Our inner child connects us to joy. The inner child lives in our abdomen. Our inner child longs for our love, not our distain, not our condemnation, nor our criticism. But sadly many of us have an inner child who was abandoned or neglected by our parents. And when our parents failed to connect to us in many ways they taught us to disconnect from our inner self. As kids we found ways to manage this disconnection or we may have looked for places where that truer part of us felt more in touch, such as in nature or with a beloved toy or pet.
In my own life lately I see my mother was busy in her life trying to make herself happy through her business and so she had no time to spend with me, especially after school when I needed some one there and present to provide a sense of love and containment, she was just not there. And today I found out that this made my inner child long and also feel why she was not better, in other words I internalized the blame.
Sadly my father was not emotionally connected to me or present either, something I am realising lately led to both my promiscuity and my challenges in relationships with being able to trust or get close to men. I would get especially triggered if a partner was too busy working to spend much time with me. I am also seeing that because I was neglected in this way it was not easy for me to see my husband’s needs at all either and I did things that must have really hurt him and eventually made him want to leave. That was not all on me, he was not really pleased I was pursuing a therapy pathway, perhaps he really needed his own therapy as he had a lot of wounding around the loss and illness of his father and was often angry at his mother taking up with a far younger man. But there were ways, I see now, that I could have gone about getting this help without alienating him.
That of course is all in the past but its interesting to me that the feelings of sadness of my inner child are coming up as we move towards the full moon in the Saturn (work and emotional repression) sign of Capricorn. As many of you may know the image for Capricorn is of a mountain goat who can be quite a solitary figure engaged on a mountain climb, ambitious and in need of achievement the goat presses on but often there may be a neglect or deprivation theme for Moon in Capricorn people. The opposing sign Cancer as many of you may know relates to the moon, nurturing and inner child, so at this full moon we can see where some limitations (Saturn Capricorn) could have been set in place around our capacity to inwardly nurture ourselves and also into where we suffered a loss of power. On a positive note seeing these challenges as lessons may help us to grow (Saturn) in emotional depth (Moon/Cancer).
I forgive myself now for what I did not know before. And today I sat with my inner child as she cried out desperately “why wasn’t I important enough for Mum to want to spend any time with?” My sister told me today that Mum did not have to go into the shop until 11 am and could easily have left to be with me after school but she chose not too. Instead I would anxiously await her return around 6 pm and do all I could to revolve around helping her when she got home to get the dinner on and do the cleaning up.
Dad came down hard on me emotionally at times and he did not express much in the way of physical affection. I had lunch with a friend yesterday who is so healthy and has a lovely alive body, she lustily enjoys her food and is always jetting off here there and everywhere for long weekends and other trips. When its cold her she takes herself off away into the Sun for a holiday. When I asked her yesterday if her father ever expressed any affection to her and her brother she said to me “all of the time, he was either kissing us both on the head or had us sitting on his lap watching television.” I understood then the very different ways we both are and to be honest sitting opposite her in the cafe obsessing over what food I would be able to manage with my missing teeth and feeling anxious about how it would all go down was not easy. I noticed that she did most of the talking. It was lovely to see her but in some ways a relief to leave, which makes me kind of sad because I do love her and she was so supportive of me during my last hospitalisation but I also see at times she lacks empathy for those who do struggle, her brother in particular had a very difficult life and recently died after being sober in AA for many years.
Today I share this here to get a better handle on what I am feeling, guilt over not having been there more for my husband who sadly didn’t want to acknowledge my emotions. Is it right to blame myself or more compassionate to see that at the time I did the best I could with the emotional neglect history I carried? Today at least I can be honest. I am just a struggling human trying her best to form better boundaries of self care. Taking care of my diet is not only obsession its very necessary at present. Today I need to give myself love and I also need to take the hand of my inner child and remind her it wasn’t her fault that her mother and father were so rarely there. When I had the car accident at 17 in 1979 they turned up every night with a home cooked meal. That was love. But I do not remember the hugs. Or having my hand held and after my three month stay in hospital there was no support of any kind. And after that I really started drinking and when drugs came into my life the following year at college I thought that was a very cool thing, but it took me away in so many ways from what I really needed.
I thank God today for revealing a little more to me of what I endured and also of helping me to make sense of how neglect dogged me. Today I see myself making far wiser choices of self care and for that change too, I am most especially grateful.
The following post is a lovely excerpt from Louise Hay about loving and accepting our inner child.
Emerging From The Dark Night 