The Child Within Us

“In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play,” said Friedrich Nietzsche, a bright eyed, four year old adventurer, aching for some attention and love. The question is not if we harbour a child-like side within us but whether we have learned to live with it in the best possible way or not. Perhaps, because we have been so determined to prove our independence, to be out there – working and travelling on our own, we have ignored the child within us. Perhaps, all too aware of our childish ways, we have tried to bury that side – because it seemed to be the adult thing to do. Or maybe we are just repeating the past, still treating the child in us the way we were treated – with impatience and anger.

Someone else gets the job that we wanted; we do not get invited to the party that we were looking forward to; we feel rejected and it hurts. Right then, when things are not going on too well, we need to stop and talk to the hurt child within us. If we do not, that child is going to feel abandoned and make him/herself heard – by going on an eating or spending binge, throw a tantrum, get noticed – and life will get from bad to worse. The inner child can also make him/herself heard in ways that affect our relationships with people important to us. S/he can quit a job in a rage, walk out of a marriage because of a few rough months, and wreck a twenty-year-old friendship.

Many times the reason is, that the child in us needs the kind of total acceptance and attention that we needed as babies – even though our behaviour may be totally unreasonable. Whatever the reason, the inner child now needs to hear and feel that we understand his/her past feelings. By recognizing this, some of the anger and pain will seep out and the sense of deprivation will begin to cease. For many of us, it may be a study in the art of parenting, even if we are not parents ourselves.

Try talking to yourself and you will learn that you can take good care of your inner child yourself. There is nothing wrong with grieving and weeping. For once, ignore the very ‘adult’ behaviour. If you are having trouble talking to yourself, a stuffed toy, or a pillow will work wonders! It is an exercise worth doing. It gives us the opportunity, at any age, to move on, to start again when we want, to step out from the fog of anger and gloom, and begin to take pleasure in the energy, humour and spontaneity we so hastily buried as we rushed to put childhood behind us. As G.K. Chesterton put it very aptly, “Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery.  He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.”