How to Reclaim the Gifts of Your Inner Child

When was the last time you ran, jumped, climbed, swung, or coasted with the wild abandon of an inner child?

Yeah, it’s been too long for me, too.

Why am I asking this question?

Because that kiddo, who might feel totally foreign to you right now, is still in you. You are her (or him, or they).

And your life might be a helluva a lot more fun, meaningful, and intentional if you choose to remember that.

Unearthing the Inner Child

I’m part of a coaching cohort learning the foundations of Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence, a psychological methodology surprisingly not dissimilar from the spiritual practices of Radical Inquiry.

In fact, Shirzad’s “Judge/Master Saboteur” is exactly what I equate with ego, while his “Sage Powers” are fully in alignment with the Authentic Self I describe in my book, The Good Human.

Shirzad offers an alternate, non-spiritual language for learning and practicing the shift we all must make if we want to truly live free and at peace: that from ego-driven and individually focused to a higher self that is authentic and connected with all of humanity.

I’m discovering that after all my years of self-study and embodied practices, there’s still so much more to unearth, investigate, question, and transcend.

And this week it was remembrance of the little girl I once was, with all her quirks, innocence, and playful charm, that softened me enough to begin a healing I didn’t know I needed.

I offer it to you in the hope you’ll be inspired to do some self-healing of your own.

Inner Child Gifts Are Inherent

I’ll never stop marveling at the depths contained within us. Every layer we uncover, every groove we begin to smooth out, reveals a gift we forgot we possessed.

Our gifts are inherent within us when we’re birthed onto the planet. But almost immediately, we begin to neglect them.

After all, we’re born to imperfect human beings who have their own shit they most likely haven’t healed before bringing us into the world; their baggage becomes our own until we mature to a place beyond them.

We fairly immediately begin our negotiation for survival and connection. And the entity we create to help us cope with whatever hand we’ve been dealt is the ego.

This is the voice that tells us in no uncertain terms that we aren’t good enough, or worthy, or loveable. That life is uncertain, scary, and unsafe. That people can’t be trusted, or only people in our own tribes can be trusted.

Sometimes the voice is belligerent and terrifying, and sometimes it’s a snide whisper in the dark. Either way, it’s pervasive, and insistent.

Until we begin to recognize this voice as an entity separate from our Authentic Self, we’ll live our lives run by the beliefs it tells us are 100%, undeniably true.

Deception of Our Core Beliefs

Let’s say one of your core beliefs is that to be worthy of love, you must first be successful.

This is a message you picked up in childhood, perhaps from parents or friends who rewarded you with attention and praise when you brought home good grades or hit a homerun in your softball game but ignored or ridiculed you when you failed a test or missed a pop fly.

Then, maybe your definition of success – and therefore, worthiness – became rigidly defined during your adolescence by admission to an Ivy League university, acquiring an MBA, and earning a starting annual salary of no less than six-figures…ideas reinforced by the people and institutions surrounding you.   

Into adulthood, your success and subsequent worthiness became dependent on how much money you made, the size of the house(s) you owned, and the number and quality of material possessions you had.

Now, if you believe you can’t be loved unless you have the amount of money, house, and possessions you’ve defined as “worthy,” what happens if you don’t acquire those things?

Or what happens when you finally do acquire those things, but then your goal lines shift because someone else happens to have more money, more house, and more things?

When are you allowed to become worthy?

How can you be worthy if your worth is only tied to your ever-shifting definitions of “success”?

Do you see how setting these conditions upon yourself keep you from ever falling in love with the perfect human being you already are?

Can you remember a time when you didn’t think this way? When you were perfectly worthy of love simply because you existed?

Remembering Your Perfectly Perfect Inner Child

Here’s where the remembrance of our inner child becomes tantamount to our healing:

That child, for at least one too-brief moment, knew nothing of people-pleasing, earning love and respect, or not having its needs met.

That child knew in her bones, without having to “think” about it, that she was infinitely loved, courageously capable, and wholly innocent in heart and soul.

Her worth was inherent. She didn’t need to “earn” it.  

After contemplating a picture of my six-year-old self – crooked smile, dimples on display, blue eyes shining, bright hair flying about my face as I ran joyously toward the camera on a beach somewhere – I began to remember all the gifts that little girl possessed.

Abandon. Playfulness. Delight. Confidence. Spontaneity.

Most importantly, that child was totally trusting of the world around her, and because of that, willing to embrace everything it had to offer.

She had no hesitation in climbing the tree she’d spotted, or barreling down a hill she stood at the top of. She knew no fear of waves that might pound her back into the sand, or strangers who might want to do her harm.

She skipped through life, smiling at all she encountered, giving zero fucks about who might be made uncomfortable by her presence.

She simply was who she was, without reservation or shame, loving all of herself in every moment.

Now, here’s the clincher: 44-year-old me is that child. She, and her gifts, never left me.

Your inner child is you. Your gifts never left you.

We must choose to remember, and inhabit those gifts once again.

Practicing the Gifts

After remembering what gifts our inner child (and by extension, ourselves today) possess, we get to ask ourselves the following wonder question:

“What becomes possible if I bring more of this essence into my work and life?”

If I live with abandon, delight, and trust, I’ll say “yes” to new experiences much more often than I say “no.” Those experiences will be richer, deeper, and more meaningful because I won’t enter them with hesitation, fear, or expectation of specific outcomes. I’ll enjoy greater freedom because I won’t worry about what others think of me, or if they approve of my choices.

I’ll be authentic me: innocent, fearless, loving, and loved.

Thank you to Shirzad Chamine for this practice.

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Your turn! What gifts does your inner child possess? What might become possible for you if you bring more of those essences into your work and life? I’d love to hear!