When Your Inner Child Comes To Tea
And three unexpected insights drop into your lap
Are you a first-time reader? These posts make the most sense when you start here.
As I said in the last post,
Because everyone’s Inner Family unfolds as uniquely as their fingerprint, and because the Inner Family approach includes different ways to lean into your Inner Family, but not a blueprint, all we can offer each other is our story and a few guidelines.
Once Little Sparrow became part of my life, I took time to consciously, intentionally spend internal time with her two or three times a week where we could dialogue. Sometimes, I’d find a quiet moment for this on the couch. Sometimes we’d talk as I drove to a graduate class with Little Sparrow safely belted into the passenger seat. Sometimes we’d sit for tea.
Sometimes, I would ask if she’d like to be beside me while cooking, or going to a class, or working in the garden. These were luxurious moments of silent, peaceful OneSelf connection where the fabric of the OneSelf was mending, becoming stronger and stronger.
As we were getting to know each other, I asked open-ended questions that allowed Little Sparrow to respond as much, or as little, as she was comfortable doing so.
During this process, I came to three unexpected insights.
Insight No. 1 - Trust
I understood the fabric of our connection—between me and Little Sparrow—with its decades of unintentional neglect, was fragile, and I needed to build trust between these unique parts of myself.
I realized I needed to treat Little Sparrow with the same consideration and beginning salvos as I would with a new friend: curious, but not investigative; caring, but not pushy; comforting, but only after respectfully asking for permission.
As the weeks went by, Little Sparrow opened up more and more.
As she told her story of the physical and emotional events she experienced, while being too young to even know that she was a separate person from the adults caring for her, an entire tower of puzzle pieces fell into place.
Insight No. 2 – Unsolved Mysteries
As an adult, there seemed to be a minefield of mysterious clues trailing me for as long as I could remember. Physical quirks I didn’t understand. Emotional responses that didn’t track with the moment. Unexpected feelings that would suddenly surface and put me on high alert.
But with no reference point, no landmark, each clue was so opaque, so impenetrable, that all I could do was notice, ponder, and feel as if I might be on the verge of awareness.
Except, without a conscious way to understand—and so name—these cluse, I had to give up.
As I’ve said before, when you can’t name a thing, that thing might exist as a hodgepodge of random pieces, but without your conscious awareness that naming ignites, that thing remains nebulous because it is literally unknowable.
Insight No. 3 – My Adult Assumptions vs The Inner Family Approach
If you were laying this out psychologically, my adult self would have immediately assumed that Little Sparrow’s frantic spinning was the direct result of early, traumatic experiences; experiences she verifies, and for which I—the adult—have the telltale, leftover clues as proof.
However, as adults we often mistake an assumption for a fact because it doesn’t feel like an assumption. Assumptions have the annoying habit of hiding under a fact-cloak, and we are more than happy to play along.
And once our assumption-confident adult self has determined something to be a fact, we will proceed to unwittingly close the door to other interpretations or realities.
When you are dealing with internal landscapes, where we are in essence talking to ourselves, this assumption-default becomes a blind spot that can highjack the process.
But The Inner Family Approach has a few guidelines to help mitigate the assumption-default.
First, ask direct, simple questions that do not assume, but are open to whatever response a member of your Inner Family wants to give.
If your adult self is unsure about a response, ask as many clarifying questions as you need to be sure you are understanding the point of view of that Inner Family Member.
Next, be aware that even as you are asking a question, your mind/brain will automatically start answering before the Family Member has had a chance to respond. And because our mind/brain holds such a dominant place in our culture, we will be utterly convinced of its rightness.
But, wait…
I promise, your Inner Family Member will give you an answer different from the one your mind/brain just tried to insert into the process.
And this is the core beauty that rises to the surface of our consciousness when we explore the realm of our Inner Family: gifts of self-awareness streaming from the collective diversity of our Original OneSelf.
For example, my adult-self assumed that early trauma was causing Little Sparrow’s autistic behavior. To my surprise, she corrected me and said her spinning was because she needed me, her adult, and I wasn’t even aware of her.
It was my unconscious, adult disconnection from her that had condemned her to spin alone against a corner of her inner realm. Once she climbed into my lap, we began building a relationship based on a present that embraces the past, but is not dominated by the past, and the spinning never returned.
With trust as the cornerstone for reconnecting to my Inner Child, with long-held curiosities in my nervous system calming down in the light of awareness, and with checking my adult assumptions at the door, this curious, deeply personal journey with my Inner Family was off to a good start.
What’s Next?
I’ll continue to share my journey, so you can taste a bit more of the Inner Family Approach, with the 8th post in this series: Leaping from Inner Child to Inner Teen.
These posts will make the most sense if you read them in order, like chapters in a book.
Meanwhile, please…
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