One of the biggest things that has the capacity to influence us is unhealed traumas of our past. You may have heard of the term “inner-child” before and I want to shed light on what this is.
An inner-child is basically a younger part of yourself that is stuck in the trauma of the past. By ‘younger’, I mean younger than today. It doesn’t have to be a child below the age of 18. If something happened to you yesterday and you didn’t deal with it, then the suppressed upset emotions stay in your body and remain stuck in the moment of the trauma. This becomes your inner-child.
One of the most useful things we could do for ourselves is to keep healing those parts of us that are stuck in the past. What they basically need is to release their toxic emotions, and feel loved and accepted. A great way to give love and acceptance is by having an inner dialogue with your younger selves, and feed them with the love they were craving to feel.
Here is a list that could help you. Tell yourself:
You are loved.
You are accepted.
You are safe.
You are worthy.
You are special.
You are important.
The more we say this to ourselves, the more it raises our self-esteem and we slowly recover from the situations of the past. If you have young children, these are great affirmations to tell them just before they sleep to strengthen their self-worth.
If you want to know more about how your inner child could influence you, I invite you to watch my first Ted talk about “The Little Hijacker in You”.