Inner Child Work. Yes it’s a thing. Yes, you can benefit.
(Yes I’ve been a bit resistant myself…always a good sign that it is something I will really benefit from).
Most if not all of us will need to address this part of ourselves in some way - our child self, our childhood and how it formed us, how we formed ourselves in response to our experiences.
It doesn’t have to be called ‘inner child work’ . I rarely do this in an overt way with my clients, AND the practice of Rebirthing Breathwork is ALL about integrating your childhood so that you can move forward more fully integrated in your own integrity, as an adult version of yourself.
If we don’t come to terms with the feelings we experienced in our early life we carry those feelings forward and they do shape the way we experience ourselves and the world.
This is where our triggers rise from. This is where our relationship patterns were formed, our beliefs around what is important in life, our money stories and how we parent, whether we can feel safe in the world or not, to name a few.
The way we/you have formed feels like Who We Are/Who You Are, but it is not.....
We are talking about your developmental psychology, the time you spent in utero, and the first 7 years of your life, that all sets the foundation for you world experience.
This is the time when you are absorbing everything like a sponge, and it is later in life when we (hopefully) begin adulting that we get to start sifting through the ideas and beliefs we have taken on, integrating or moving on from what we no longer need.
The integration is ESSENTIAL, otherwise we are simply denying our own experience in the same way that others did. Even understanding that our parents did the best they could is not enough, although it is important in its own right.
We also have to honour that felt things as a result of their actions and that those feelings mattered. Otherwise the parts of ourselves that were left unseen and denied, the feelings that were ignored or swallowed - these things form what Jung called our shadow. Usually they are wrapped up with challenging beliefs such as that if this part of us is seen we will be rejected, or worse.
For example - you don’t need the approval of your parent(s) anymore to ensure you will be looked after, you can do that for you. In fact as an adult, that is your job and privilege. You don’t need to behave in a certain way for me to like you - if I don’t like you that is my issue, not yours.
In rebirthing breathwork, we work in a bottom-up way. We address the energy left in the body and the way your brain is wired (neuroplasticity) via a new way of breathing to release the things that were taken on in your early life.
Your breath can be the key to the integration and release that you need.
Even and especially if you don’t know what you need.
Your breath influences your thoughts and feelings (and vice versa). When we breathe in a way that is conscious and connected we can shift our baseline breath pattern and create positive changes in our life experiences, beliefs, understanding and self perception. You have the opportunity to effectively ‘rebirth’ yourself in a very real way.
If you keep breathing the same breath, no matter how many positive affirmations, yoga classes, seminars and courses or life changing retreats you partake in, you are bringing the energy of your childhood programming with you. You might get a shift but getting that shift to stick is another story.
It’s the story of releasing the inhabiting patterns from the way you breathe.
Until you do that, your breath signature bound up with the stories of your past reinforcing those baseline beliefs and perceptions, and that is why it can be very very difficult to release old habits and move on.
Even if you practice pranayama.
Most of us will just add another layer of compensation to our breath pattern.... usually looking like denial or over intellectualising. It doesn’t matter if or what your adult self understands (that’s top down) if the integration stage is missed.
( Note that yogic breath techniques were not developed for the modern western world - ancient is often used as a descriptor and that is your clue!….. but that looks like a seperate post! )
as Jung said:
"until you make the unconscious conscious it will rule your life and you will call it fate."
The unconscious is very much your past, your childhood and infancy, the parts of you that you learnt were unacceptable.
When you are really ready to move on, it’s time for a new breath.