When Is It Loving to Give Your Inner Child Away?

When clients describe situations where they have made someone else responsible for their worth, their specialness, their lovability, etc., I often suggest that this is the same as if your real child came up to you and said “Mommy (or Daddy) am I lovable?”  And you responded, “I don’t know.  Let me ask the neighbor. “ Clearly, this would be devastating for a real child, and it is just as devastating for your inner one.  We refer to this kind of inner abandonment as “giving your child away” and feeling how painful this is can be (and was for me) a watershed event in truly taking responsibility for our inner child’s needs.

Recently, however, I was doing a session with a client who described just such a situation.  She was at an event where a woman who had been her dance teacher was also present.  There was a long history of her giving the job of making her little girl feel special to others, and this dance teacher was one of them.  More than that, this dance teacher had been totally inconsistent in her responses.  My client was miserably aware, during this event, that the old pattern had reappeared and completely aware of how awful this felt to her little girl.  But, this time, instead of focusing on stopping the behavior of giving her little girl away, I was given a new approach.

I suggested that there was absolutely nothing “wrong” with the desire to give her little girl to someone else to make her feel special - that the problem was actually her choice of recipient.  I asked her to remind me of the name of her guide.  “Ben,” she said.  “Okay,” I replied, “how would your little girl feel if you gave her to Ben instead of to your dance teacher?”  “She would LOVE it!!”  She loves to be with Ben.  She trusts him completely.”  “Does she feel special now?”  “Of course!” My client was overjoyed!

“Let’s try this in a real situation,” I suggested.  “Let’s go back to that scene with your former teacher and see how it would go if you brought Ben along.”  “Oh, it would be completely different,” she said.  “Wow, so when I don’t know how to make my little girl feel special, I can ask Ben for help, and then the two of us can give her what she needs.”  “Yes,” I replied, “anytime.”

So maybe this will give you another tool in your toolbox. If you notice the impulse to give your inner child away, to get love, to get safety, to get validation, to get anything and simply noticing that desire does not change anything, maybe, instead of struggling with it, you can go with it and use it as a doorway  to connect to someone who can really help you, your guides.  I am guessing that your inner child will not mind this at all and I would love to know what happens when you try it.