INNER CONNECTING

EMPOWERING JOURNALING

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"Attend to past pains and process them here and now, a process worth years of therapy, in fact it enhances psychotherapy."

Susan Anderson on Separation Therapy

SELF-CONNECTION

Inner Connecting is a tangible method to build self-awareness, process emotions and heal past wounds by gently processing them in the present. Journaling with your Emotional Mind (Inner Child) uses COMPASSION

and CURIOUSITY to 'see,' understand and guide your emotions, much like you'd help a 5-year-old scared of a haunted house. You'd, first, notice she is scared. Then, you'd empathize and take action to help her feel better.

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HEAL & BREAKTHROUGH

Since our emotions and memories stem from the same part of the brain, Inner Connecting can also breakthough emotional flashback, PTSD, triggers, backdraft emotions, subconscious limiting beliefs, past wounds, and maladaptive protective strategies, lodged in the lower, 'emotional' areas of the mind.

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"Some issues take weeks or even months to resolve... yet with many
issues, you can resolve inner-conflict, painful feelings, and come to an ‘ah ha’ moment on the spot, within a minute or so."

Margaret Paul, PhD, Inner Bonding

IF WE'RE NOT MINDFULLY CONNECTED to OUR EMOTIONS, REACTIVITY TAKES OVER, actING out neglected needs and feelings. Wise Mind iS a dial-up connection COMPARED TO THE LIGHTENING SPEED that links EMOTIONS with REACTIVITY. 

INNER CHILD

Our Emotional Mind, INNER CHILD, doesn't go away when we turn 18. It never 'grows-up' or becomes rational. We don't 'grow-out' of emotions and memories. We do, however, need to consciously connect and guide our INNER CHILD with our intelligence and rational ADULT SELF.

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ADULT SELF

This is why so many adults don't behave like adults at all. True 'adulthood' and maturity is acknowledging, accepting, and taking responsibility for guiding one's own emotions, INNER CHILD. For many, this never happens. Society tells us to not have emotions (which is impossible) - so, INNER CHILD is neglected, shamed, suppressed. This results in reactivity, irrational behaviors, maladaptive stress-reactions, and dysfunctional relating.

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"listen to INNER CHILD'S feelINGS AND needs here and now. The often frustrated primal needs of that inner child - love, acceptance, protection, nurturance, understanding - remain the same as when we were children."

Stephen Diamond, PhD

SELF LEADERSHIP & INNER CONNECTING

Without Self Leadership, we are influenced and controlled by this unconscious INNER CHILD. Like, a 5-year-old running around in a forty-year-old frame. Imagine a 5-year-old without love, guidance, and safety. An angry little girl calling the shots or an insecure teenager trying to have a healthy marriage.

We wonder why relationships fail. Why we feel anxious, insecure, lonely, impulsive or lost. Why we yell at loved-ones, like temper-tantrums. Our emotions and memories need our ADULT SELF and WISE MIND to provide support, guidance, safety, and more. It's a fact.

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"For many, it is not an adult self directing their lives, but rather an emotionally wounded inner child inhabiting an adult body... a hurt, angry, fearful little boy or girl calling the shots."

Stephen Diamond, PhD

MALADAPTIVE PROTECTIVE STATEGIES

No one escapes childhood without forming some maladaptive ways of dealing with stress. Maladaptive protective strategies or PROTECTORS are formed when we're faced with the same stressors over and over, or when dealing with abuse, bullying, abandonment, emotional-neglect or trauma.

PROTECTORS served us well in childhood because they helped us feel safe, accepted, valued, and even loved. Yet, these overly protective parts can cause havoc in adulthood. They're constantly 'on guard' and easily triggered - activating the stress-response system alarm within 100 milliseconds and catapulting you into reactivity.

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"As long as my Wounded Self believed others' behavior toward me was my fault because I wasn't good enough, I'D believe if I changed, I could control how others treated me. Magically, when I accepted my lack of control over others' feelings and behavior, my shame disappeared."

Margaret Paul, PhD

6-year-old

INNER CRITIC PROTECTOR

If you learned to judge yourself harshly when you were six, due to a hyper-critical parent or sibling, you may be operating from a 6-year-old part of yourself when you are judging yourself. Tries to protect you from feeling painful shame, like failure, etc. 

12-year-old

FOOD PROTECTOR

If you learned at age 12 that food helped numb painful emotions, it is likely your 12-year-old Protector is in charge when you are emotionally eating or binging. Tries to protect you from feeling painful anxiety, out-of-control, empty, etc.

17-year-old

DRINKING PROTECTOR

If you learned at 17 that alcohol helped you feel relaxed and confident, then it's your 17-year-old Protector that triggers you to drink when feeling anxious or unworthy. Tries to protect you from feeling rejected, like an outcast, social anxiety, etc.

"Inner Child holds the key to emotional well-being, recovery from addictions, intimacy in relationships, creativity and wisdom."

Lucia Capacchione, PhD

MORE PRACTICE THE BETTER

The more you practice, the more you build new neural pathways and neuroplasticity for a stronger Soothing System, the part in the mind that allows for a calmer nervous system, higher oxytocin levels, a more loving relationship with yourself and others, and an overall sense of well-being.

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IDEAL DAILY PRACTICE

Inner Connecting is an ideal daily practice to build emotional health, reduce toxic stress, and create self-trust. It can be considered a Mindful Self-Compassion practice.

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PROCESS PAINFUL EMOTIONS

Journal, as needed, when you are triggered, feeling overwhelmed, or want to resolve painful emotions.

USE FOR INSPIRATION AND CLARITY

Provides an opportune practice to tap into your authenticity, values, genuine feelings, needs, desires, playfulness, creative solutions, and so much more.

"journaling makes it possible to bring yourself up all over again, quicker and better, to recover the joy and zest for life of the happy child, to acquire the competence and effectiveness of the mature adult."

Henry Elkin, PhD

"We did not come into this world loathing ourselves or wishing to numb our feelings. As small children, we operated from a place of wonder, curiosity, spontaneity and creativity."

Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

"USE YOUR HEAD, TO LISTEN TO YOUR HEART, to guide your thoughts, to choose your actions."

INNER CHILD SAMPLE QUESTIONS TO GET STARTED

COMPLETE this worksheet before FULL PRACTICE

inner connecting

FULL PRACTICE