I was thinking about how I could express the powerful impact of meeting my inner child during the 10 years I worked with children.
How could I convey this life-changing experience to other Wildhearts on Instagram, so they could experience it too?
I mean it had to be a reel (images are so last year daaarling and that fricking algorithm is the boss ….so there’s that!)
By the way, you can follow me on Instagram here. Let me share with you what I created … 👇
It gave me all the feels.
Not only because I’m a huge Sex and the City fan – this is my favourite song of all time, but trawling through those old photos was emotional.
I knew how I felt when each photo was taken and where I was in my life.
Before I met Little Lisa, I felt stuck. Bad. Rotten. Small, powerless and so very alone. Sometimes, I couldn’t even connect to those feelings. I was excellent at checking out and ignoring them.
I wasn’t that girl anymore.
You’ll notice in all those photos I’m smiling.
(They didn’t call me The Smiley Coach for nothing!)
I look happy ….
and I was NOT happy.
I was traumatised …
and I was an expert at masking it.
I was drunk in a few of them. I don’t drink anymore. Or smoke. Alcohol isn’t good for my anxiety. Cigarettes would have killed me (a packet a day or more at the weekend). Now, I’m connected to my inner child and I care about myself. I don’t want to poison my body. No judgement, but it feels good to actually want to properly take care of myself.
It makes sense doesn’t it?
None of these things would have been possible if I hadn’t connected to my inner child: 👇
- a simple and consistent self-care practice to protect me from burn out and a compromised immune system
- being able to regulate my feelings, including the low level anxiety which hung over me like a cloud of impending doom
- self-soothing when life got sh1tty instead of relying on food, or my two best friends – Pinot Grigio and Silk Cut
- releasing the need to be perfect – no more fearing the judgey McJudgersons
- finally loving myself (how about even liking myself)
- saying no without guilt or feeling like a b1tch
- drawing emotional boundaries – it’s exhausting feeling responsible for other people’s feelings all the fricking time
- protecting myself from tricky people (you know the types – manipulative, bullying or passive aggressive turds)
- speaking up for myself and taking a stand when something didn’t feel right instead of ignoring it because I was making a fuss
- asking for what I need (even knowing what it is that I actually need was new for me)
- letting go of anything that wasn’t in alignment with my values (integrity, honesty and kindness)
Little Lisa held all the suppressed emotions, the negative beliefs, the criticism, the shame, the guilt, the pain, the family secrets, the abuse and the generational trauma. Yes I was unconsciously carrying my mum’s grief and shame. That’s what we do as children. We need our parents to be happy to survive, so we take on all their hidden hurt, and then it bites us on the arse. Life is hard enough, without carting all that crap about. Being constantly in survival mode isn’t living, it’s existing.
I want you to live your life in full colour and LOVE it.
To experience more peace, joy, playfulness and creativity. Creativity is like healing balm – you don’t need to be Picasso. I want to introduce you to your inner child so you can experience the liberation and relief. It’s definitely worth it and so are you! Maybe you aren’t even aware of how much you’re carrying. You’re tired, but you’re numb. You keep busy. I know, I used to do the same. Still do sometimes.
It’s there though and you can’t avoid it forever. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t look at that photo of my younger self and thank her for EVERYTHING. You have a child inside of you that can’t wait to meet you. She needs you and every inch of her deserves to be loved unconditionally.
I promise, you won’t regret it.
ONE. SINGLE. BIT. 💕
Want to meet your inner child?
‘The Wildheart Book Club’ starts in November. It’s a 6-week healing circle that explores the essence of your inner child through my book Stuck Between Two Worlds.
It’s for HSPs, cycle breakers, creatives, empaths and intuitives who want to meet their inner child and reconnect to their true self.
Join me and other like-minded souls on this magical adventure to discover playfulness, creativity and inner peace.
