Inner child stages, heroes journey, enagram, dragons

2

The second inner child

The inner child we are going to take a closer look at is a sensitive inner child. It is a child in you who has a feeling of being abandoned. There can be a lot of emotions lying here and the emotions can be hard to accommodate.
Emotional storm causes confusion. Situations and relationships often become difficult to navigate and difficult to accommodate. Therefore, when this inner child sets the agenda and controls our lives, we experience precisely that confusion and the search for something we cannot fully define. We may have a hard time keeping focus and completing the things we have set ourselves. It is the sensation of a small child who misses and longs for the close connection it had with its mother. The inner child spends a lot of energy following his longing and often ignores his own needs to make sure it is not abandoned. As an adult, you will often become dependent on the relationships you are in. For many, there will be a deep longing to be independent and self-sufficient.

If you had to do 3 good things for yourself over the next week then what would you do? You can now decide to bring it to life .. What do you need to make it a reality? If you were to think along the way, I can not do this, I can not, or it is not that important, there are other things that are more important right now. Then try to contact your Inner Child and repeat the affirmation.

The child's detachment with the mother. And the first grief.

Grief - how it is expressed, how the therapist relates to the grief and its relation to ‘The Dragon’ and ‘The Whale’s Stomach’ in the heroes journey.
How the preconditions for grief can be managed so that it can be lived through.

The baby experience, that I'm not my mother and my mother is not me
The child is in symbiotic relationship with its mother
It is a grief to find out for the child and it creates a longing

Betrayal:
- to lose
- to lose ourselves and lose ourselves
- we can choose some paths in life where we leave ourselves and where we are getting further and further away from ourselves
- we compromise and go with others instead of standing by ourselves

The doctrine:
- to lose
- to deal with grief

Exambles:
The colic child - the parents can distance themselves from the child because they are exhausted
The parents put the child into its own room and leave it by itself
The parents let the baby lie down and scream itself to sleep
To save their relationship, the parents can put the child into its own room

The parents think the above works, because the baby stops crying, but that's because the baby have given up

When we loose, we can be extra thin-skinned and then we need extra care from other people

We get in contact with how we lost our mother, when we experience new losses in life

Bodyposture:
We loose the force in our arms when we reach out, and we are getting rejected
We loose some muscles in our neck
We collaps in our mid chect area
Our shoulders moves forward
The diagphram can be damaged/contracted and it can be difficult to breath
We feel pain in our chest, when we loose people

We can not fix grief, we have to sit and wait and sit with the pain and the grief. Like Jonah in the belly of the whale. The only the thing he knows is, that he has to sit and wait until the whale will spit him out.
We have to surrender to the grief.
You can not set an out.
Even if your sourroundings whants you to set an out.

In Harry Potter and the plants - the more you relax, the easier it is for the plant to let go
youtu.be/x99RIkwttTE

We can not reach out ourselves, when we are grieving.  We need other people to meet us and to support us in our grief.

We can get a feeling that we are wrong, when we are grieving. 

The best thing we can do when people are grieving, is to help with practical tings when people are grieving. A child at this stage do not have a language. Therefore we just have to try to be precent with the person. As a friend you just have follow the person who is grieving.
Theres 5 stages in grief.

When we look into a persons eyes when they are dying, their eyes can get very clear. Its the soul shining through. It is as it is.

When we feel grief there is a contraction in the body..all our feelings helps us ..... laughter and grief are closely related.
If we go into the grief, and we try to cry as if we are grieving and laughing at the same time. 
You can try to do the posture yourself to get into a grieving position.

Grief sits in the lungs and in the colon.

Betrayal:
- to lose
- to lose ourselves and to loose ourselves in others
- we can choose some paths in life, where we leave ourselves and where we are getting further and further away from ourselves
- we compromise and go with others instead of standing by ourselves

The doctrine:
- to lose
- to deal with grief

When we lose, we can be extra thin-skinned and then we need extra care from other people

We get in contact how we lost our mother, when we experience new losses in life

Enagram type 2

To feel a need and to ask for it, will make us feel our fear of abandoment.

Physical movement:
If we are pressured enough, our body will show where we have been most pressured/stressed as a child.

To follow your bliss can be difficult  - you can  see that other people can follow their bliss, but you cant feel it yourself

Enagram 2 or 7

Wounded children can make narratives

- sit on a chair. Feel the chair supporting you.
- notise where in your body you feel lack of support - where is difficult for you to hold your own body ?
- meet and greet your inner child
- look into the childs eyes, what is the childs eyecolor, what does the child wear ?
- co create a loving connection to the child that was abandened
- like picking the child up and comfort the child and give the child a hug
- imagine the child around 1 years old. Not able to walk in a Secure Way yet but it can crawl.
- look into the child’s eyes - what color are they ?
- say to the child “oh there you are. I have been waiting for you and I am so happy to see you”
- then Pick the child up, comfort the child, and give the child a hug

- nurturing yourself, making yourself feel comftable is important. You cant nurture yourself enough at this age, so be generous

. what are my needs today
- what are my values
- how do i meet myself in order not to be abanded
- what are my needs
- what do i notise, what do i sence, what do i feel
- what do i have to give up to be loved
- i am allowed to have needs- i am loved with all my needs
- i am able to meet my own needs

Developmental stages take place in waves.
Up to 2 years we learn to be attached to another human being. Primarily our mother.
We can get to know our sirens where we are trying to soothe our needs.
We learn to be in symbiosis with our mother and to be separated from our mother.
We learn how to feel if we are hungry ect.

Grief is a theme at this stage of our development.
Once we have been in symbiosis with our mother, being divorced or fragmented from ourselves can feel uncomfortable.

The healthy child is mirrored in its need. That the mother mirrors us. Our mother "chats" with us ect.
We experience that when we cry in different ways we get different needs met.

If we are not met in our needs, we disappear into ourselves.

We may find it difficult to set boundaries as our sensory system is fluid.
Others may do very cross-border things towards us, but we do not register this.
The inner feeling may also be that we have set a limit, perhaps with a glance, but others do not register this.

We do terrible things to soothe our needs where we can not take responsibility for our needs

The signs when setting boundaries can be very subtle.

When you are pressured on your own needs, you blend with others.
My existence is conditioned by how others feel (family, work, friends, partner)
 I meet the needs of others at the expense of my own needs.

Love will be conditional.
You want to give, and give, and give without the feeling that you get something back.

When this condition was created in the nervous system of being injured and not being mirrored.
This sensation can be so intense that you cannot accommodate it in your nervous system.

One begins to soothe.  one self
One start to become addicted to work, drugs, alcohol, use sex, eat sugar ect.

There is an intensity over this. Everything else is ignored. You forget yourself. The body must discharge and must be confirmed externally.
When the need is met, you come back again for more.

The chance of being rejected is recognizable. And can be what feels safe. Therefore, one can get caught in a spiral

That one does not have the strength to reach out can be connected to the feminine.

Sirens:
To accept the feminine and to accept mother.
The women sang so beautifully that the fishermen sailed into the fog

When we want to move and create something new, the sirens can hold us back.
- Wine, chocolate, yoga, meditation can become a to do duty.

We can inflict guilt and shame on ourselves.

We tell ourselves that we are lazy, that we got no reaction, are paralyzed, our inner judge/our inner critic emerges

Even if you already have a good relationship, you may have a need to be filled up from the outside.

When we are stomping and we stand still and feel that we cannot bear it, it is a connection to the feminine.

Questions you can ask
Can I feel my own needs? Do I have the right to have my own needs?
Where do I leave myself when I do not want to be left by others?
What do I sacrifice to be allowed to express my needs?
Do I look away when it gets sad?

Exercise to heal the second Inner Child
If you are carrying an injured or traumatized second Inner Child, it may give rise to a perception that you do not have the right to feel the need.
Your Own needs do not exist because they are not justified.
A good place to start is therefore to start looking at your own needs.
It can start with the very small choices you make through a day.
Ask the question: is this something I do because it is my need or because it covers the needs of others?

Justice:

Are you a person who is looking for/who is seeking justise in your life ?
If so this can be tracked back to your early childhood when you were between 2-5 years old.

The "sad" thing is that:
There is no justice in life. Don't try to find justice in life. Its an illusion. If you try to find justice, you will be unhappy in your life.

The sence of justice is developed when the child is between 2-4/5 years old.
The child learn to choose, seperate good and bad, law and not law, power, powerlessness, duality, black an white.

Justice:
This is not fair. The word justice is developed around law. It's an abstract word. The law makes it happen.

The child develops in this period of life:

If I do this to you, you will do this to me.
Magical thinking.
if I'm good to you, then you are good to me.
If I do you a favour, you will do me a favour .
If I give you a 🍅, you will give me a 🍅 back.

Every time you choose something you have to let go of something else.
If you choose the little ice-cream, then you can't have the big ice cream.

You will have trouble making choises in your life, if you are stuck around this period in your early life.

It's hard to give something without the expatation of getting something back. They have learned that they should give and give and give.

If it develops early around 2/3 you can have a tendencie to get sad and depressed. If it happens later (3/5) you will project it out to the world and push it on to other people - the world is so unfair.

You need to learn to see the consequences of your choises.

You think:
No matter what I do, something bad will happen.
You have tried to be a good person for so long.

Every time you make a choise something bad happens and its not fair because you have tried to be NICE.

You will see it as something that happens TO you, not because of different life surcomstances.

If you live your life from a position of getting justice, you can end up as a bitter old man/woman: "Life is so unfair" and you can become depressed

Sadness, disapointment, bitterness, anger.

How to work with this in therapy with a person seeking justice in the world:

Mental, body-movements, words:

If you choose this, what is it that you can not get ?
Ex: offering the client a cup of tea, water or coffee and make the client choose between the cup of tea, cup of coffee, glass of water.
Working with the mental level together with the body-movement.
Letting the glas, the cup of tea, that you didn't choose go. Do the movement with your hands and let it go. (Doing the physical action together with the verbal action)
And then open the arms and hands.

The expatation of getting something back can be unconscious. They haven't learned to put it into words. They don't know, that they have this expatation.

As soon as the person makes a choise, the person can have a tendencie to focus on what they lost and not focus on their goal. In this way they can have trouble moving forward in life.

Loosing and letting go of things, opportunities, people in life can make the person very sad and it can hurt deep down in the persons 💓.

Practicing choosing between smal things in life/daily life can be a good start otherwise it can be too overwhelming

The 4th inner child:

The fourth inner child - the strong-willed child - the theme is one's own will.

Wounds from this period of our lives that we need to take a closer look at now are sensations from when we were approx. 3-4 years old. In this part of life, we exercise our right to have a will, even to a degree where most parents fall short. No matter how spacious and patient they are. Our life force can almost explode in the courage of life. The excitement will never end take over all the things that the child body can suddenly do. However, if the young child does not feel the space when it unfolds its life force, a feeling of being wrong arises. The power and life energy go from being directed towards the world, to being directed inwards. The child holds on to his power and impulses with all his might to prevent scolding or reprimands. Here we meet a wounded Inner Child who has shut down for himself. It may seem confined and powerless. When observing the child here, there may be a sense of sadness. The child has formed a belief that if it wants to unfold its will, it must give up its freedom. That belief follows into adult life. And that is can be a belief that affects our nervous system. As an adult, for example, you may have the feeling of being constantly under pressure. A basic feeling that it is not allowed to be free and spontaneous. We may feel a strong sense of shame, feel that, we can not or have the right to say no.

Physically, we can feel it by keeping the energy inside. We tense up in the whole body. The shoulders turn forward, as if we were carrying a huge burden. "I have to sacrifice, and it does not matter that it hurts, the little child could say, as long as you do not scold me and get angry."

How the child's suppression of its own will can lead to a problematic formation of the basic existential premises. Premises that deal with the fact, that the abandonment of one's own will is necessary for the achievement of relationships and for belonging to society - thereby also the right to one's own existence.

How the dragon questions whether one is loved if one shows one's own will. And therefore also causes the need for the clarification of one’s own desires in life.

A lonely child.

Age: 4-6 years old

Needs exposure to the outer world, independence,
The child can walk, run and bicycle.
The child wants to decide for himself what to wear
Identifies with his own will - I am the will.
One may have been done wrong in childhood
I am here and I have a will
One may have inherited a strong will from a parent who has a strong will
The child can have his will overruled by a strong parent.
Power play with the parents
The child at this stage has found his own power and knows how to use it
Negotiation
The child may get a narrative that it is wrong which forms a sense of guilt.
The parents can say one thing, but expect something else.
The parents can start negotiating with the child
The child may be at risk of being "hold down" by the parents, the parents can create a narrative that the parents can manipulate
If I claim my own will, then I will not be loved
The "macocist" / a selfproclaimed vitim role

Body:
- body shape - barrel body shape
- an experience of an external pressure on the whole body
- A strong, muscular, tense body
- the body holds on to itself and holds on to the energy
- Chin and pubic bone can be tense and can be pressed together, and you can be tense in the abdomen - there is no collaps in the body
- The pelvis can feel loose

- The anal-phase- if you are not clean at thiis age - you can be done wrong 

You can work until you are about to get a burn out
You can not feel, that you are tired, or warn out
You have no more energy left in the body
You may feel, that you just HAVE TO continue no matter what
You may have a work injury or you can be in a divorce before you seek help
You can have a hard time changing your own narrative and chance you old beliefs
The worst thing that can happen is, if something changes direction
The old premise is not real
You think that others do not do their part
This is not fair

The person got a lot of resources
You are in do, do, do mode
There is almost no more energy in the body
Will is based on beliefs
Therefore, it can be difficult to question one's own beliefs

Do you work for others or do you work for yourself ?
You can work unreasonably hard for others to gain recognition and to achieve the feeling of closeness 
You think, that if you claim your will and your freedom, then you are not held and loved

Parents may have said
- if you do not put your clothes on, then I will drive without you (the partens make a parrelel world)
- if you do not eat your dinner, then you can have it for breakfast tomorrow
- a parent can tell the child, that you do not have your own will,  that your will lie in my pocket in my dress
- the anal phase - you can be shamed if you can not feel keep yourself clean
- you can be locked into your room by your parents
- you can get hit by your parent if you dont do as they say
- there can be worse examples than the above

A tough inner judge
- why do I not resign and give up when I know this is not good for me
- why do I work over time, when the others have gone home
- can have a victim narrative, made by the person himself
- tendency to work over time
- thinks - I do not have a choise
- i have to...
- I can not get a divorse
- I cant change dirrection
- thinks - when I express my will,  I will get punished

Heroes journey:
The dragons is our fear and our deepest convitions

I am not loved if I keep my own dignity
If I do not stand by myself I am loved/then I can not be at this workplace
I am not loved if I am my whole self

The dragon is one you have created yourself.
When you have created the dragon yourself, then you are the only one who can relaese the dragon

Refusal of the call: 

Ask yourself:

Why/why not ?
Who says this ?....
When have you heard this ?
Who have told you this in the past ? (a parent, a teacher, an aunt, a partner, a friend, the sociaty that you were born in/that you were raised in/that you live in...)
How can you/how do you know this is true ?

You say to yourself:
One can not/you can not do this, because ......, 

You have to change "one/you can not/you have to" with "I" 
- I can not do this, because.....,
- I can not change direction, because .....,
- I have to ..... , because.....

You can keep youself in a job that you do not like, in a dead marrige, doing a sport that you do not like anymore ect.

You say to yourself:

This is just the way marriges function, it hurts sometimes, things are not supose to be easy....
You have to work overtime
If I quit my job, then I will not get a new job
This is just the way my work life has to be, because I have to pay the bills
You can not quit your job, until you got a new job - theres nothing called "in between jobs"... and what about my cv ?
You can not sell your house and live on a boat, because this is just not a way to live....
I am not a creative person, so you cant just suddenly change your carrer from being a lawer to become an artist, because....
Older women can not date younger men and therefore I can not get a younger boyfriend, because...
I can only excist if I got a tight economy

When everything gets absolute, then its the inner child that has taken the lead

Theres a lot of things that can be unsaid, you just assume instead of sayig things out loud:
e.g.
You are missing to say to your boss,
- "I can work overtime, if I will get payed for it"
"I need to use my full maternety leave"

You have to question your own premissises/ your own convictions...

As a parent you can get annoyed by your childrens own will, if you can regonise yourself in this pattern...because then you have to change direction, and your own inner child dosent like to change its own direction

You can give up your own freedom, to be able to be part of the sociaty you llive in/the family you live in/the workplace you work in
- you can risk loosing your right to excist

A lot of people cant say what they feel like, what they want, they cant get in contact with their own life force
- if everything is possible, then what do you really want ?

It can feel voulnarble to follow your free will and to follow bliss 
You can stop yourself from feeling happy, to let yourself play in your life. 

A lot of people can feel shame when they feel their bliss, when they are feeling happy in their life,
- if I feel happy now then it will not last and tomorrow if will feel bad, you cant get lucky in both your lovelife and in lotto.

If you open up to your own free will in yourself, then you will become free.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls. - josef cambell

Can you get in contact with this inner child in yourself - you can do daily meditations while  getting into the felt sence, how things looked like, felt like from being in this period in your life, while feeling bliss:
- what did you just love to do in this period of your life, when were you in the precent moment ?
e.g. jumping on a trampoline, riding your bike in the streets, playing with your dolls, painting, swimming in the sea, doing handicrafts, singing and imagening you were Annifrid and your best firend were Agneta from ABBA,  were you dancing and pretending you were BABY in Dirty Dancing, were riding your hourse, were you being a boy/girl shouct ect.

You are allowed to feel bliss, to do what you want in life and to enjoy most in your life ect.

Ask yourself
- what am I avoidning in my life right now and how does this affect my life
(I am able to love myself with my own will)

Life is a big resonbility to carrie, what will happen if you surrender ?

Enthusiasm, joy, bliss is for all people

Ask yourself - do you do it for your own sake or do you do it for the sake of others

I can love myself for having this will

what premises do I set for myself,
what if the premises were different
what is the responsibility I carry

we create our own now and therefore we can unlock the now ourselves

its about being able to see the divine in ourselves and the divine in others

People dont seach for the meaning of life, but for the experience of being alive (josef camble)  

Questions you can ask
What would you do if you had to do exactly what you wanted?
What do you want to do for yourself?
What are you avoiding doing in your life right now and what are the implications for your life?
What premises do you set for yourself and are they your own or someone you have received from outside?
Are you carrying something heavy and what are you carrying?

Exercises to heal the fourth Inner Child
Im allowed to love myself for my will.
Rediscover the Inner Child who has the will to live.
Your will does not exclude you from communities

youtu.be/4PeQJ-EIfGM

Your muscles may be weak due to early developmental trauma.
Some of your muscles may be larger or smaller in volume due to developmental trauma.
Having this knowledge can give you insight into what to focus on if you want to get to the root of your challenges in life.
(Trauma) redemption & healing can look in several ways.
Strength training is by far one of my ways.
We have ALL experienced developmental trauma - but the question is which ones? (psst .. it can actually be read from your body)
Cause lets face it .. You have been raised by humans. Not robots. So your parents have not been perfect and have not given you everything you needed.

Developmental trauma occurs in your first 5-7 years, where you develop more than you do over an extended period of your life.
And all the stress, grief, trauma of others, your own, shock, discomfort, aspects of your development that you are not supported and recognized in, will manifest as trauma in your early development ... = developmental trauma.
It has to do with how your body is shaped.
How big or how little volume your muscles have.
How you carry yourself - your posture.
What traumas, stress or defense mechanisms you have put into use will be visible on your body. The way energy has shaped your body tells you about your way of being in the world

Here is an example;
▪︎Thin, long fingers (maybe even arms):
Often seen in people who have had a trauma of being abandoned. Maybe you have tried to reach out, reach far out, but have repeatedly not been met in it.
The shoulders can keep up by being a bit inwardly rotated, which stems from the collapse, that is, when you keep reaching out through crying, calling after mother (like babies and toddlers do), or how you have tried to.

Do you recognize this in yourself, or do you know someone where you can see this in them?