Missing (Inner) Child

Missing (Inner) Child: Last seen about 40 (something) years ago- standing tall, confident, joyous, smiling, sassy little bathing suit to boot – arms extended and fearlessly ready to dive into the deep end.Where did she go? Where did the exuberance of the 4 ½-year old me disappear to?Let’s put out an APB (all post bulletin) - Calling all inner children, please report to the Lido Deck.Perhaps this is the reason we love to peruse old family photo albums with their worn corners and fading images pulled from dusty boxes and shelves. Nostalgia and fuzzy memories aside, it allows us to momentarily reconnect to the once-upon-a-time version of ourselves. Why are we so willing to allow that rendering to slip through our hands….or accept this process as a normal part of growing up? Why? Does it have to be that way? Who says…who gets to decide that?She was bold and joyous, non-judgmental and radiated sunshine. Her eyes sparkled. Everything excited her….even getting ready to jump off the diving board. So what happened? And who started whispering in her ear, dulling her sparkly energy down, telling her she couldn’t, or shouldn’t or wouldn’t. Worse yet, when did she start believing it?Staring at your own reflection in the mirror, what do you see (aside from the worn down adaptation of the aforementioned self)? Clearly there are all the obvious, not so necessarily welcomed transformations to our physical being, but it is our spiritual essence that gets lost in the shuffle, side-stepped in a crowd. The truth is that much of what ails us throughout our lives as adults stems from the denial of all that once resided and shone brightly within us as children. Much of our pain lives in a place of the past. Most of our negative theories that we have toted around for years, didn’t just appear out of thin air, they have been pesky companions for so long we don’t even notice their presence anymore. More than likely someone else scripted them for us.When we shut ourselves off to the possibility that it’s all interwoven, interlinking our past and our present– we limit our ability to heal ourselves and we move through our life lessons and into our bright future. Much of what torments us emotionally had roots seeded within childhood. An over-simplification? It’s possible, but what do you have to lose? Give it a whirl. Pick a topic, any topic…and boldly go where no one else has ever gone before. Start connecting the dots. It’s your roadmap to inner peace and dumping the heavy baggage.Grab a favorite old photo of yourself from childhood and a notebook. Write down the one thing plaguing you more than anything else. What’s your roadblock – what do you keep stumbling over and revisiting (relationships, money, career, social life, self-care)? Isn’t it time to take it down? Are you willing to do some detective work with an excavator? If you can honestly purge your emotions surrounding that issue – you WILL find your way back to that picture –to the elements you want to reclaim and reintroduce to your life.I’ll start. MONEY. I have theories about money that I have worked hard to take down (and they me). In adulthood, I’ve spent money on therapists, energy work, acupuncture, kinesiology, life coaching, astrologists, etc. to name a few…all in the name of seeking. Like picking up breadcrumbs left behind, I followed the trail back to childhood, to the origins of my relationship to money. I began to see where it all stemmed from and recognized those familiar feelings of “lack” – never enough. Once I was there, I could forgive myself and call the pesky buggers out that had been haunting me for most of my life. They were the same false beliefs that convinced me to make decisions out of fear – not reality – certainly not out of faith. A mere shift in consciousness brought new awareness to my thoughts. When an old thought creeps in, I now remind myself regularly – That’s an old thought. I no longer wish to think that way. (Yes, it’s that simple) Yet, it takes practice. Fear and defeatist theories often have a stronghold upon us…not giving in so easily.By reaching back in an effort to move forward, I was able to tell the cute girl on the diving board – You are safe and all is well. You can let your scarcity beliefs about money go. I’ve got this covered now. Go swim and have fun.As adults, we deprive ourselves of our most basic of feelings. Is that what it means to grow up? When we tap into the simplest of emotions – “that makes me feel sad, mad, left out, ignored, scared (fill in your own emotion)”….we can work our way to its solution.Dr. Wayne Dyer says there is a spiritual solution to every problem and to that I add, the answers reside within you and within the eyes of the picture of you depicting a time you loved yourself most. Dust off those albums and get to work! Tape that favorite picture of you somewhere prominent and tap back in. A part of that child remains within you, so let her sing.