Listening to the Child Within

I've been doing this journalling process, in which I have conversations on the page with my "inner child." I do it in my head and out loud too. It's a process I learned from a wise and intense book called Healing Your Aloneness and I was using this process last winter when I was in a lot of emotional pain. I've returned to the process now because a little voice in my head told me it's what I'm needing for the next step in my journey.

I use the term "inner child" with great reluctance. Something in me recoils at the pop psychology of it all. But the truth is we do have a child within us, at least one, and I've been making some real discoveries about her, this little girl inside of me.

The conversations usually don't go too well. She's angry and in pain a lot, reluctant to talk to me because I've neglected her too much and don't give her what she wants or needs. So the process can be painful, difficult and frustrating, but I stick with it, calling forth my most patient, loving, compassionate and understanding adult self, remembering to keep listening to her feelings, acknowledging them and asking how I can help. Here's what I'm finding:

I am happy to make contact with this little person inside--even though the conversations are often painful and difficult--because she knows what feels good and what doesn't. She has my passion and my joy, my creativity, humor, aliveness. She has my sensitivity, softness and vulnerability. She has my playfulness, openness, silliness, love of adventure, and sensuality. She is a fountain of good ideas that would not otherwise occur to me. She is imaginative and unique and miraculous. She knows how to create a life of passion, joy and connection, a life that matters. Without her, I do not have access to these qualities, this guidance, this richness of feeling and wonder.

She doesn't know how to reserve an airline ticket or balance a checkbook, and she doesn't want to do these things. That's where my adult self comes in, to do all these things, to make her visions a reality and to take care of the everyday necessities. She doesn't know how to protect herself, though she knows what's scary and doesn't feel right. She doesn't know how to heal when she's hurt. She doesn't care about convention or habit. She loves freedom, expression and play. She remembers what's important.

She's not always right. She comes to wrong conclusions, especially about herself, and she needs my help correcting those, but she has a childlike wisdom, insight and intuition that I cannot live well without. My job is to protect her, help her heal her wounds, encourage her, and most of all, to listen to her. My job is to help her live and express through me, to realize her dreams, so that i am living a life of heart.

I am grateful for her wisdom and her feelings, even all the difficult ones, because she is honest and true and knows things my adult self has forgotten or routinely neglects. She gets me to stop and smell the roses, to curl up with a book on a rainy day, to listen to the still, small voice within, to dance.