About a month ago, my therapist and I were discussing the constant upset that my daughter seems to experience. And she stressed the fact that I needed to encourage my daughter to comfort herself. That knowing that you can be there for you and love yourself through to feeling better is the first step in empowering her and making sure she doesn’t seek out other methods of comfort for quelling the pain. When I discussed being there for yourself with my daughter, she referred to it as having a Body Buddy. That she came up with the phrase made me feel she may have a head start on understanding this self-love concept. This entity is definitely your inner daughter.
In a conversation the other day with Fiona, she began to count all the people who she knew loved me, Shalagh/Mommy. She said she and her brother loved me. And Daddy loved me. And I loved me, right? And maybe for half of a second, I considered the validity of that, but I didn’t miss a beat when I said “Yes”. Because it’s what I said right then that will model how she should treat and regard herself in the future. If there were one thing I would want to give her, it would be self-love and self-trust. And so, I must model it for her.
My therapist asked how I feel and what I do when someone gives me a compliment. While I know I will say thank you, I don’t know that the compliment will go deep. Because it seems I am so very skeptical of the validity and the source, I will dismiss it. Seems that it was always safer to dismiss the good stuff this way. So when the bad stuff came, I wasn’t too far off the path. But I can admit that now, this approach may not be serving me very well anymore. It’s a coping mechanism or habit that is keeping me from getting some very important needs met. It’s an outdated mode that needs updating.
Mainly it seems that not only do our inner children need playtime, they also need someone to tell them what a good job they did. Or how pretty they look. Or that they matter enough to be noticed. If you think that you are no longer a 6-year-old, think again. Inside you is a very vulnerable active and needy child. It’s just a fact. And the moment I realized that, I started to shift. Because the quality of a parent I am to my inner 6-year-old will be the quality of a parent I am to my daughter. You cannot avoid treating your inner and outer children both the same.
Loving yourself is a choice. My choice to bully and berate myself has never gotten me any further down the road to achieving my goals. And it certainly wouldn’t be how I would want anyone to ever treat my daughter. So, I am setting an intention to speak firmly but kindly to my inner 6-year-old in the hopes that I can feel my perspective shift a little more. And as I increase the self-trust, fear can not be the governing force in my soul and my purposeful existence.
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