Part of my approach in reclaiming the inner child was remembering specific events in my childhood that highlighted my 'natural instincts'. One of my natural attributes is
generosity which I reclaimed after remembering an incident that needed a
re-view by myself as an adult. It's a bittersweet story that held a truth about Who I am at heart. While the 'child' led the way to restoring my true self, it's the adult that took her hand and protected her from her innocent self.
I suppose it's fair to say that had I rebelled against my true nature, I'd be abusing myself with self-blame. So as you've written, Phoenixxx, the key is not in changing our natural behavior so we're still creating a False Self out of FEAR of being taken advantage of by selfish people. The key is to protect ourselves from being abused by people who use our vulnerability and willingness
to their advantage.I was a young girl, maybe less than ten years old and had hidden my Easter basket in my closet so I could share my candy with my little sisters who greedily gobbled up their easter eggs in one day. Like a squirrel though, I forgot where I'd hidden my chocolate covered nuts. They sat in my closet for a long time. Well, maybe it was only a week but to a child's perception of time, it seemed like a year. ha!
One day, my little sisters and I were hankering for some sugar and I thought about my Easter basket in the top of the closet we shared. I retrieved the basket to parcel out the goodies and discovered to my horror that all the candy was GONE! Somebody had snuck up there and devoured everything---except for the glistening green grass nested on the bottom of the basket. I even dug through the shredded plastic to see if a foil-covered egg had dropped to the bottom. But no. Every single goodie was gone. Instead of deciding that from there-on-out,
I'd eat up my sugared sweets the same day as my sisters, OR
deciding to punish them for being piglets, I laughed about somebody sneaking up there and stealing my candy. I finally got the truth out of my second-born sister who felt so bad that she promised to never do that again. Especially now that she knew I'd share my candy with her later.
It's been very important for me to reclaim my natural traits and view them as attributes and skills, rather than judging my generosity as a weakness. At first, it's easy to define our wholesome and communitarian instincts as pejoratives. After all, that's what made us vulnerable to a 'user' and we have to protect ourselves from secondary abuse if we can. Nobody likes admitting they were
duped, victimized, or taken advantage of because they were gullible, right? The automatic tendency I have (and others seem to do this also) is to flip a 180 and instead of being Generous and Kind, we try the opposite and become Stingy and Mean. That's still not reclaiming the inner child who is now silenced by our adult reaction. In order for the inner child to feel safe enough to guide us home to our natural selves, we, as adults, must eradicate his-or-her fear and use adult wisdom to protect those marvelously beautiful instincts that make us WHO we ARE.
What I felt touched by in TakingTime's message is that while my generosity is a natural trait, I did not notice it was not being reciprocated. I was still giving to people who were 'takers'. yes, this leaves us depleted and worn-out over time and hopefully we will NOT mirror their greedy behavior simply because we fear being taken advantage of again. The wise adult self will retain those qualities developed over a lifetime of choices. In fact, we might even fall in love with our Inner Child.
What ties back to my childhood also is my vulnerability to "Pleasing Others" without knowing how to develop healthy boundaries between what other people expected me to give and what I expected to receive as a result of my contribution.
Generosity is not the problem.
Selfish people are the problem.
Had I not been programmed to give and give and give until there was nothing more to give others or even myself, I'd have realized much earlier that it's an endless exercise in self-sacrifice if generosity is not being reciprocated. Some of us are set up for narcissistic relationships and we must return to our family-of-origin to examine how and why we got mixed messages that kept us in an unhealthy relationship. By the time some of us get out of the n-relationship, we are so exhausted that we blame ourselves for being generous and compassionate. I did that for awhile anyway.
Then, I started making NEW relationships that were based on an ADULT'S awareness and lo and behold, my new friends were equally as generous and compassionate. Instead of being exhausted by
giving to them, I was replenished by their
giving to me. That inner little CZ no longer has to fear she'll be taken advantage of because big ol' grown up CZ is learning how to take care of her natural instincts to CARE about other people and herself.
Hugs,
CZ
