, isn't that achild's book?
And he's like, well sort of, butnot necessarily.
And he freaked out that I hadn'tread it.
And then, when I was goingthrough therapy, I realized that
I had never really grieved hispassing properly.
And it had affected me a huge,it really affected me like out
(35:30):
of all the people, even peoplewho knew him better than I did,
like, it really, really impactedmy life because I didn't know at
the time, but I was alsodepressed.
So the fact that he died fromdepression was like, oh my God,
like a wake up call.
And so one of the first things Idid was I'm like, you know what,
I'm going to read the littleprince.
So I read the book and it wasincredible.
(35:54):
And the book itself is still oneof the classics, right?
Like even if people who haven'theard it, even for people who
haven't read it, they've heardabout it.
And I like read front to back ina day.
It's a very short book becauseit was quote unquote,
technically written for two.
I read it back to front, read itagain, back to front, to back.
(36:17):
And then I read it in the
Kristy Yee (36:19):
back to front is a whole other
Angie Yu (36:21):
Yeah, no, I didn't read it back to right in front
of my friend to back and thenread it in Chinese and yeah.
And, so much of it just remindedme of him that childlike
quality, the very curious,curious, the curious approach to
live into anything in life.
(36:41):
And there was one line in therethat really, really resonated
with me was it's sad to forget afriend, not everyone has a
friend.
If I forget him, I will be likeadults who are only interested
in numbers.
I think the big, the biggestreason why I love this book so
much is there's so much up forinterpretation.
(37:05):
It's a very, very profound,very, very hard to describe
book.
There's no specific plot, butthere's so many themes.
It touches upon so many, so manyuniversal relatable themes as a
human being.
And when we actually startedthis recording today, as we were
(37:30):
talking, I was like, oh shit,the little prince, because a lot
of people speculate that thepilot in the book is actually
the author himself.
Untwine something, something Ican't pronounce French names and
Antwan something Subaru.
He was a pilot.
And as you were talking, sorry,my mind wanders, but I, I
(37:54):
listen, but my mind wanders, Iwas like, I think the little
prince of him, I think that'shis inner child.
That's my interpretation.
The thing is there are so manyinterpretation.
That's why it's a book thatpeople, the English teachers go
write an essay about it becausethere's so much up for
interpretation and it's howeveryou want to interpret it.
(38:14):
So I was like, shit.
I think to me, that's his,that's his inner child and him
having this like conversationwith the little prince and being
told stories by this littleprince, like that's him, all the
things that the little princeexperience is the author slash
pilot himself.
And that's his interview.
Kristy Yee (38:35):
and that was his way of reconnecting with his inner
child or just hanging out withthem or having a conversation
with
Angie Yu (38:42):
Yeah, exactly.
And one of the most famousquotes, not the one that I just
quoted, but one of the mostfamous quotes from the book is
all grownups were once children,but only a few of them.
Remember it.
Kristy Yee (38:53):
Hmm.
Angie Yu (38:55):
I'm just like, damn.
The book is so advanced.
You know, it was so advancedanyway.
Kristy Yee (39:02):
actually think that the book little prints, I also
didn't read it as a child.
So I don't know what a child'sinterpretation would be after
reading this book.
But when I finished reading itas an adult, I think you were
the one who recommended to
Angie Yu (39:17):
yeah.
I was like,
Kristy Yee (39:17):
like, you got to read the little prince man, you
got to read
Angie Yu (39:19):
I was like, spam me, all my friends.
Have you read the book yet?
You must read it.
Like you have to read it now.
Kristy Yee (39:25):
So I read it and I agree.
You can read it in a day.
I'd read it in a day.
So it is, it is possible.
Everybody go out to yourlibrary, just sit in chapters,
read it.
Angie Yu (39:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's also like 99 cents onKindle or other eBooks just
because it's such a classic
Kristy Yee (39:45):
so I feel reading it as an adult feels way more
profound than if I would haveread it as a kid, because I am
now that.
Angie Yu (39:54):
That's right.
Because the story itself is veryfun.
So as a kid, when you read it,you're just like, oh, this is
like such a fun story.
But as an adult, you're like,oh, damn.
There's levels to this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(40:15):
I did a imaginary exposuretherapy session with my
therapist and it was soincredible.
It was something I've neverexperienced in my life.
And it was so deep that even mytherapist was like, surprised.
(40:38):
Like she was kind of taken backby
Kristy Yee (40:41):
So, what was that journey?
Like?
What?
Wow.
Angie Yu (40:45):
It was like, you know, how in movies or in TV shows you
kind of, you've reached somesort of a.
Plot conflict.
And then the main character getstaken back in time to see a
younger version of themselveswith like a guide with like, I
don't know, like, yeah, somesort of guy like, like Harry
(41:07):
Potter going back in time withElvis Dumbledore.
it was exactly like that.
Like, I was there as a thirdperson and myself, my younger
self did not know I was thereand it was exactly like how it
wasn't the television.
It just felt like I was there.
And it was so it was sorealistic that when I opened my
(41:28):
eyes, I had like a shock
Kristy Yee (41:32):
Was it, was it like you are going back into a memory
or whatever, somewhere in thepast, and then seeing it like
how we would see a flashback oris it as.
We're watching TV and the maincharacter goes back in time.
And then the main character iswatching themselves
Angie Yu (41:51):
it was like a flashback.
it was exactly like, like I wasHarry Potter and I was watching
a moment in history, but I wasthere.
Yeah.
So it kinda
Kristy Yee (42:01):
Like you dove into the pensive.
Angie Yu (42:03):
exactly.
I
Kristy Yee (42:04):
Okay.
I got
Angie Yu (42:05):
I dove into my own pensive, basically.
Kristy Yee (42:08):
sorry for the non Harry Potter people, because I
don't know how else to explainit.
Angie Yu (42:13):
It is.
Yeah.
That's the, it's hard to explainand.
so I started off with mevisiting a memory, and then it
ended up being something thatwas more imaginary.
And it was basically, when I wasleft with my grandma and it was
when I was taken to thecountryside to bring joy to the
(42:36):
whole family, because my cousinpassed away at the young age of
seven, which is a lot ofresponsibility I learned in
therapy for a three year old.
Yeah.
And then when I was about, whenI was first brought back, I was
three and then I went back tothe city and then I went back.
Full time.
And I think I was like fiveyears old at the time.
(42:59):
And it's a memory that I stillremember because when my mom was
coming to visit, it was like twoweeks after the fact.
And it was two weeks after mewatching her leave the village
without me and me crying out forher to come back.
And of course she couldn't hearme because I was inside the
house and she was outside.
And those are very, very vividmemories of mine and very
(43:21):
painful in the past to Rufus, itwas two weeks after, someone
told me that my mom was here, soI ran to the neighbor's house
and I hid behind the door andone of their rooms, cause this
was a village.
So everyone's like open arms.
Like everybody knows each other.
So I ran away.
I didn't want to confront my momand I ran away and I hid behind
(43:43):
the door and I didn't wantanybody to find me.
So I was talking about that.
And then my therapist was like,okay, let's.
Let's go visit that version ofyourself.
So I closed my eyes and she'slike talking softly, telling me
to talk to the five-year oldversion of myself.
And she's like, is she talkingback?
(44:06):
I said, no, she's ignoring me.
She doesn't want to talk to me.
And then eventually it ended upbeing my cousin, the one who
passed away, who was able tocome for a five-year-old Angie
and pull her out behind the doorand pull her back into the
house.
And the living room sat down andthen made small version of
(44:27):
Angie, some food while the wholetime I stood there and watched.
And it was so realistic thatwhen that imaginary exposure.
Wrapping up.
And I opened my eyes.
I had this feeling of shock,like where, hell, where the hell
am I?
(44:48):
But I was just there sitting inmy therapist's office.
And I was just like stunned.
And even my therapist wasstunned because we both didn't
know that my mind had theability to experience something
like that.
Kristy Yee (45:09):
Were you describing the whole situation as it was
Angie Yu (45:13):
I was.
Yes, I was imagining it and Icould describe every detail I
was seeing, like I was in theliving room of my grandparents'
place and I was with my cousinand I had this blurry image of
her because I don't know whatshe looked like.
So I couldn't see her.
'cause.
I don't remember what she lookslike.
She died at such a young age andmy
Kristy Yee (45:33):
but you knew
Angie Yu (45:34):
Yeah.
I knew of her who she was and mygrandma burned all her photos,
but so that's why I don't seeher face.
Yeah.
Even my office was taken back.
Like I it's something that wasnever able to do again, because
I don't think I had a memorythat, that was that significant,
(45:55):
but that was another way of kindof connecting with my inner
child.
Knowing that even though I feltalone, always, there was
somebody there for me.
There was somebody who took careof me, who protected me.
Kristy Yee (46:14):
and it sounds like the five-year-old Angie wanted
to be very strong, wanted to bethe source of happiness for
their family.
And of course that is a lot ofresponsibility for a
three-year-old and afive-year-old.
But what they really wanted wasthat comfort to be taken care of
(46:37):
instead of being the caregiveror the joy provider.
And sometimes it's hard to givethat to yourself even when you
offer it.
So it sounds like in thatsituation, you are offering to
care and to love thefive-year-old you, but what she
(46:59):
really wanted.
But care and love and comfortand to be taken care of by her
cousin.
Angie Yu (47:06):
oh my God.
I've never thought about it thatway.
That was very profound.
Yeah.
That's yeah, that's right.
That's exactly.
Kristy Yee (47:22):
And you would've never, not never one can never
say never, but it may have takenyou a long ass fucking time for
you to even realize thatfive-year-old engine needed that
or needed to go through that.
And I don't, I feel like it'd bereally hard for someone to go
back and tap into.
(47:44):
Level, whatever that
Angie Yu (47:45):
Subconsciousness.
Kristy Yee (47:47):
is called.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like for, for, for me to just belike, okay, I'm going to have
this solo session by myself inmy room kit that's and like, go
in.
Wow.
And earlier I'm like, you can dothe solo or in a group session.
It's I think it would be reallyhard for me to just like
schedule it in and, and, and tryto tap into that on my own.
(48:11):
And I think to get to thatcertain level, it'd be really
hard.
So, you know, so, so that'swhere a good therapist could
help you.
It almost sounds like a littlehypnotic
Angie Yu (48:21):
was very hypnotic S
Kristy Yee (48:24):
I've never experienced anything like sounds
very cool.
I think we just sold some, somelisteners to go into therapy,
but not all therapists do that.
Okay.
Cause I've never
Angie Yu (48:35):
And it's not, and it's not planned.
It's like, it's not like I wentinto that session.
Be like, I want to tap into someof my deepest, darkest
Kristy Yee (48:41):
Yeah.
It's not on the menu.
not on the service menu.
Angie Yu (48:45):
And that's why, that's why, like, finding a good
therapist there is value in itbecause of course there's value
in it.
Right.
because as the session went on,she was like, okay, let's try
this.
And it was at that point, I hadalready trusted her enough to
allow her to kind of lead me tothat place.
Okay.
(49:05):
Yeah, it was so packed.
That's why, like, when I try todescribe it to people, I'm like
all those like scenes you see onTV and movies, that's what
happened.
But I wasn't watching TV.
I was literally in there andmaybe like other people have
experienced that too.
And then creatively put thatinto an art form.
(49:30):
Yeah.
So anyway, now, and I'mdigressing, but yeah, it was
incredible.
And I, I don't know if I couldever do it again, but the
subconscious, the mind is sopowerful.
Kristy Yee (49:43):
that sounds really cool.
I want to do that and I reallywant to put it out there to our
poop troops that again, not alltherapists can do that.
It's not always on the menu.
So don't think like I'm going togo through this like crazy
hypnotic, profound moment.
it can happen, but it's notguaranteed.
Angie Yu (50:05):
not guaranteed.
And I think that's why mytherapist was taken away too.
She probably hadn't had thatexperience frequently either.
It's not common.
So
Kristy Yee (50:13):
Okay.
Angie Yu (50:13):
Well, thank you for letting me share that.
Cause I know it's a lot
Kristy Yee (50:16):
And thank you for sharing that.
I love stories.
So I just like listening tostories.
That was great.
How do you feel after sharingthat story?
Angie Yu (50:27):
I feel good.
I I'm comfortable enough toshare that memory now because
like, and especially if it canprovide some value to listeners
or to you
Kristy Yee (50:38):
And I, I think, I think this is just yet another
example of how much our innerchild is still with us.
And that pain is still veryreal.
Like it doesn't get diluted withtime.
We think it might because itfeels distanced because we
distance ourselves from it.
But it's, it's still.
(51:02):
And part of growing as a humanis to kind of tap back into the
inner child and hang out withthem, play with them, give them
some love, and then also exploreslowly and gently some of those
past traumatic experiences andtry to heal from that.
Angie Yu (51:26):
yep.
Kristy Yee (51:28):
Yup.
So today we talked about why wehang out with our inner child.
It's really to try to heal fromthe past traumas and experiences
that we've had, because they area part of who we are to.
And also trying to give love tothe child that may have been
neglected or didn't get toexperience some of the things
(51:48):
that they wanted to experienceeverybody's approach to hanging
out with their inner child isgoing to be different.
Like we heard today, how Angieeven learned about her and her
child, how she hangs out withher is different than the way I
do it.
You can do it in a solo or groupsession, and you can do, you can
hang out with them by doingthings that you used to do or
(52:13):
try the things that you missedout on.
And the both of us love thelittle prince.
So we encourage you to read it,even if you've read it as a kid,
try it again as an adult and seeif you have a different person.
Angie Yu (52:24):
And again, thanks for listening.
And we'll see you next episode.
I always say that we'll see youin the next episode.
Kristy Yee (52:31):
see you.
Okay,
Angie Yu (52:32):
Bye.
(53:05):
Yeah, that, that, that waspretty good.
I will cut and paste that.
We need to have like vocal exercises before we just
like jump on, man, blah, blah,blah.
(00:31):
Hey in today's episode, we'regoing to be talking about
hanging out with our innerchild, what that means, why we
do it, how we do it, and sometips on how you might want to
reach out and hang out with yourinner child
Angie Yu (00:47):
Okay.
Welcome back to another episodeof shit.
We don't tell mom, this isAngie.
Kristy Yee (00:52):
This is Christie.
Angie Yu (00:53):
And today we're going to talk about connecting with
our inner child.
Kristy Yee (00:57):
And what does that mean?
How would you define innerchild?
First of all?
Angie Yu (01:01):
Okay.
Well, we all have a inner childbecause we were all a child
once, right.
To get to.
Kristy Yee (01:09):
Well, start.
Angie Yu (01:10):
that is a good, so scientifically, we were all a
child once, you know, butthere's a lot of like wounds
from our childhood, whether ornot you had a great childhood,
uh, kind of like typically kindof sad childhood where anything
like, there's always going to besome sort of a wound so everyone
has this like inner child inthem that needs healing.
(01:31):
And the inner child is just kindof how I would describe it is
it's the version of you thatformed when you were a child and
that you kind of suppress inyour adulthood?
And I don't know how scientificthat is.
I would say it's a term that'sbecoming more and more common.
(01:53):
Thanks to Instagram and thanksto everyone's need for mental
health.
Resources during this difficulttime on precedent to time.
God, I hate that word now, butit's like everyone has an inner
child.
everyone has the ability toaccess and heal their inner
child.
It just depends on how willingyou are to do that.
(02:15):
And that's kind of the hurdle toovercome is like, you have to
want to heal your inner child toactually heal it.
Kristy Yee (02:25):
Yeah.
Or like you have to want to gothrough some sort of healing
journey for yourself.
Not just, not just your innerchild, but like just me.
Like, I want to get some of myshit together or like, you know,
feel more at peace with myselfand a place to start for some
people could be diving into yourinner child and like healing
(02:46):
that barrier
Angie Yu (02:47):
Yeah.
And it's
Kristy Yee (02:48):
and doing work,
Angie Yu (02:49):
and some people might find a cliche to, you know, talk
about your childhood as anadult.
Like, oh, that's so textbook orthat's so predictive, like, oh,
something happened in yourchildhood and blah, blah, blah.
But I do think that there's alot of validity in it,
especially since that's what theexperts have found to be helpful
and useful in the work ofpsychology.
(03:13):
And, there's a lot of resourcesout there.
Like if you just type intoGoogle right now, what is inner
child and how do I, how do I doit basically?
How do I inner child?
I'm sure you'll find lots andlots of resources, but of course
we're going to link some in ourshow notes as well.
Kristy Yee (03:35):
so we wanted to talk about, you know, hanging out
with our inner child becausethat's something that Angie and
I have been doing separately,and it's not something that we,
we really talk about with eachother.
Like we kinda joke around itsometimes here and there, or,
you know, I'm like, I'm going tohang out with my inner child
today, we don't ever reallylike, have a conversation about
(03:55):
it.
So how did you learn about yourinner
Angie Yu (03:59):
Oh, I was just going to ask you that, like, what was
your first exposure to that?
So how I first learned about itwas actually a therapy session.
It was with my, it was the thirdexpert that I've consulted,
which ended up being mylong-term therapist.
She had asked me in one of oursessions.
(04:19):
So, you know, like the firstthing.
You do at a consultation slashassessment, at least from my
three experiences is that theydo kind of like a little
background about you.
They ask you about yourchildhood.
They ask you about your parents,your family, your friend
situation, like all that stuff.
So this was the one of thesessions.
And we had basically discoveredthat the one of the toughest
(04:39):
time for me, one of the mosttraumatic time for me in my life
was when I moved to Canada.
And that was when I was nineyears old.
So in one of the sessions, sheasked me to say something to my
nine-year-old self andimmediately I felt so awkward.
Say something to my nine yearold self, I don't know.
(05:00):
I don't know what to do there.
And she was like, okay, howabout let's?
let's why don't you tell me alittle bit more about your nine
year old self?
So I was telling her about how,like, you know, I had to hide at
home because I was only nine andtechnically in Canada, you're
not allowed to be at home alonewhen you're nine.
So I had to just play by myself,not let any other people know
that I was home.
And I would sometimes like playhide and seek by myself.
(05:25):
And there was one time where Ihid in the closet and I thought
to myself, Hey, if I died inhere, nobody would even know.
And of course, when I said thatI was crying because it was the
first time I had brought it upwith anybody.
so as I was crying, she said,okay.
And in that moment, Now as your29 year old self, what would you
(05:45):
say to nine-year-old Angie?
And then immediately I've likecried even more.
And it was like the silent kindof crying where like tears were
just streaming down my face.
And, and I think what I said tonine-year-old Angie was it's
okay.
You're not alone.
And that was the first time Iwas really exposed to the
(06:06):
concept of inner child.
What about you?
Kristy Yee (06:09):
Well first, let me validate you.
Angie Yu (06:12):
Okay, thanks.
Kristy Yee (06:18):
Because it's extremely painful to be
recalling that memory from whenyou were nine years old,
especially when you haven'treally tapped into that memory
in a long
Angie Yu (06:30):
Oh yeah.
It was so painful.
It felt like picking a exposedunhealed wound
Kristy Yee (06:36):
and you didn't even think that that wound really
existed because it's been buriedso deep and nine year old is
really far away from 28 year oldAngie.
And so that distance makes itfeel like, oh, it's not really
part of me anymore, but it is.
And that's why it's so importantto reconnect with your inner
(06:56):
child because your inner childbuilds up to who you are as a,
as an adult.
'cause you're still carryingthat pain and you're still
carrying all those emotions andall those feelings that you felt
when you were in that closet asa nine year old
Angie Yu (07:12):
That's really well put, and again, back to the
wound analogy, if I couldcompare it to something
physical, it's like wrappingthat wound in a really, really.
Bandaging and then just neveractually healing it.
Just keep covering up for 20years.
Just keep putting bandaging onand yeah, it's never going to
heal and like, if you don't wantdress it, and then when you
(07:34):
finally do, it's like rotten andit smells and it's painful and
it's gross.
So when you look at it, you'relike, oh man, this sucks.
But yeah.
Anyway, that, that was my, thatwas my first exposure to, in a
child.
And it was very painful, butlike, I can kind of joke about
it now and I can talk about itvery comfortably now because I
have been on that journey ofhealing it and I have accepted,
(07:58):
you know, that version ofmyself.
So I come from, a place ofhealed, a place of healed, a
healed place.
and honestly, like, I guessmaybe a warning, an emotional
warning to those who arelistening, who have never heard
of the term inner child before,when you first connect with your
inner child, it might be reallypainful.
So it'll be good for you to doin a place where you're
(08:20):
comfortable in a place where,you can kind of pull yourself
out of those painful feelingswhen you have to.
And I think one of the reasonswhy it's helpful to do it with a
therapist, or maybe a friend,someone you trust, basically it
doesn't have to be a therapist.
Is that there's somebody thereto kind of pull you out.
Kristy Yee (08:40):
I had a different experience.
It wasn't as raw as the one thatyou had mentioned.
When I first connected with myinner child, it was through an
exercise and we were like partof this group.
And one of the exercise was towrite a letter to yourself, but
(09:04):
as a child.
so we were, told to, you know,visualize ourselves in our
childhood, whatever age that maybe.
There was no limit, but justvisualize yourself in your
childhood and then whateverimage that pops into your head
(09:25):
first, that's the age thatyou're going to write from.
So I think mine was nine yearsold too.
This is so super freaky becauseI was 29.
Angie Yu (09:36):
oh, there you go.
You freaky deaky.
Kristy Yee (09:39):
Okay.
What's going on?
Okay.
So I was 29 years old and then Ivisualize my nine year old self.
And then I had, I had to write aletter as my nine-year-old self
to addressed to my 29 year oldself.
So I did that.
And then, you know, as nine yearolds, what do you write?
Like, how are you?
I hope you're rich, blah, blah,blah.
(10:02):
So it was very, a lot of, youknow, surface level things, but
I started crying
Angie Yu (10:08):
Oh.
Kristy Yee (10:10):
and I think it's the rekindling.
That inner child, we're going touse this word a lot.
I mean, I know it's in thetitle, We all know that our
childhood is a part of us, butwe just, we often don't reach
back and, and be with thatperson closely.
(10:31):
It seems like that person isreally far away.
And so, you know, distance, youtend to forget about them
Angie Yu (10:40):
distance and time.
Kristy Yee (10:42):
yeah, exactly.
And in this case, time.
is the
Angie Yu (10:46):
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Sorry.
That's what I meant.
Yeah.
Laws.
Kristy Yee (10:50):
So bringing her back into the forest, Was really me
reaching back into my childhoodand pulling that person forward
into the present and then seeingthem and seeing everything about
them, all the things that weregreat about them, their
innocence, but then also thatpain that they are carrying as
well.
And then I had to be thisperson, even though I was once
(11:14):
this person, but I had to putmyself back into their shoes.
And that was what was reallyemotional.
So then that's, that's when thetears started coming down, even
though I was writing about, youknow, stuff a nine-year-old
would write about.
And that was the first time Ihad really rekindled with my
(11:34):
inner child.
And from, from then on what hadhelped me was actually
separating this inner child awayfrom myself.
Let me explain what that means.
So we think of our childhood asa part of us, right.
The foundation of who we are asan adult.
(11:57):
And we think of our childhood asour childhood and us as one.
But now I think of my innerchild as a separate person from
who I am as an adult.
So when, so when I say I'mhanging out with my inner child
it's as if I'm hanging out withan imaginary friend, you know,
(12:18):
like it's two separate entities.
And sometimes like, I will givemy inner child to hug.
You know, you can't can't reallydo that with one person.
You can like wrap your armsaround your shoulders, but it's,
it's different.
Right?
So I actually visualize me who Iam now as an adult physically
hugging my nine-year-old self astwo different bodies.
(12:40):
So for me to separate my innerchild and who I am as an adult
actually feels like I can bringthe two close.
Otherwise that time distanceexists when I combine them
together.
Does that make sense?
Angie Yu (12:58):
It makes sense to me because I am a bit more familiar
with the concept.
but if I'm listening to it assomeone who doesn't know what
inner child means, it soundslike you are separating this
concept of who you are as achild, it gives you the
opportunity to treat yourselfwith more kindness to see
yourself.
(13:19):
Okay.
A person, a human being on thisplanet that you are normally
treat with kindness, but becauseit's your own self, you don't
treat them with the samekindness you treat other people.
So being able to, like you said,separate that from who you are
now.
So right now, separate from whoyou are, but separate that too,
to see yourself as a child, tofeel more sympathy for that
(13:44):
child allows you to be more kindto that child's future version,
AKA your present.
Kristy Yee (13:54):
that is way more profound than what I had
actually meant.
So I didn't, I didn't, I wasn'tgoing
Angie Yu (14:04):
That's how I
Kristy Yee (14:05):
that road, but that was way better.
Angie Yu (14:11):
No, no, no.
It just different.
See, that's the thing, right?
Like everyone experiences innerchild differently.
And that was my interpretation.
from what you have said, whatwas your interpretation?
Kristy Yee (14:21):
what I was trying to say is our childhood is so far
away from us that we forgetabout them.
We sometimes don't evenacknowledge that they exist.
And for me to actually gothrough this journey with my
inner child, I have to likeacknowledge the exist.
I have to know that they'rethere and I need to bring them
closer to me and to do that, tolike reach back and, and, you
(14:42):
know, get closer with them.
I have to pull that inner childforward to where I am today.
And, and how do I do that?
Well, they have to be separatefrom who I am now.
So I just treat them as likeanother person.
But you're totally right.
(15:02):
When you say that we are thehardest on ourselves and we are
also the most unkind toourselves.
So when I, maybe Isubconsciously did this, when I
separated me and my inner child,I'm actually able to better
treat them as another person,the way I would treat, you know,
a friend or whatever, because weare kinder to other people.
(15:25):
Huh.
Much.
Brilliant.
Angie Yu (15:38):
If you haven't checked out our website already take a
look at shit.
We don't tell mom.com.
Every episode is on there,including some resources and
takeaways.
Kristy Yee (15:48):
We're going to have a bunch of resources about inner
child and we have lots ofresources on all sorts of
different topics.
And you can find that on ourwebsite as well and in the show
notes.
Angie Yu (16:00):
And if you like our podcast and you want to support
us, share our podcast with yourfriends and also you can maybe
buy us a Bolty to help us coversome of the costs of producing
this podcast.
Kristy Yee (16:15):
Okay, now that we've established, we all have this
inner child, they're a part ofwho we are, whether we have
acknowledged them or not.
And now that we've establishedall that.
Angie Yu (16:25):
Yeah,
Kristy Yee (16:26):
How do you do it?
What do you do?
Angie Yu (16:29):
Okay.
What do I personally do?
I guess at first, when I firstwas, exposed to it, I practiced
now this isn't the sound very,you know, but this I practice
mindfulness and what that means,and the thing is when you say
mindfulness it's, so it's becomesuch a buzzword that it has
almost lost meaning.
when I first.
(16:49):
I realize that there is thisinner child that needs healing
in terms of being mindful.
Was that every time I gottriggered, anytime something
made me an extra emotion.
So anytime something made meextra happy, anytime something
(17:11):
made me extra sad or extra mador something that like measures
my emotions a little bit higherthan what would be considered,
what my logical brain willconsider to be a reasonable
response.
So of course everyone'sthreshold for a reasonable
response is different, right?
So it was more like my emotionalmind versus my logical mind.
(17:34):
So my logical mind would belike, okay, this is the type of
response that's logical to me,but I'm reacting in a way that's
way more exotic.
And I'll be like, why, why am Idoing that?
so of course that's differentfor everybody, but for me, for
example, if you know, like Ididn't get flowers from my
boyfriend and then I get extraupset about it.
(17:57):
Logically it's like, well, hedoesn't know.
I want flowers.
I never communicated to him thatI want to flowers, but
emotionally it's that it hasthis like huge, I have this huge
emotions about not gettingflowers on my birthday, for
example, because I feelforgotten.
And why do I feel forgotten?
(18:19):
And why am I so scared of beingforgotten and being forgotten
was one of the key triggers thatI had identified in my therapy
sessions.
So, so this is what I mean bymindfulness.
It's not being like, oh,something happened.
I'm going to go, do you.
Like that's great on its own,but in terms of being mindful of
(18:41):
your reactions, it's more abouttrying to figure out why you're
reacting a certain way.
that's how I practicedmindfulness in terms of
connecting with my inner child.
So in terms of that kind ofconnecting, it's kind of like
what has wounded my inner childto make me feel this way as an
(19:04):
adult, it's still, it's still ahundred percent valid.
And I, and I wasn't invalidatedmyself as in like, oh, I
shouldn't feel upset.
It was more like, why do I feelupset?
So that was one of the ways Iquote unquote connected with my
inner child.
And another way was just to dothings that I enjoy doing as a
(19:24):
kid.
And that's how, that's how Istill connect with my inner
child.
Kristy Yee (19:31):
let's see another example of how much of an impact
our inner child has on who weare today because of how we
react to things because of whatcan trigger.
And it all comes from not all,but I think
Angie Yu (19:50):
Yeah.
Kristy Yee (19:50):
a lot of it comes from the pain and trauma that we
have felt when we were, when wewere kids.
Angie Yu (19:57):
Yup.
Kristy Yee (20:01):
So the difference between someone going to therapy
and someone who is not going totherapy, AKA me, is I, the way I
hang out with my inner child isway less profound.
And maybe it's because, youknow, the, the journey is slower
or everybody goes through itdifferently.
One of the things that I did wasI went back and I looked for
(20:28):
photos of myself as a kid, andthen I actually printed one of
them and I have it in my room.
So I see her every.
This is back in Vancouver.
I actually don't have her withme, but I have her there where
(20:49):
my dresser is and my dresser islike in front of my bed.
So every time I get up and Igotta like walk past my door, I
see her, I see her in everymorning.
I give her a hug
Angie Yu (20:59):
that gave me major goosebumps.
And that's like a great exampleof how you don't need therapy to
help yourself heal yourself.
Kristy Yee (21:14):
And I mentioned hugging my inner child twice
now.
And I think the reason for thatis because I didn't get a lot of
hugs when I was a kid.
I'm a pretty big hugger as anadult.
Angie Yu (21:26):
Yeah.
You are.
Kristy Yee (21:27):
admit that I'm a huge fucking hugger.
I love hugging everybody exceptmy mom, but I love hugging
people.
And I think, I don't know.
Maybe it's like I have, I have alack of oxytocin or.
I just like that emotionaltouching, the five love
languages, like physical touchis number one for me all the
(21:49):
time.
And when I think back to myinner child, I think it's
because I didn't get a lot ofhugs when I was younger.
I mean, I grew up with my dadwith my like 59 year old dad who
is not going to be emotional oraffectionate.
And because I lacked thatintimacy, I now want to not make
(22:14):
up for it, but, but provide thatfor her because she didn't get
it.
Angie Yu (22:19):
I think, I think you're right.
I think that is one of your lovelanguages.
I didn't get hugged as a childeither, but I'm not like, oh, I
want to hug myself.
I don't know.
I'm just not as much of a hugperson.
So yeah, everyone's differentand you are definitely a hugger.
So the fact that
Kristy Yee (22:36):
you for hugging me as a non hugging person.
Angie Yu (22:39):
know I will only tolerate it for some people.
Kristy Yee (22:44):
I'm so glad I'm on that list.
Angie Yu (22:46):
So anyways, I was going to say the fact that you
are going back and you're givingyour inner child that need, that
is like prime example ofconnecting and healing your
inner child.
Because now it's on, it's on youto do that because we can not
ask anybody else to heal ourinner, inner children, our inner
(23:06):
child.
Like Kirsty takes initiative.
So she's really good at reachingout to find resources for
herself and find ways to, helpherself do these things.
I'm not so good with that stuff.
So I need somebody there to.
Get my ass moving.
So that's why for me therapy wasreally, really helpful.
And I don't actually go totherapy anymore, but the tools
(23:27):
and the knowledge that I havetaken away with me from my
course of therapy over like ayear and a half, has allowed me
to really reach a good place inmy life.
But again, it's not foreverybody.
I think the key concept is thathave to be willing because even
(23:48):
if I go to therapy and I don'twant to heal, it's not going to
do anything for me.
Yeah.
Kristy Yee (23:55):
I mean, like anything, right?
Like going to a physio, going tothe dentist, if you're not going
to fucking floss,
Angie Yu (24:02):
brush your teeth
Kristy Yee (24:04):
they'll help you in that moment, but long-term wise
it's you got to want to do thehealing.
You're going to want to put inthat work.
Like you have to,
Angie Yu (24:15):
you got to do your emotional.
Yeah.
You gotta do your emotionalstretches.
Yeah.
Kristy Yee (24:21):
Okay.
So you mentioned like playing.
I think playing is superimportant part of hanging out
with your inner child, becauseit's not all just about like,
let's talk about my pain and,and give them hugs that they
never had before.
It's it's not just about thatfor, for me sometimes it's like,
I'm gonna watch magic schoolbus.
Cause that was one of myfavorite shows or I'm going to
(24:42):
watch recess or something that
Angie Yu (24:45):
sailor moon.
Kristy Yee (24:47):
Yes, exactly.
Like, I feel like sailor moonhas become such a big part of my
brand now
Angie Yu (24:51):
it has.
Kristy Yee (24:52):
that everyone's just like sending me sailor moon
stuff and I love it, but thatwasn't always the case.
Like in high school, I don'tthink you knew me as like the
sailor moon fanatic.
It wasn't always a part of mybrand and it wasn't until I
started to hang out with myinner child that I allow that
love for sailor moon to comeout.
And actually this mereconnecting with sailor moon
(25:13):
event.
It wasn't like, I was like somecloset sailor, moon lover in
high school.
No, it was just, I just forgotall about.
You know, it was just like, Iput that aside.
It was like, I loved it when Iwas a kid.
And I'm going to put that aside.
Although I did rewatch theentire thing in, in original
Japanese, in high school.
However, I put it aside becauseit wasn't part of my life
(25:36):
anymore.
I didn't understand that Ineeded to hang out with my inner
child that I needed to play and,you know, engage in activities.
And that I used to love untilnow as an adult.
And now everybody fucking knowsthat I love sailor moon and I
continue to enjoy loving sailormoon because it reminds me of a
time when I was just a kid.
And it was one of my favoriteshows and blah, blah, blah,
(25:59):
blah, blah, and shows the side.
It's like other things too theother day.
I saw, do you remember ring pops
Angie Yu (26:11):
yes, of course.
Kristy Yee (26:13):
Oh my God.
Those are the shits man.
I was a seven 11 the other dayand I saw ring pop.
I'm like, I'm going to fuckingbuy a ring pop and you know
what?
I didn't eat it right awaybecause I didn't want to, but I
saved it.
I had it on my dress.
I had it on my dresser for, forany time.
If I do feel like I want toring, pop and reconnect with my
(26:34):
inner child in that way, it isthere for me when I need it.
I will also do things that Iused to love as a kid.
And I do them in adult versions.
Now this is, this is what'sinteresting.
I have noticed that things thatI'm into as an adult kind of
align with things that I wasinto as a kid.
(26:56):
So a direct and very obviousexample, our jigsaw puzzles
growing up, I spent a lot oftime alone and sometimes I will
hang out with my dad and wewould do a lot of fucking jigsaw
puzzles.
I didn't really do that in highschool or even in university
(27:19):
because it was just, it wasn'tpart of my life.
I don't fucking have time to doa jigsaw puzzle.
Like it just, wasn't a thingthat I did.
I like grew out of it, quoteunquote, and now I fucking love
them again.
And then I remember that, Hey, Ithink part of the reason that I
love it is because I did thesethings a lot when I was a kid
and I'm not doing the hundredpieces anymore, you know, I'm
(27:41):
doing the adult versions now,but it reminds me of a time.
Angie Yu (27:45):
you still, you're doing the 200 pieces
Kristy Yee (27:48):
Yes.
A hundred percent of gray.
It reminds me of.
Like, it's not like I'm doing apuzzle and I'm like, Ooh, I
think about my inner child.
No, I'm doing the fucking puzzleas an
Angie Yu (28:02):
because you enjoy
Kristy Yee (28:03):
out with me.
I'm just hanging out with me.
I'm not hanging out with myinner child and just hanging out
with me.
But I noticed the correlationthat, Hey, I do these things as
an adult, but it came from aplace that I had liked to do
them when I was a
Angie Yu (28:14):
That's right.
It's more so just hanging outwith yourself, and, for me, I,
all the things that I've beendoing to quote unquote, hang out
with my inner child or to, tokind of heal that indirectly to
just hang out with myself areactually things that I never did
as a child.
But in my adulthood, I regretnot doing as a child.
Well, maybe not regret, butgoing, why didn't I do that?
(28:35):
Like, how come I missed out?
So for example, reading all theHarry Potter books, I never read
them because my English wasn'tquite there yet.
And I think when everyone wasreading Harry Potter, I was
still watching like SpongeBob.
just, just cause like I knew Iwouldn't enjoy it because
reading was just not on thetable for me.
(28:56):
And, but I watched the moviesand I was like, okay, they're,
they're fun.
They're entertaining.
And when I actually read thebooks, I was like, oh my God,
it's so good.
I was like, no,
Kristy Yee (29:09):
Now, you know, what's
Angie Yu (29:10):
I know, I know, It's not exactly.
I was like, no, I know what'sup.
Like why everyone was soobsessed with it.
And everyone's like, oh my God,like the seventh book is coming
out.
Oh my God.
I'm just like, oh, why iseveryone so excited over a book?
But now I understand.
And that was one of the waysthat I healed my inner child as
well, because of thecircumstances I was in, and I
guess for awhile, I was reallylike resentful of where, how I
(29:33):
grew up, because I didn't get todo all these things that other
children did.
So obviously as an adult, I'mjust like, you know what, I'm
just going to make it up tomyself.
Right.
So I see that's our different,different kinds of love language
for you.
It's like physical touch for me.
It's quality time and liketrying new things.
And so for me, like, I did horseriding classes I started
(29:55):
learning a new instrument andread all the Harry Potter books,
like all that stuff to reallyjust kind of make it up to
myself.
Kristy Yee (30:05):
I love that because now you have the power.
Like you can do these things asan adult.
I can buy ring pops before itwas just like something I
drooled after.
You know, it's not, it's notlike something that we w we had
a lot of money to go and buycandy and growing up in an Asian
household, like you don't reallyget candy.
(30:26):
It'd be a really specialoccasion to get a ring pop.
And now it's like, I can fuckingbuy ring, pop whenever the fuck
I want, and I can choose to eatit.
And whenever I want, you know,and I love that you are doing
the things that you felt likeyou missed out on, and now you
have the power to do that.
And you're, you know, you'rerecognizing like, Hey, I didn't
(30:48):
get to do that when I was a kid.
And I'm going to do that now.
Angie Yu (30:52):
exactly.
And that's the beauty in beingan adult like being an adult.
Of course, there's a lot ofthings that are like bills or
responsibilities, but also likethis stuff, this stuff is also
fun.
As long as you don't forget thatyou are still able to enjoy
(31:13):
life, you have to life.
You have to find some
Kristy Yee (31:18):
which
Angie Yu (31:19):
yes.
Kristy Yee (31:20):
reminds me.
Okay.
So hanging out with the innerchild, a lot of times I do this
kind of on my own, like, like, Idon't know, it's not like where
I'm going to invite all myfriends, be like, let's have an
inner child party.
You know what I mean?
Like,
Angie Yu (31:36):
That actually sounds like kind of cool,
Kristy Yee (31:37):
there was one time where I did do that, where
invited a whole bunch of friendsto my house.
And I had made a giant Fort inthe living room and I bought all
the fucking snake.
do you remember those, likeLichi
Angie Yu (31:51):
Yes.
Kristy Yee (31:52):
with the coconut jelly in the middle?
Yeah.
Angie Yu (31:54):
hazards.
Yes.
Kristy Yee (31:55):
like Paki all the pop pen, green onion crackers.
Angie Yu (32:02):
oh, the onion rings.
The onion rings, the
Kristy Yee (32:05):
Oh yes.
The, the Korean onion rings.
Yes.
I actually did have that aswell.
So I bought a whole bunch offucking snacks from when we were
teenagers and kids and I justpiled them all up in the living
room.
And I invited a bunch of myfriends over and we just hung
out in the forest and watchedcartoons and ate snacks all day.
And that was one of the bestdays ever.
(32:28):
So you can invite all yourfriends and have an inner child
part.
Angie Yu (32:31):
Yes.
It doesn't have to be so low.
I just remembered that one ofthe things that really reminded
me and inspired me to be morechild.
Was actually, my friend will,who passed away.
(32:55):
So, I'm not sure for those ofyou who haven't heard my story
before.
I think I mentioned this inepisode two, episode three,
episode three, so will, was afriend of mine that I met,
during my year abroad.
And he was younger than me.
He was very childlike.
It was very, it was kind of ainteresting juxtaposition
(33:17):
considering his physicalappearance.
He was like six foot, fourstocky.
Like by him, his attitude wasalmost like a kid.
He was very childlike and Ifound that incredibly annoying.
Like we did not get along.
I was like, how is somebody soemotional?
Like, how could somebody be sointelligent, but so immature
(33:38):
and, bothered me like toprobably an unreasonable extent
again, probably because he wascomfortable with who he was and
I wasn't, and I actually wroteabout this.
there was one of the pieces Iwrote at the start of the
pandemic one, I was alreadystarting therapy.
It was when I was grieving onhis three years, three year
(34:02):
death anniversary.
Is that a thing?
Kristy Yee (34:04):
I don't know how you would call
Angie Yu (34:05):
yeah, it was, it was like the three years since he
passed and, you know, he passedaway from depression and it
really opened my mind up.
And one of the things thatstayed really vividly with me
was that I was walking through abookshop.
It was a really hot day.
(34:26):
And we had just gotten off work.
We were both interns and wedecided to go into this like
seven story bookshop in themiddle of the Plaza.
So we walk in, we walk all theway to the forum book, section
it K English books.
And we were walking past and hewas pointing all these classic
books and I'm like, Nope,haven't read them.
Haven't read them.
(34:47):
You know, before you askedanything, I also haven't read
Harry Potter, you know, I'm justnot much of a reader.
And he was, he was kind ofreally blown away.
Like how can somebody not readbooks?
Because he loved books.
Whereas for me, I'm like, howcould you not have any common
sense?
Because I love common sense, youknow?
And, one of the books that hewas so enthusiastic about was
(35:08):
the little prince.
And I was like, oh, isn't that achild's book?
And he's like, well sort of, butnot necessarily.
And he freaked out that I hadn'tread it.
And then, when I was goingthrough therapy, I realized that
I had never really grieved hispassing properly.
And it had affected me a huge,it really affected me like out
(35:30):
of all the people, even peoplewho knew him better than I did,
like, it really, really impactedmy life because I didn't know at
the time, but I was alsodepressed.
So the fact that he died fromdepression was like, oh my God,
like a wake up call.
And so one of the first things Idid was I'm like, you know what,
I'm going to read the littleprince.
So I read the book and it wasincredible.
(35:54):
And the book itself is still oneof the classics, right?
Like even if people who haven'theard it, even for people who
haven't read it, they've heardabout it.
And I like read front to back ina day.
It's a very short book becauseit was quote unquote,
technically written for two.
I read it back to front, read itagain, back to front, to back.
(36:17):
And then I read it in the
Kristy Yee (36:19):
back to front is a whole other
Angie Yu (36:21):
Yeah, no, I didn't read it back to right in front
of my friend to back and thenread it in Chinese and yeah.
And, so much of it just remindedme of him that childlike
quality, the very curious,curious, the curious approach to
live into anything in life.
(36:41):
And there was one line in therethat really, really resonated
with me was it's sad to forget afriend, not everyone has a
friend.
If I forget him, I will be likeadults who are only interested
in numbers.
I think the big, the biggestreason why I love this book so
much is there's so much up forinterpretation.
(37:05):
It's a very, very profound,very, very hard to describe
book.
There's no specific plot, butthere's so many themes.
It touches upon so many, so manyuniversal relatable themes as a
human being.
And when we actually startedthis recording today, as we were
(37:30):
talking, I was like, oh shit,the little prince, because a lot
of people speculate that thepilot in the book is actually
the author himself.
Untwine something, something Ican't pronounce French names and
Antwan something Subaru.
He was a pilot.
And as you were talking, sorry,my mind wanders, but I, I
(37:54):
listen, but my mind wanders, Iwas like, I think the little
prince of him, I think that'shis inner child.
That's my interpretation.
The thing is there are so manyinterpretation.
That's why it's a book thatpeople, the English teachers go
write an essay about it becausethere's so much up for
interpretation and it's howeveryou want to interpret it.
(38:14):
So I was like, shit.
I think to me, that's his,that's his inner child and him
having this like conversationwith the little prince and being
told stories by this littleprince, like that's him, all the
things that the little princeexperience is the author slash
pilot himself.
And that's his interview.
Kristy Yee (38:35):
and that was his way of reconnecting with his inner
child or just hanging out withthem or having a conversation
with
Angie Yu (38:42):
Yeah, exactly.
And one of the most famousquotes, not the one that I just
quoted, but one of the mostfamous quotes from the book is
all grownups were once children,but only a few of them.
Remember it.
Kristy Yee (38:53):
Hmm.
Angie Yu (38:55):
I'm just like, damn.
The book is so advanced.
You know, it was so advancedanyway.
Kristy Yee (39:02):
actually think that the book little prints, I also
didn't read it as a child.
So I don't know what a child'sinterpretation would be after
reading this book.
But when I finished reading itas an adult, I think you were
the one who recommended to
Angie Yu (39:17):
yeah.
I was like,
Kristy Yee (39:17):
like, you got to read the little prince man, you
got to read
Angie Yu (39:19):
I was like, spam me, all my friends.
Have you read the book yet?
You must read it.
Like you have to read it now.
Kristy Yee (39:25):
So I read it and I agree.
You can read it in a day.
I'd read it in a day.
So it is, it is possible.
Everybody go out to yourlibrary, just sit in chapters,
read it.
Angie Yu (39:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's also like 99 cents onKindle or other eBooks just
because it's such a classic
Kristy Yee (39:45):
so I feel reading it as an adult feels way more
profound than if I would haveread it as a kid, because I am
now that.
Angie Yu (39:54):
That's right.
Because the story itself is veryfun.
So as a kid, when you read it,you're just like, oh, this is
like such a fun story.
But as an adult, you're like,oh, damn.
There's levels to this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(40:15):
I did a imaginary exposuretherapy session with my
therapist and it was soincredible.
It was something I've neverexperienced in my life.
And it was so deep that even mytherapist was like, surprised.
(40:38):
Like she was kind of taken backby
Kristy Yee (40:41):
So, what was that journey?
Like?
What?
Wow.
Angie Yu (40:45):
It was like, you know, how in movies or in TV shows you
kind of, you've reached somesort of a.
Plot conflict.
And then the main character getstaken back in time to see a
younger version of themselveswith like a guide with like, I
don't know, like, yeah, somesort of guy like, like Harry
(41:07):
Potter going back in time withElvis Dumbledore.
it was exactly like that.
Like, I was there as a thirdperson and myself, my younger
self did not know I was thereand it was exactly like how it
wasn't the television.
It just felt like I was there.
And it was so it was sorealistic that when I opened my
(41:28):
eyes, I had like a shock
Kristy Yee (41:32):
Was it, was it like you are going back into a memory
or whatever, somewhere in thepast, and then seeing it like
how we would see a flashback oris it as.
We're watching TV and the maincharacter goes back in time.
And then the main character iswatching themselves
Angie Yu (41:51):
it was like a flashback.
it was exactly like, like I wasHarry Potter and I was watching
a moment in history, but I wasthere.
Yeah.
So it kinda
Kristy Yee (42:01):
Like you dove into the pensive.
Angie Yu (42:03):
exactly.
I
Kristy Yee (42:04):
Okay.
I got
Angie Yu (42:05):
I dove into my own pensive, basically.
Kristy Yee (42:08):
sorry for the non Harry Potter people, because I
don't know how else to explainit.
Angie Yu (42:13):
It is.
Yeah.
That's the, it's hard to explainand.
so I started off with mevisiting a memory, and then it
ended up being something thatwas more imaginary.
And it was basically, when I wasleft with my grandma and it was
when I was taken to thecountryside to bring joy to the
(42:36):
whole family, because my cousinpassed away at the young age of
seven, which is a lot ofresponsibility I learned in
therapy for a three year old.
Yeah.
And then when I was about, whenI was first brought back, I was
three and then I went back tothe city and then I went back.
Full time.
And I think I was like fiveyears old at the time.
(42:59):
And it's a memory that I stillremember because when my mom was
coming to visit, it was like twoweeks after the fact.
And it was two weeks after mewatching her leave the village
without me and me crying out forher to come back.
And of course she couldn't hearme because I was inside the
house and she was outside.
And those are very, very vividmemories of mine and very
(43:21):
painful in the past to Rufus, itwas two weeks after, someone
told me that my mom was here, soI ran to the neighbor's house
and I hid behind the door andone of their rooms, cause this
was a village.
So everyone's like open arms.
Like everybody knows each other.
So I ran away.
I didn't want to confront my momand I ran away and I hid behind
(43:43):
the door and I didn't wantanybody to find me.
So I was talking about that.
And then my therapist was like,okay, let's.
Let's go visit that version ofyourself.
So I closed my eyes and she'slike talking softly, telling me
to talk to the five-year oldversion of myself.
And she's like, is she talkingback?
(44:06):
I said, no, she's ignoring me.
She doesn't want to talk to me.
And then eventually it ended upbeing my cousin, the one who
passed away, who was able tocome for a five-year-old Angie
and pull her out behind the doorand pull her back into the
house.
And the living room sat down andthen made small version of
(44:27):
Angie, some food while the wholetime I stood there and watched.
And it was so realistic thatwhen that imaginary exposure.
Wrapping up.
And I opened my eyes.
I had this feeling of shock,like where, hell, where the hell
am I?
(44:48):
But I was just there sitting inmy therapist's office.
And I was just like stunned.
And even my therapist wasstunned because we both didn't
know that my mind had theability to experience something
like that.
Kristy Yee (45:09):
Were you describing the whole situation as it was
Angie Yu (45:13):
I was.
Yes, I was imagining it and Icould describe every detail I
was seeing, like I was in theliving room of my grandparents'
place and I was with my cousinand I had this blurry image of
her because I don't know whatshe looked like.
So I couldn't see her.
'cause.
I don't remember what she lookslike.
She died at such a young age andmy
Kristy Yee (45:33):
but you knew
Angie Yu (45:34):
Yeah.
I knew of her who she was and mygrandma burned all her photos,
but so that's why I don't seeher face.
Yeah.
Even my office was taken back.
Like I it's something that wasnever able to do again, because
I don't think I had a memorythat, that was that significant,
(45:55):
but that was another way of kindof connecting with my inner
child.
Knowing that even though I feltalone, always, there was
somebody there for me.
There was somebody who took careof me, who protected me.
Kristy Yee (46:14):
and it sounds like the five-year-old Angie wanted
to be very strong, wanted to bethe source of happiness for
their family.
And of course that is a lot ofresponsibility for a
three-year-old and afive-year-old.
But what they really wanted wasthat comfort to be taken care of
(46:37):
instead of being the caregiveror the joy provider.
And sometimes it's hard to givethat to yourself even when you
offer it.
So it sounds like in thatsituation, you are offering to
care and to love thefive-year-old you, but what she
(46:59):
really wanted.
But care and love and comfortand to be taken care of by her
cousin.
Angie Yu (47:06):
oh my God.
I've never thought about it thatway.
That was very profound.
Yeah.
That's yeah, that's right.
That's exactly.
Kristy Yee (47:22):
And you would've never, not never one can never
say never, but it may have takenyou a long ass fucking time for
you to even realize thatfive-year-old engine needed that
or needed to go through that.
And I don't, I feel like it'd bereally hard for someone to go
back and tap into.
(47:44):
Level, whatever that
Angie Yu (47:45):
Subconsciousness.
Kristy Yee (47:47):
is called.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like for, for, for me to just belike, okay, I'm going to have
this solo session by myself inmy room kit that's and like, go
in.
Wow.
And earlier I'm like, you can dothe solo or in a group session.
It's I think it would be reallyhard for me to just like
schedule it in and, and, and tryto tap into that on my own.
(48:11):
And I think to get to thatcertain level, it'd be really
hard.
So, you know, so, so that'swhere a good therapist could
help you.
It almost sounds like a littlehypnotic
Angie Yu (48:21):
was very hypnotic S
Kristy Yee (48:24):
I've never experienced anything like sounds
very cool.
I think we just sold some, somelisteners to go into therapy,
but not all therapists do that.
Okay.
Cause I've never
Angie Yu (48:35):
And it's not, and it's not planned.
It's like, it's not like I wentinto that session.
Be like, I want to tap into someof my deepest, darkest
Kristy Yee (48:41):
Yeah.
It's not on the menu.
not on the service menu.
Angie Yu (48:45):
And that's why, that's why, like, finding a good
therapist there is value in itbecause of course there's value
in it.
Right.
because as the session went on,she was like, okay, let's try
this.
And it was at that point, I hadalready trusted her enough to
allow her to kind of lead me tothat place.
Okay.
(49:05):
Yeah, it was so packed.
That's why, like, when I try todescribe it to people, I'm like
all those like scenes you see onTV and movies, that's what
happened.
But I wasn't watching TV.
I was literally in there andmaybe like other people have
experienced that too.
And then creatively put thatinto an art form.
(49:30):
Yeah.
So anyway, now, and I'mdigressing, but yeah, it was
incredible.
And I, I don't know if I couldever do it again, but the
subconscious, the mind is sopowerful.
Kristy Yee (49:43):
that sounds really cool.
I want to do that and I reallywant to put it out there to our
poop troops that again, not alltherapists can do that.
It's not always on the menu.
So don't think like I'm going togo through this like crazy
hypnotic, profound moment.
it can happen, but it's notguaranteed.
Angie Yu (50:05):
not guaranteed.
And I think that's why mytherapist was taken away too.
She probably hadn't had thatexperience frequently either.
It's not common.
So
Kristy Yee (50:13):
Okay.
Angie Yu (50:13):
Well, thank you for letting me share that.
Cause I know it's a lot
Kristy Yee (50:16):
And thank you for sharing that.
I love stories.
So I just like listening tostories.
That was great.
How do you feel after sharingthat story?
Angie Yu (50:27):
I feel good.
I I'm comfortable enough toshare that memory now because
like, and especially if it canprovide some value to listeners
or to you
Kristy Yee (50:38):
And I, I think, I think this is just yet another
example of how much our innerchild is still with us.
And that pain is still veryreal.
Like it doesn't get diluted withtime.
We think it might because itfeels distanced because we
distance ourselves from it.
But it's, it's still.
(51:02):
And part of growing as a humanis to kind of tap back into the
inner child and hang out withthem, play with them, give them
some love, and then also exploreslowly and gently some of those
past traumatic experiences andtry to heal from that.
Angie Yu (51:26):
yep.
Kristy Yee (51:28):
Yup.
So today we talked about why wehang out with our inner child.
It's really to try to heal fromthe past traumas and experiences
that we've had, because they area part of who we are to.
And also trying to give love tothe child that may have been
neglected or didn't get toexperience some of the things
(51:48):
that they wanted to experienceeverybody's approach to hanging
out with their inner child isgoing to be different.
Like we heard today, how Angieeven learned about her and her
child, how she hangs out withher is different than the way I
do it.
You can do it in a solo or groupsession, and you can do, you can
hang out with them by doingthings that you used to do or
(52:13):
try the things that you missedout on.
And the both of us love thelittle prince.
So we encourage you to read it,even if you've read it as a kid,
try it again as an adult and seeif you have a different person.
Angie Yu (52:24):
And again, thanks for listening.
And we'll see you next episode.
I always say that we'll see youin the next episode.
Kristy Yee (52:31):
see you.
Okay,
Angie Yu (52:32):
Bye.
(53:05):
Yeah, that, that, that waspretty good.
I will cut and paste that.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!