Everyday Woo (Volume 13)
Your inner child wants to be heard...but is it throwing a temper tantrum?
Everyday Woo is a place for the woo curious to learn a little more about tarot and spirituality in a not-too-serious way. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week…
✨ Listening Critically to Your Inner Child
I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I threw a LOT of temper tantrums when I was a kid. And they were basically Oscar-worthy: red face, tears streaming down my cheeks, clenched fists, and my hallmark move: the open-mouthed, silent scream. I would get so upset that no sound actually came out. CUTE, right?
More often than not, the root of these screaming fits was not getting my way. Anyone who’s ever spent more than 5 minutes around a toddler knows that they get upset over the most ridiculous things: you can be actively trying to prevent them from harming themselves, and they’ll still dissolve into the kind of tears that make you worry that someone has CPS on speed-dial.
Thankfully, I have pretty good parents who stuck to their guns and didn’t give me everything I wanted (still kinda mad about not getting a pony though, Mom). And because every whim that flittered through my mind wasn’t honored as a kid, I grew up to be an adult who doesn’t expect everything to be handed to her on a silver platter. Yay, child rearing win!
Ok, this isn’t turning into some sort of weird parenting advice newsletter (I only mother cats, not humans). But the recent buzz around the spiritual idea of connecting with your inner child got me thinking about how we approach listening to the needs of our younger selves: how can we determine what requests are rooted in our healing as an adult and what might regress us back to a “temper tantrum” sort of energy?
Who is your inner child?
In basic terms, your inner child is your younger self. The experiences and lessons you learned as a child (consciously and subconsciously) play a role in who you are as an adult, so striving to connect with this part of yourself makes sense. It can yield valuable information and help explain certain patterns you engage in as an adult.
For example, I was a very dramatic child. I had a wild imagination, which I used to tell stories to anyone who would listen, and I enjoyed being in the spotlight.
Up until around 3rd grade, I had no problem standing out and making my voice heard, but a series of events around the age of 9 taught me that it was better to blend into the background: kids my age started to focus on popularity and measured worth by superficial things like clothes and looks. What I was good at, like knowing a bunch of obscure facts and writing fantastical stories, didn’t market well in my small-town Missouri school. I was teased about my looks (I was a braceface with zits), my intelligence, and all of the parts of myself that I would have previously shared without hesitation.
So I learned to keep my mouth shut. To be less meant protecting myself from the judgmental gaze of others. After all, if you don’t say anything, your words can’t be twisted. You can’t get bullied if no one knows you’re there.
As an adult, I realized that I was repeating this pattern. I censored myself quite often out of fear of rejection. Whether it was claiming to like the same things that previous partners liked (I’ll never get back the weekends I spent pretending to be interested in soccer) or not raising my hand to share my ideas in a faculty meeting, I actively silenced my inner child’s thirst to share her bold, creative perspective. And I’m still healing that today through acts like this very newsletter, where I practice vulnerability and authenticity as I share my personal thoughts and open myself up to criticism.
So, what’s the issue with listening to our inner child?
Let’s be clear: listening to our inner child isn’t the issue. But. Our inner child isn’t perfect. It carries pain. It can throw those epic temper tantrums, and if we’re not careful, we might give in to irrational demands without considering the overall impact. I firmly believe that we should always listen to what our inner child has to say. But from there? We have to think through what we choose to act on.
For example, I find that these wounds that I carry from my childhood manifest as an overreaction when someone doesn’t align with my point of view. Someone doesn’t like the way I read tarot? Cue a full-on meltdown of my inner child, who begins to cry out in anger. How dare they not like what I have to offer? Don’t they know how hard it is for me to put myself out there? I end up making a mountain out of a molehill, and this can lead to a pretty dangerous spiral into self-hatred: I have this icky tendency to go all “scorched earth” and dramatically declare that I will NEVER EVER SHARE ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!
And that, folks, is my inner child, throwing a temper tantrum.
So, while it’s valuable to listen to our inner child, even when it’s screaming from a place of hurt, we must act with the wisdom of an adult who’s lived more life and who has a more mature perspective on how to handle these emotions.
To help with this, I created a tarot spread to aid in figuring out how to mindfully listen to your inner child. No deck? No problem: you can journal on these prompts, talk them out with yourself in your car or simply think about them.
If you try it out, I’d love to hear what came up for you. The biggest desire of our inner child is to be heard. So start a conversation with yours. Just remember: you’re the adult.
Mantra for the week: I accept that I can listen without agreeing. Holding space for someone doesn’t require cosigning their point of view.
This week’s newsletter is a bit shorter because, well, 2022 started off with something that starts with a C and ends with -ovid. Them’s the breaks, kid. But I’ll be back next week with more musings: I’m cooking up a piece on rest and how it doesn’t look the same from person to person. God knows I’ve learned THAT this week.
2021 was such a weird year, but this little newsletter was an unexpectedly amazing addition to an otherwise strange 365 days. Thank you for supporting my writing. It’s like I have my own personal crew of socially-distanced cheerleaders!
Want to support me in another way? Send this newsletter to a friend and spread the Word of Woo. I promise it’s not a cult. Or just follow me on Instagram.
