Inner Child Healing

"We have to listen to the child we once were, the child who still exists inside us. That child understands magic moments. We can stifle its cries, but we cannot silence its voice. The child we once were is still there. Blessed are the children, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven... we have to allow it [the child] to feel loved again."

- Paulo Coehlo's By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Over the course of this year, I've been under heavy construction.

I am learning to let myself flow. I am healing unconsciously and consciously. I'm learning new ways to allow myself to live life with more ease than I thought was possible - and I'm still learning. I'll never master it or be an expert at flowing with the changes of life. Because I would be lying if I said that I don't still break down over a minor or a major change in my life. And lately, change has been all there is in my life.

I broke up with my partner of four years at the beginning of this year.

I quit my job that I loved with people that I loved.

I moved into a new apartment and a different environment.

I cut my hair the shortest it's ever been.

If you would have told me one year ago that I thrust myself upon all these changes in the span of 6 months, I would have literally laughed in your face. Anyone who knows me knows that me and change - we've always had a tumultuous relationship. I was someone who was a creature of habit and loved my routine. Every part of my routine.

Life is funny that way. You meet people, plan your life out, spend your days thinking that the life you're living in that moment is the exact life that you'll continue to live until your time on this Earth has expired. But we never plan for the change - the shift from thinking narrowly about our lives and the role we play to thinking broader and wondering what else life has to offer?

I started to really realize how small I felt in the world, but how infinite my life and my role in this life is. It was in January that I realized that I had been operating in the world under the guise of my inner child. So many of us live this way without knowing that our behaviors aren't necessarily us as we are today, but us as we were as children. Somewhere between my transition from high school to college, I shut myself off and put up a wall between my true self and the rest of the world. There's a quiet trauma that comes from seeing yourself gradually lose yourself in the midst of finding someone else. I shrunk into my childlike self; extremely shy of social situations and meeting other people, hiding behind anyone I remotely felt comfortable with as a security blanket to throw over my head and make myself invisible. A joke was never a joke to me but a disguised insult - I was never enough for anyone else because I wasn't enough for myself. Sensitizing myself to words, actions, visions, that I couldn't see genuine, true friends or people around me. I only saw what I thought was intuitively for me.

Like a child, I was scared of living. So, like a child, I hid from my fears.

But then I asked myself, in that cold and empty month of January: what is the worst that could happen if people did see me? And it starts there. With opening your eyes and seeing yourself. Not participating in the toxic positivity or destructive self-love tactics - it's not all about saying affirmations in the mirror and taking a night to ignore the world and focus on yourself. It's about looking at yourself, the person you've been and the choices you've made in the survival mode you put yourself in, and taking accountability for the healing that you haven't allowed yourself to feel.

Is it more important to nurture the thoughts and values that others hold of you, or your own?

You have to strip back down to basics. When you're a child, you didn't worry about the material things that add worry or stress to our lives now like our technology (iPhones, laptops, tablets), love and relationships, answering messages and emails or wondering why someone hasn't answered our messages or emails, things we attach ourselves to (men/women, situations that can't be solved), etc. We have to take our own importance back and substitute our attachments to all of these outside sources with an attachment to ourselves and God.

My viewpoint on love has done a 360 more than I ever believed. Love is patient, love is kind - so why are we rushing into love and mistaking attachment for soulmates and true love? Why are we yearning for someone to love us unconditionally when we were born into this world with that love already fulfilled by God?

I fully believe that we are deserving of the love that we yearn for, but it will only come to us when we are fully grateful for the love that God continues to give us.

Activities that help me heal my inner child:

• Walking barefoot in nature: It hits different than just walking in nature with shoes. We're meant to feel the Earth underneath us so we can be grateful for everything it offers. We understand this more in childhood than we do in adulthood, but trust me, when you do it it'll just feel right.

• Painting freely: Grab some colors that you love or some colors that look good together, grab a canvas and just start painting. Don't paint based off a template, just put the brush to the canvas and start doing brushstrokes. When we're kids, we color and paint without giving much thought and that takes the stress away from feeling like we need a perfect outcome.

• Watching cartoons I loved as a kid: Watching cartoons like Spongebob, DragonTales, or even Totally Spies! can fill that nostalgic void we feel sometimes when thinking about our childhood.

• Talking with childhood friends: I'm blessed to have a friendship that we've both maintained for the over 15 years now. Talking with friends who have grown with you and seen you as a child really helps. Those conversations always have a level of depth that I don't always get with conversations with friends I've met recently or in the past couple years.

• Listening to music: I'm a sucker for a good playlist. I recently made a Disney throwback playlist and my inner child has never been happier and more grateful. Who knew "Push it to the Limit" by Corbin Bleu would take me through a spiritual awakening?

• Journaling: Journaling has been one of my passions ever since I learned to read and write. My Mom gave me my first little diary when I was 6, and I would write about how my day went, things that made me happy, things that bothered me - I would write about it all. Not only is it a way to connect with a pastime that I loved as a child, I also love to keep all of my journals and read them back at the end of every year. Seeing my progress and my human experience documented through my eyes and how my perception changes as the years go by is really motivation for me to keep going in those moments when it seems like everything is in vain. There really is a reason for the things we go through and experience in this life. The reason is always growth.