👧🏻 Inner child 👧🏻
Reflecting on my own search of true self, you know…just a gentle weekend task of light existential dread…that those of us engage in on a regular basis (overintellualizing and its functions is part of what this post will be about, so bear with me).
As Alice Miller, a great Psychoanalyst, shares her own reasons for becoming a psychotherapist we all crave to be able to say:
“I can be sad or happy whenever anything makes me sad or happy;
I don’t have to look cheerful for someone else;
I don’t have to suppress my distress or anxiety to fit other people’s needs.
I can be angry and no one will ever die or get a headache because of it.
I can rage when you hurt me, without losing you!”
Well I just asked myself to what extent have I been able to say these words and fully believe them. Both as a child and as an adult.
🤔
These are Incredibly important statements to develop the ability to make, when we face our own inner child, when we deal with physical illness and cannot get its roots, when we become parents.
The alternative is to go into all kinds of repair behaviors to protect our Mother, to safe her from distress, to ensure we survive…and sometimes over-intellectualizing is the way through. We suppress authentic emotions and we seek meaning through overusing our heads.
Nothing wrong with using our heads…until we are cut out from emotions, expressivity, creativity, spontaneity and genuine play!
Aleksandra Staneva, PhD 