Podcast - Episode 0126 - Healing The Inner Child with Merja Sumiloff

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In this episode Joel and Antonia talk with Merja Sumiloff about healing the inner child to unleash our true purpose in life.

In this podcast you’ll find:

Merja Sumiloff

HAT Model

Take control of your life and don’t just take what you were given.

All children are going to be wounded by their parents in some way.

This doesn’t mean we all have a pass to be trapped by our programming. When we find a part of our life that is truly dissatisfying, address it, handle it, and move past it.

Don’t just tell your story over and over and stay within that narrative. Do the work to get to the other side.

The wounding part of our past is effectively a massive part of our inner child’s world.

Car model

There are different people living in us:

Driver – Adult Self

Copilot – Inner Parent

10 year old and 3 year old – Inner child

Our inner child is the most wounded part of who we are. The part of us that was so wounded in childhood that the 10 year old/3 year old cognitive functions reflect that wounded inner child.

The 10 year old and 3 year old also hold the key to our creative potential and what we are here to accomplish. Our life’s purpose lies underneath the deepest wounds.

If we Parent the inner child we can transform the wounds into our true potential.

Most people resist healing due to fear of the unknown – “What will happen if I go completely off the rails?” That is often what stops us – “Better the Devil you know…. ”

There is a ton of healing in the space of vulnerability. Most of us are not used to being in those spaces of vulnerability because we have never learned how to be there and we don’t have people who hold space for us.

Society is very good at saying what is appropriate and what is not. We are conditioned not to go certain places even in the privacy of our own minds.

We can transmogrify our fears into a monster within us. If we can change the monster into a child we can lose the fear and have greater compassion for those wounded parts.

Find a picture of yourself as a child and carry it with you. Refer to the wounded parts as that inner child. When you are triggered and you realize you are in that inner child space, build a bridge between you and that inner child.

What kind of parenting did you have?

INFJs tend to grow up very fast and they don’t really have memory of a childhood. As adults we can regain that childhood and make it as wonderful as we’d like!

Inner dialogue determines parenting style. INFJ’s inner child often shows up in that tertiary role of Introverted Thinking which translates to a tendency toward perfectionism.

Most of the work is inner dialogue. It is based upon the parenting style you choose to show toward your inner child:

Authoritative – Loving boundaries

Authoritarian – Nothing but boundaries

Permissive – No Boundaries

Absent – Nothing

The parenting work you do outside of yourself can include any person or influence that had authority over you as a child – entity, culture, religion, environment, etc.

NF types like to make sure everyone is comfortable and they are performing at an acceptable level.

Don’t beat yourself up. And don’t beat yourself up for beating yourself up. Take a pen and write a letter of apology to your inner child.

Recreate a more enjoyable childhood for yourself. Take your inner child on outings every week.

Our Inner child holds the key to our whole life’s purpose. Our inner child needs us and we need our inner child. To be an absent parent to our inner child and continue to ignore its needs only takes us further away from our inner sovereignty and the life we are supposed to be living. Include your inner child in your everyday life.

This doesn’t mean you can be a completely permissive parent and let your inner child run your life. Find a place where your inner child is part of your creative process. Part of who you are.

We have the ability to regain some of the things we missed during our childhood. It isn’t about wild abandon, but creating a sovereign experience over our actions and reactions.

When we do this work and amalgamate all the divergent parts of ourselves, we also amalgamate all those different functions together so we can become who we really are: A parent, an innovator, a creator, whatever.

When you encounter someone who you perceive as obnoxious or undeveloped, imagine what they were as a 5 year old. Before life or the world made them who they are today.

When you do this work and show love, support, and a conscious parenting style for yourself, you realize how much more grace you can give to others who may have experienced similar things in their childhood.

When somebody is triggered it is not the whole story. It is just part of the story. And the individual needs to be honored.

Whoever you are. Wherever you are. Your life matters. You are an important part of this space we are in. To hide that person away and speak to yourself harshly is doing a disservice to yourself and to the whole planet. We need you. We need you to step into who you really are.

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