I Found My Inner Child

I’m a relative late comer to the practice and power of connecting with your inner child.

I think I’ve always known that we all have one and for one reason or another, that only a sadistic psychologist would take on board I’ve

resisted most of my life from connecting with mine.

But it kept bubbling to the surface. I suspected that eventually it would force me to deal with it and when that time come the surprise was

just how much I loved the experience and why I have vowed to never let her go again.

There is a well proven school of thought that we can never fully move on from past issues until we reconnect with the face of our issues –

known as our inner child. It is often recommended to help with this process, which is essentially visualisation, that we get our hands on an

old photo of us as children.

I have worked on the basis for most of my life, that the past is best left where it belongs in the past and that there is little to be gained in

dwelling or rehashing old, particularly painful, memories.

I now acknowledge that in the main this was wrong and it was especially wrong for me as I lunged from one traumatic experience to another

and never giving myself time or the opportunity to begin healing in between.

The end result was a repressed memory buried so deep that it took quite some excavating to get to the bottom of. Assuming of course

that I have.

So, I went in search of a photograph and knowing I would have my pick I came across one that quite honestly stopped me in my tracks.

The one that grabbed my heart was of a little girl, a most beautiful little girl (if I’m allowed say that) who stood in front of me with a dinky,

cute, lemon crocheted dress and the shyest, sweetest of smiles. Warm yet vulnerable. Open yet reserved.

What caught me off guard was how easy I found it to slip inside her head and that I knew, I truly knew, what she was thinking and how she

was feeling, in that moment and beyond.

I wanted to speak to her.

I wanted to say all of this to her.

Niamh, My Inner Child, Aged 4

'I truly think you are beautiful.

You are the most gorgeous, cute little girl in all the land.

With your dinky little lemon crocheted dress, the side tilt of your head, letting me know you are shy and introverted but your smile tells me

you are warm and open and want the world to know they can trust you. Because they can trust you.

Your beautiful sallow skin, those rosy cheeks, raspberry red lips and those gorgeous dark eyes. You really are a stunning little girl. Do you

know just how beautiful you are?

Don't believe anyone if they tell you otherwise. Don't worry about your shape, your size, focus on your beauty. Don't listen to anyone else.

Listen to me. You ARE beautiful as you are.

The fact that you are standing in the shade in this photograph hints to me that all you really want to do is to step out into the light but you

are just too scared. You are terrified of being judged, laughed at of making yourself be seen.

And this, darling, is the truth of it all. Looking at you here in this photo I know what you are thinking and how you are feeling.

BECA– USE I AM YOU AND YOU ARE ME.

You are my inner child and I love you with every drop of blood in my body. I have never loved anyone more.

But you don’t believe you are worthy of love.

You believe you are not enough.

You listened when they told you others were better.

You paid attention to their actions when they made you feel that you didn’t deserve to be loved.

You have always felt like you don’t belong.

I want you to know that I love you.

I will always love you

I will never leave you.

BUT and this will be hard to accept, there will be times up ahead when it will feel like everything is falling apart.

It will be true

Everything will fall apart.

You will encounter loss and abandonment.

You will experience deep loss in your family.

You won't be able to talk about it.

Your fiance will die shortly before your wedding.

Your darling Dad will die after a very short illness

Your Mum will stay with you for a few short years and then she will die too.

You will be left alone.

You will be alone.

But I won’t ever abandon you again.

I will get wrapped up in my own head for a time, I'm so sorry about that, while I process everything. I will look for answers in a lot of the

wrong places.

I will need to sink even lower before I can begin to rise again.

But it will bring me back to you.

But I will rise and I will be stronger and happier than before, when I do.

And while I am rising I will come and find you.

When I find you I will beg you for forgiveness.

I will beg you to forgive me for having left you adrift, for a while, but I will swear to you that I am back and will NEVER go away again. Ever.

This might sound dramatic but darling it is true, until we leave this world and then we will leave it together.

Since I found you I have not stopped holding your hand. I will never stop holding it.

Your little fleshy, warm hand with the soft feel of the lemon crochet on your arm, leaving your hand to fit perfectly into mine and there it

will stay.

I will never leave you again.

You are the best thing that has happened me and I will always be eternally grateful that my God led me back to you.

I want you to know that you can feel safe and secure with me.

I want you to trust that together we are stronger.

I finally feel I am somewhere I belong.

I belong with you and you belong with me.

We are home.

You are so beautiful.

Niamh xx ?

PS www.niamhennis.com/createyourbestlife

Four weeks working with me to show you how to be more so that you can do so much more with your one precious life.