Module Six: Connecting with the inner child
When was the last time you had fun, like you did when you were a child?
Alternatively, you may be acting like a child all the time not wanting to grow up and take responsbility?
Whatever is going for you, each of us has an inner child trapped within an adult body and usually, it is suppressed through conformity and mediocracy due to the environment we choose to live in. When the inner child is ignored, no wonder it doesn’t feel loved and appreciated. So in order to improve your relationship with yourself, look to the child self as well as the adult and parent ones!
This module explores the inner child and you learn how to become a nurturing “parent” to heal any childhood wounds. Connecting with the inner child is essential work on this path. When we open our hearts to the inner child, we start to heal past wounds and become whole. However, we may first have to restore integrity with our inner child if we’ve ignored them for many years. It’s challenging work, but the rewards are well worth it.
Step 1: Watch the recorded coaching module
Just click the play button on the embedded video and take notes.
Step 2: Download the presentation
Heal your childhood wounds and reparent yourself.
Step 3: Allocate time to do the work
Now it is time to connect to your inner child, download the templates to help start the process, and if you get started book a coaching session or discuss it with your therapist as this is deep work. The end result is to heal those childhood wounds so you can start to see life through a different pair of glasses. The purpose is also to develop a beginner’s mind and re-engage with the awe and wonders you had when you looked at the world through a child’s eyes!
Coach Advice:
"Get to know your inner child, it is part of you and the longer you ignore it, you are ignoring you. Find out what your love languages are and do what you love.”
Be kind to yourself, whatever happened in childhood does not have to repeat itself in the here and now. Once you have discovered your inner child, it is important to restore integrity to build the trust up again. If you find this hard to face, this can be done with a professional ADHD coach to provide support through the process. Consider the benefit of healing those childhood wounds on the relationship with yourself, your mother and father, your intimate partner, and those around you. To find your love languages, go to Gary Chapman’s site to do the test.
Recommended Book:
Uprooting shame and guilt by Naomi Carr.
Every child yearns to hear these words, as does the child within us all. But what if the essence of Self is repressed by childhood conditioning before life hardly begins? Being denied the ability to think and feel for oneself prevents the child from evolving into adulthood unscathed, instead weighed down with fear and anxiety. Uprooting Shame and Guilt unravels the author’s journey in extracting herself from childhood trauma and dogma, finding refuge in the power of the mind and freedom from outdated beliefs.
Step 4: Download the templates
In order to help you put some changes in place, templates for connecting with the inner child are provided so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Of course there are also many apps that can help along the way too, but the important thing is to be consistent with what works for you. Just download each one and print your own copies. Alternatively you can create your own in evernote or another note organising app. The life scripts has been the most useful template for our clients and remember there is no right or wrong, just what is. Nobody to blame, just take responsibility as now you know it what will you do differently?
Celebrating ADHD run weekly group sessions on each module so you might find it useful to join one of those LIVE online webinars. The benefits of this are that you will start to realise that you are not alone in these struggles with inner child work. There is also an online session called ADHD unleased every Friday at 5.30pm (UK Time) where you will experience laughing and being playful for no reason! We want you to start fulfilling your potential and thriving with ADHD so start listening to our Celebrating ADHD podcast to get some inspiration. There is a recommended episode for each module.
Recommended Podcast for this module:
Recommended Meditation for this module:
This meditation on Anatta is from the Buddhist teachings on non-self. Although it is often translated into English as, ‘non-self’, the term anatta, or anatman, refers to the insight that nothing in the universe has self-existence, that is, that no entity can exist separate from, or independent of, everything else in the universe. In other words, all things only exist in a context – they are dependent upon all the things that exist around them. ‘Contingency’, is a useful term to convey the meaning of anatta. Once we understand what the ‘I’ is and the conditioning that we receive from the day we are born, then we can get present to our interpretations related to childhood traumas and heal those wounds. It provides insight into how the mind works and how you can reconnect with your inner child to heal yourself. We suggest you practice this meditation daily until you move on to the next module.
Step 5: Book a coaching review or take time out to reflect yourself
It is important to monitor and track our progress along the way in order to take charge of your ADHD. For example through taking the time out to do this reflection will highlight what is working for and what is not. This will save time in the long term as why to continue doing something that is not working for you and also if something is working for you, then why not do more of it? Therefore, please take this step as it is essential to the journey. You can even book a review session with a professional ADHD coach at a reduced rate below and then an online form will be sent to you in order to prepare for the session.
Monitor and track your progress.
Now it is time to review your module to see what you have learned and what changes you are putting in place. It is advisable that this is booked with one of our professional ADHD coaches.