Acting on Impulses and Healing Your Inner Child

100 Things #019 - Kidnap Your Own Inner Child

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

One positive aspect of the last few years of my life has been how therapy has affected the way I approach problem-solving in the day-to-day. 

It has honestly taught me a lot about myself and has given me a number of new tools to keep on hand to continue to better serve myself and my mental health in the future.

One of these tools which I believe has made the largest impact in my day-to-day life is this idea of confronting your inner child in hopes of finding some insight or clarity on where a personal issue or blindspot in how you’re presently processing a difficult situation originates from.

And in some cases, this tool does exactly what it’s supposed to do. 

I feel like I can connect with the fledgling person I was years and years ago and actually begin to help myself work past the current issue at hand. It’s occasionally a more difficult exercise to work through, as one will occasionally bump into bouts of minor traumatic experiences that one may or may not have even recognized in oneself yet, but those are things that can continue to be processed during that journey. 

In other cases, though, simply calling on your inner child to enlist their help with whatever obstacle you’re tackling may be a less realistic strategy. 

The issue with limiting beliefs

In my experience, this is often because our inner children are dealing with obstacles of their own. From arbitrary rules of our childhoods that were insisted upon with little room for error, to school systems that so often only fostered creativity within the confines of what was considered conventionally proper, our inner children aren’t always open books simply waiting to be understood. 

While, yes, these experiences specifically are not ones that are shared across all childhoods, every individual has gone through their own hardships that can make an exercise like this one just a little bit harder.

And in these cases, an entirely separate journey of healing must take place for that inner child before we can effectively begin to work on the present. This sort of journey is one that can sometimes take years to accomplish effectively… 

Which is why I’ve kept another tool in my back pocket for issues like these — “kidnapping” your inner child.

I know, it sounds a little extreme, and this one is free to be taken as lightly or as seriously as each reader sees fit, but there is some real reason to give this idea some thought. 

Taking ownership and acting on impulse

Whether you approach it as a journaling prompt, a thought experiment, or simply as a conversation starter, this idea of taking ownership of your inner child gives an individual the ability to imagine how their situation could look different were they to be in control of the narrative of their own past. 

Having the freedom to do whatever one wanted as a child, while likely not a responsible or safe decision in many situations, was and is the dream for many strong-willed children who wanted to be their own bosses in their youth.

We’re told our entire lives that certain expenses and behaviours are childish or unattainable for various reasons, but it isn’t until we develop stronger senses of autonomy and the capability to finance our own lives that these “childish” dreams drift back into reach as adults, but it takes a certain kind of ownership of one’s own inner child to be able to act on and fulfill those wishes. 

The secret to making this exercise worth the effort is to do these things despite the lessons many of us were so harshly instructed on as children.

I believe it is only through small acts of defiance that honour the wishes of the inner children of our pasts that we can start to heal, and work towards creating a better environment to consult those aspects of ourselves within.

So, the next time you feel some small part of you reaching for a childish impulse in your day-to-day life, steal your inner child back from those limiting restrictions that were placed upon them years ago, and consider fulfilling that whim, for you and for them.

I’ll leave you here with a few journaling prompts for those who want to do a bit of guided thinking around this topic:

• Explore the concept of confronting your inner child to gain insight into personal issues or blind spots. Have you ever tried this exercise? If so, what was your experience like?

• Reflect on a childhood dream or impulse that you've dismissed as childish or unattainable. How might honouring this desire benefit your present self and your inner child?

• Explore the idea of "kidnapping" your inner child as a means of taking ownership of your past and present. How might reclaiming your inner child's desires and impulses empower you to create a better future?

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If any of this resonated with you, I’d love to hear any thoughts or stories in the comments and replies.

For now, have a good week, and I’ll see you at 100.