Inner child

How to Comfort Your Inner Child

Learning to comfort your inner child is key to self-soothing, especially if you are feeling stressed, anxious, upset, or some other strong emotion. In my brand-new practice – How to Comfort Your Inner Child: IFS Meditation – I guide you through a process of first connecting with, then calming, and soothing the little boy or girl inside.

This short, simple practice could be transformative, especially if you try it every time you are struggling in some way. Over time, you will establish a warm, loving connection with your inner child – and so begin to feel calmer, happier, and more at peace in your day-to-day life.

Try it now by clicking the button below or visit my Insight Timer Collection.

Love,

Dan ❤️

 
 

Announcing My New Course: Healing from Childhood Trauma with IFS and Self-Compassion

Image by Sean Oulashin

I am excited to announce the launch of my new Premium Audio Course for Insight Timer – Healing from Childhood Trauma with IFS & Self-Compassion. If you struggle with your mental health, and especially if you had a difficult childhood, I hope you will find this course calming and insightful. 

You will be guided on a healing journey with eight days of teaching and experiential exercises such as journalling, guided imagery, breathwork and meditation. The eight lessons range in length from 15-20 minutes, so are easy to fit into your busy day.

I am really proud of this course – it synthesises many of the things I am most passionate about into one short, powerful week of teaching. You will learn about child development, temperament, core developmental needs, schemas and the IFS model of internal parts, how to work with your Inner Critic, what we mean by childhood trauma and neglect – as well as how to heal from these painful experiences using powerful techniques drawn from schema therapy, compassion-focused therapy, mindful self-compassion and internal family systems.

The course is free if you become a Member Plus Supporter. This costs just $60 for 12 months of high-quality content like this on the Insight Timer app from me and thousands of other leading teachers.

Get started now by clicking on the button below. I hope you enjoy it!

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

 
 

Why Every Part of You Deserves Love and Understanding

Image by Tashi Nyima

Let me ask you a question: How do you feel about yourself, in general? I hope you mostly like and approve of yourself. But the opposite may be true – you may really dislike yourself and find it hard to treat yourself with anything approaching kindness. Sadly, this is especially likely to be true if you have a trauma history, because that often scrambles our sense of ourselves.

But even if you’re lucky enough to like yourself, most of the time, I bet there are parts of you that you’re not so keen on. Your inner Critic, for example. As I often say to my clients, nobody loves their Critic! That’s because this part of us often treats us harshly, or is highly demanding, pushing us way too hard with a long lists of shoulds (‘You should be doing better than this, what’s wrong with you?’ or ‘You should be thinner/smarter/richer/more popular/harder-working…’).

We may also feel negatively towards parts that make us do stuff we find shameful, embarrassing or destructive in our lives. The part that makes us drink too much. The parts that tell us to gamble, smoke weed, work obsessively, pick the same kind of unsuitable person over and over. Nobody loves these guys.

No bad parts

But as I have written before in these posts, we need to understand that there are no bad parts (such an important idea that Dr Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems therapy, used it as the title of one of his books). Even what are called ‘extreme’ parts in IFS, like the ones listed above, genuinely mean well. It can be hard to see that sometimes, but every part of you is either holding some kind of pain or trying to protect you from it. And the weed-smoking one, or the gambling one, are just trying to help you numb, soothe or avoid painful emotions.

It’s why people get home from an uber-stressful day and say, ‘God I need a glass of wine!’ Or why people rush out from high-pressure meetings to smoke a hasty cigarette. In both cases that’s a soother-type part, helping the person deal with painful/stressful feelings. Now this doesn’t mean that we should drink like fishes or smoke 40 a day! Of course not. We may need to help these parts change, or set limits on them, but it’s imperative that we do that collaboratively, with compassion, or it just doesn’t work.

That’s why people get sober and relapse, over and over. Or why many smokers quit again and again and again, but always end up back on the baccy. If you want to make deep, long-lasting changes in your life, you have to work with these parts, not against them. You need to understand why they are making you drink/smoke/work/gamble. There is always a reason – and that reason is usually helping you with some kind of pain.

Easier said than done

I’m well aware that it’s much easier for me to write some encouraging words in a blog post than for you to actually change. To change the way you behave, day in and day out. Or the way you interact with these parts of yourself you may dislike, or even despise. It is not easy – take it from someone who spends their whole working life trying to help people change.

But it is doable. And this is one reason I recorded a new guided meditation recently – Sending Loving-Kindness to Every Part of You: IFS Meditation. I blended the classic Buddhist metta (loving-kindness) practice with the IFS approach, to help you develop greater feelings of self-acceptance, self-kindness and self-compassion for every part of you, even the tricky parts.

I’m pleased with this one, so I very much hope it helps.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

 
 

Why Your Inner Teenager Needs Some Love

The idea of an inner child is not a new one. This notion has been around, in personal-growth circles, since the 60s. In fact, the term ‘inner child’ was first coined by Carl Jung in the 19th century. What is different now is we have a number of psychotherapy models based on the idea that we all have different parts of our personality, the inner child being just one of them.

Schema therapy, internal family systems (IFS), compassion-focused therapy, trauma-informed stabilisation treatment and the structural dissociation model all operate from this foundational idea that we are not a single, unitary self but are made up of a kaleidoscope of inner parts. This is especially true if you have experienced trauma, because your brain helps you cope with traumatic experiences by creating some parts to hold traumatic memories and experiences, while others form to help you cope with the trauma. The jargony term for this is ‘multiplicity of self’, which I think IFS understands and explains best.

So, most of us are familiar with the idea that we have an inner child, who is young, hurt and needs our love, warmth, reassurance and healing to help all of us feel calmer, happier and more at peace. But you are probably less familiar with your inner teenager, who is just as important. This is one of the many things I love about IFS – Dick Schwartz, its founder, believes that we have a whole bunch of young parts inside, ranging from infancy right through to young adulthood.

And if you think about it, that makes a great deal of sense. Just compare a child at three and 13 – they are like different people. Or think about pivotal moments in your childhood and adolescence, especially painful or traumatic ones. If you get the idea of parts (which is now strongly backed up by neuroscientific research and theory) then it’s a logical step to say that there is a four-year-old, holding key memories from age four, a seven-year-old holding key memories from age seven, and so on.

Getting to know my inner teenager

In my personal IFS therapy – which has been a wonderful, transformative experience – we have done a lot of work with my teenage parts. And that’s because my teenage years were tumultuous, to put it mildly. Especially from 17-19, when I was smoking weed every day, getting into all sorts of trouble and driving my parents – especially my poor mum – crazy.

Like many teenagers, I was also unhappy. I remember feeling so insecure about everything – my appearance, which I really disliked; whether I was cool enough (no); whether girls liked me (rarely); essentially every aspect of my personality, my body, the way I spoke and behaved with others was internally analysed, criticised and found wanting. Hence, I now understand, all the weed-smoking and general bad behaviour. I was really struggling and so acted out, with a vengeance.

Almost 40 years on, my life could not be more different. I live a (mostly) calm, mindful, sober existence. My wild years are long gone and the strongest drug I enjoy day to day is caffeine! Thanks to many years of personal work, surrounding myself with loving, supportive friends, colleagues and family, as well as living according to Buddhist principles, life today is mostly good.

I used to be ashamed of those wild times, but the more I understood about my teenage years and how unhappy I was, the more I also understood why I behaved that way. So I love and forgive him, that painfully self-conscious boy. He had a good heart, but was struggling, as so many teenagers do.

The Practice: rewrite your life story

I hope you are starting to resonate with the idea that you have an inner teenager living inside you, carrying all the painful thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences of adolescence and your later teenage years. And just knowing this is a good start, because these parts often feel lost and left behind before we find and start to connect with/care for them.

  • This period of your life may be especially important to reframe, telling a different story to yourself about how you acted and why. Creating a new, more understanding and compassionate story for myself about why I acted out the way I did has been hugely helpful for me. You may also need to forgive yourself for some pretty wild stuff

    Or you might just have felt deeply insecure, like I did, as this is a developmental stage when we are acutely aware of what others think of us and whether we fit in, our rampaging hormones also making us suddenly, painfully aware of boys or girls and whether they are attracted to us

  • Try journalling about this period of your life, trying to make sense of any behaviour you might have felt ashamed of through the lens of child development, trauma, neglect and any painful family dynamics that may have impacted on you as a child and teenager. Understand that whatever you thought, felt, said or did was not your fault

    If you have teens in your life now, think about what makes them anxious, angry, upset, lonely, hurt or depressed. And think about why they feel that way as they cope with the emotional and hormonal maelstrom of teenage-hood

  • Think about what you would say to them to try and explain all of that, or how you would help them feel calm, safe and loved. Then try saying those things to your teenage self, through journalling, in your mind or out loud

    Know that this inner teen deserves love, compassion and understanding as much as any other young person on this planet. And that you can give them all the love, now, that you didn’t get at that age – through journalling, reframing painful memories and perhaps help from a skilled therapist, who understands how to identify and work with your inner system of parts. I have found this process deeply healing, so I hope you do too

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

 
 

Why Do We Find Romantic Relationships so Triggering?

Image by Steve Watts

It is my tenth wedding anniversary this year. And I am lucky enough to have found someone who is warm, kind, caring and supportive. I genuinely don’t know how I would manage without her, because she has been there for me through so many hard times over that decade – illness, struggles with my mental health, tough times in my career. She is a gem.

But, trust me, my relationship history before this remarkable woman did not run nearly so smoothly. I have had my heart broken, more times than I care to remember. And, as a younger, more selfish man, I did not treat other people’s hearts with the care they deserved. I very much regret that now, but at least learned from those mistakes and now am (I hope) a kind, loyal, trustworthy and loving partner. I’m her rock and she is mine, which is truly a blessing.

I am sharing this with you to illustrate two key points:

  1. A good romantic relationship is one of the most healing things that could ever happen to us (equating to many, many years of the best therapy you could find, I reckon).

  2. A bad romantic relationship is one of the most triggering, hurtful and destructive experiences you could ever have (requiring many, many years of therapy to get over).

Relationships Fire up Your attachment system

Why are relationships so powerful, so emotionally activating for us? Well, partly because of the impact they have on your attachment system – one of the most powerful systems in your brain. A brief guide: your attachment system comes online the moment you are born, as does (hopefully) that of your mother, father, siblings, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and so on. But for most of us, our mother is our primary attachment figure, as we are literally part of her body for nine months (how much more attached could you be than that?), usually breastfeeds us and does most of the early caregiving.

So, you are born, your attachment system comes online and so does your mum’s. This is what helps you bond, as you both experience ‘attachment bliss’, that feeling of being completely loved, safe, cosy, warm and connected as she holds you in her arms and you gaze into each others’ eyes. And if this all goes as Nature intended, you feel securely attached to her and so develop a secure attachment style, which stays with you for the rest of your life.

Sadly, many of us did not experience this secure early attachment, for all sorts of reasons. Maybe mum was depressed, so was sometimes withdrawn and emotionally unavailable when you were a baby. Maybe she was drinking or taking drugs. Perhaps the family environment was highly stressful, involving poverty, domestic violence or some other kind of volatility and conflict. If she was stressed, so were you, so poor little you could not feel safe and secure, no matter how hard she tried.

None of this is about ‘mother-bashing’ – most mums are kind, loving and determined to be the best parent they can be. It’s just that sometimes, despite their best intentions, things don’t go as they should – and so exquisitely sensitive, utterly helpless, entirely dependent little you could not bond with her as you needed to.

If this was the case, you would have been insecurely attached and developed either an anxious or avoidant attachment style (or a mixture of the two). Again, this will have stayed consistent throughout your life, making relationships tricky – especially romantic ones.

How does this work in practice? Let’s say you meet a guy on a dating app. And he seems nice, at first. But soon he starts ignoring your messages, or giving vague, noncommittal answers – he might have an avoidant attachment style, so shuts down and withdraws if he feels like you’re getting too close. If you are anxiously attached, you might start panicking, wondering what is wrong and when he will leave you. Perhaps you start bombarding him with messages. You might even show up at his house, asking what you did wrong and how you can fix it. He gets more and more distant, you get more and more anxious, and so the whole painful cycle goes until, inevitably, it ends.

Good news: Your attachment style can be healed

So far, so depressing. But there is good news – we know from all the research (and there is a vast amount of research on attachment, dating back to the 1950s and the ‘father’ of attachment theory, Dr John Bowlby) that although attachment styles do stay constant throughout our lives, they are not fixed or set in any way. Your attachment style can change, so if you are anxiously attached but instead of meeting Mr Wrong on the dating app, you lucked out and found a kind, decent and securely attached guy, being with him would help you become more securely attached.

I would say that’s what has happened to me – after 10 years of love and stability, I feel much more securely attached to my wife than I did during all the crazy, rollercoaster years that came before her. So if romantic relationships are a struggle for you, please don’t give up.

As I am always saying in these posts and my teaching, it is never too much and never too late to heal. If you have a history of unhappy relationships, before embarking on a new one get some good therapy first, so you can heal yourself and stop playing out the same, painful patterns with every new person you meet. And then focus on the kind of person you choose – prioritise kindness above all else. Imagine this person as your best friend, not just an exciting lover. Would you be compatible? Would you be happy living with them, picking up each other’s dirty socks and all the other decidedly unromantic stuff that long-term cohabitation involves? Could you imagine them taking you to hospital if you were sick?

That’s what real, long-term, lasting love is all about, not the fireworks and can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other stage, which never lasts. See this person, primarily, as your friend and you will be much more likely to choose a keeper.

I hope that helps – and if relationships are a struggle for you, don’t despair. There is always hope – take it from someone who found lasting love, finally, in his middle age. And if I can do it, so can you.

Sending you love and warm thoughts,

Dan

 
 

Healing Your Inner Child

The idea that we have an inner child, who carries all the hurt, trauma and painful memories from our past, is not a new one one in psychotherapy. But all of the newest, trauma-informed models have a particular way of thinking about this young, vulnerable part of us. In schema therapy, this young part is called the Vulnerable Child – and is the main focus of therapy, because the idea is if we can heal this part then he or she (and so, of course, you) feels calmer, happier, stronger and more at peace.

In internal family systems (IFS) therapy, there is also a strong emphasis on working with this part of you. The main difference is that, in IFS, there isn’t just one inner child, but many. So you might have a three-year-old part, a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, and so on. And this makes sense to me, because these parts of you hold all the painful memories, feelings, thoughts, body sensations and experiences of you at the age of three, five or seven.

If we just had one inner child, then they would have to hold memories of being, say, three, 12 and 17 – ages at which we are completely different in terms of brain development, personality, ways of thinking and feeling. It just doesn’t really make sense. Far more persuasive to me, based on all the theory and my own experience of working with hundreds of people over the years, is that we have many inner children, not all of whom need help, but some definitely do.

What is a part?

This leads to an important question – what exactly do we mean by a ‘part’? In some ways, this depends on the therapy model you believe best represents our inner world. Various models have different ways of answering this question (and all think theirs is the right answer!). But let’s go with the IFS model for now, as it’s one of my favourites – and I like their answer best. Dick Schwartz, founder of IFS, says that a part is a neural network in the brain, holding all of the thoughts, memories, etc that we did at the part’s age.

Dick argues that this is how the brain creates what we perceive of as our self (or many selves). If you experienced trauma in your childhood, this is also how your brain helps you deal with that trauma. It creates one or more parts to hold those traumatic memories (called ‘exiles’). And then various parts whose job it is to keep those memories buried deep in your unconscious, so you don’t have to think about them all the time (called ‘protectors’) and can function in your day-to-day life.

Healing young parts

There are many ways to heal these young, traumatised parts of you. One way is through the relationship between you and your therapist – this is a crucial attachment relationship and will help those little kids inside you feel safe, understood and cared for. You may never have experienced this as a child, so it can be deeply healing to have those experiences in the context of a therapeutic relationship.

In IFS (and schema therapy), using imagery is also integral for the healing process. Many IFS sessions are spent ‘going inside’ – closing your eyes and imagining speaking to your parts, often through imagery, where you visualise them and engage in all sorts of powerful, healing techniques and interactions with them.

Developing self-kindness and self-compassion is also fundamental in trauma recovery. This can be tough, especially for trauma survivors, but is always possible, with the right support and problem-solving. You may find my guided meditations on Insight Timer helpful for this, or try Kristin Neff’s practices on the same app, which are fantastic. And the self we are being kind and compassionate to is usually a young one, so this is calming, soothing and restorative for them, too.

I will be writing a lot more about healing your inner child in these blog posts, as well as teaching about them in my Heal Your Trauma webinars, so I hope all of that proves helpful for you.

Warm wishes,

Dan