A few years back, Dr. Erika Chopich and I had a very interesting experience. A major Korean broadcasting company, The Educational Broadcasting System, Korea, contacted us to do a documentary with them on anger management, inner child work and personal growth. They came all the way from Korea to film us for two hours. Inner Bonding facilitators Mark Lersch and Karen Kral, who live near us, were also here, and they filmed me doing a session with Karen.

The producer sat across from Erika and me and asked us questions, and Erika and I spontaneously answered them. One of the questions was about the relationship between the inner child and the loving adult.
 

Erika answered the question and she said something I'd never heard before:

"People talk about the difference between nature and nurture. The inner child is our nature and the loving adult is the nurture."

I looked at her wide-eyed. "Where did that come from?" I whispered between questions. "I don't know!" she smilingly answered. Spirit is amazing!

I looked over at Karen and she was just as wide-eyed as I was. Felix, the Korean man who was asking the questions, smiled as he took in this information. He was obviously learning a lot and enjoying this time with us.

I love this simple way of understanding the relationship between our inner child and our loving adult: Our loving adult nurtures our true nature!

Our true nature is, of course, the aspect of us created in the image of God – our lovingness, kindness, compassion, creativity, passion, aliveness, joy, gifts, talents, feelings and sensitivity. It is our beautiful, magnificent true soul self.
 

Unfortunately, most of our parents didn't know how to see our essence, so they didn't nurture our nature.

We came into this world full of wonder. Unfortunately, instead of nurturing this and helping us expand, many of our parents were misguided by the desire to protect us from the harsh realities of the world, and they created fear and contraction in us – which is why we needed to develop and grow our ego wounded self.

When our true nature is not nurtured by our environment, we lose touch with it. Instead, we learn to identify with our wounded self, coming to believe that this is who we are. The more we develop our wounded self and lose touch with our true nature, the easier it becomes to do harm to ourselves and others. This is where most people are when they start a healing process.
 

The good news is that while our true nature might be buried, it’s not gone.

It's always with us, covered up by our wounded self. As we learn and practice Inner Bonding, gradually developing our loving adult and healing the false beliefs of our wounded self, we become more and more aware of the beauty of our true nature.       

Whatever nurtures our true nature is what is loving to ourselves, and it is the responsibility of our loving adult to connect with our spiritual guidance and discover what is most nurturing to ourselves – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As we learn to value and nurture our essence, we create the expansiveness and spaciousness to fully express our nature.

What nurtures your nature? When we question spirit about what is loving to us – what is in our highest good - this is what we are asking. What nurtures your true self, your essence – your loving nature? What thoughts and actions can you take as a loving adult to consistently, throughout a day, nurture your nature?

This is what we want to keep in mind, moment by moment. This is what brings us joy.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships."

Image by Anant Sharma from Pixabay