@patrickteahanofficial: Something my mentor Amanda Curtin LICSW @amandacurtinrrp would say all the way through doing childhood trauma work with clients. ⠀ Most inner child work is actually about getting a stronger adult in place so that we can nurture, re-parent our inner child and live a less reactive and messy life. The adult does all the work and the inner child watches someone finally take care of them. ⠀ Therefore, the inner adult is the expert on things like: ⠀ ⠀ *how our boss is just a person in our life, not the ultimate authority on who we are *that it is safe now to take more risks and handle such risks, like asking for better intimacy ⠀ *knowing that our triggers aren't correctly sized for the present ⠀ *asking questions even if it causes anxiety (handling life in an empowered way) ⠀ *who is safe and who isn't ⠀ *how to read people's emotions and intentions better (not from our childhood trauma narrative) *the adult is an expert on knowing the inner child is active and in need ⠀ And the inner child is the expert on: ⠀ ⠀ *what it was like growing up (the emotional data from family) ⠀ *how people in childhood made us feel unsafe (attachments)⠀ ⠀ *how we decided to cope the way we do (surviving it and why) ⠀ *how we got our needs met or survived (navigating toxic people) ⠀ *what we believed about ourselves and others (believing the lies) ⠀ The inner child is not an expert on things like our dating life - that would be disastrous and often is : ) Getting a strong adult in place is a process in the beginning of childhood trauma work that is about not letting our inner child look at the present through the lens of childhood. They are not bad in any way for doing that, it's just how this stuff works. This process has a lot of starts and stops. Most of us, including myself are in our inner child 24/7. Check out my Monthly Healing Community: link in bio. ⠀ #childhoodtrauma ⠀#innerchild ⠀#HealingJourney ⠀#reparenting #trauma ⠀#therapy #inneradult #wellness
