Healing Your Inner Child and Yourself For Life

Your Guide to Happiness, Healing Your Heart's Wounds and

Loving Yourself When You Don't Know How

— An eBooklet —

Veronica Bond
 Table of Contents
Introduction

The Lost Child Within Us

An Important Look at What You "Lost"

Recovering & Healing Your Self-Esteem

• Step One
• Step Two
• Step Three
• Step Four
• Step Five
• Step Six
• Step Seven

Conclusion
 Introduction

Do you really want to unleash the wounded child inside your heart, the
place where fear, anxiety, anger or low self-esteem seem to be glued to the
very fabric of your soul? Many say yes, but it won't happen until you want
nothing else more. Nothing. Else.
Before we can get into the details of how you unleash the fearless and fun-
filled self you were born to be, it's important to truly understand where and
how it all began, where you actually got off track without even knowing it.
You may think you've heard this all before—you may think you already
know—but as you're about to learn, on the road to healing, it's imperative
that you hear the truth repeatedly for deeper understanding. Your mind is
habitually thinking certain thoughts and viewing your life experience in a
way that never fails to cast you in the dark, the quick sand of despair.
This e-booklet was designed with you and your heart in mind. I know your
pain. I feel your pain, and I'm here to assure you that it can be healed. Not
just for now, but forever.
 The Lost Child Within Us

Remember those days when you were a kid who never worried about
tomorrow or anything else in life? Let's spend some time with that memory.
Do you miss that time in your life? Weren't you always discovering new
things? Being thrilled in ways you might now describe as childish?
We've all seen kids do things we'd never dare try because we are now
adults. But it's important to note the lack of self-consciousness or shyness
in younger children when they're around their peers. At that stage, humans
find life adventurous and fun because we explore, say and do things without
worrying about the consequences; without concern for how we were being
perceived.
As the years went by, we began embracing our adulthood—the boring,
more responsible version of our childhood. The thing we fail to realize is
that adulthood is comprised of adopted ideas, notions and thoughts that
shape how we think about ourselves, other people and everything else in the
world around us.
The more the mind learned—and was programmed—to begin
overanalyzing situations, the more life gradually lost its natural bent as a
pure expression of joy and fun.
Close your eyes and think a moment: At what point did this happen to
you?
• — Don't judge yourself. Just notice what you're thinking — •
Unbeknownst to you, you became conditioned by your immediate
environment. Most of us were bruised as children, which lead to self-esteem
issues and the loss of the ability to be emotionally innovative.
If you have subconscious childhood wounds, you probably developed
defense mechanisms early on to cope with and adapt to grown up
expectations. The behaviors or tendencies that you exhibit as an adult
directly reflect this molding.
Where you a relatively happy kid? But have you become a gloomy adult
who's lonely or angry? Burdened by a bruised sense of self-worth?
When our parents aren't available to provide us with the proper nurturing,
as children we experience anxiety and loss. We later develop
accommodations to fill these wounds, which then morph into defense
mechanisms for getting on with life, habits in our adulthood. This is what is
commonly referred to as the false self. Very many false-self personalities
make an arsenal. From the funny ones, such as the class clown, to the angry
ones, such as the bully, these personas have the ability to convince us we
are what we in truth are not.
As we grow up and develop, we forget that this false-self character, the role
we play for others (and sometimes even when alone with just yourself) is
not who we really are, but the mind makes such a habit of being the false
self that we take it to be all we are, nothing more, nothing else. We become
so engrossed by the fantasy that we need our mask to continue being safe,
even when it is no longer necessary, and even when it's done so much
damage to others and to ourselves.
Some theorists say that we are always looking to reestablish our nurturing
state, to find our symbiotic mothers in order to feel safe; much like when
we were in the womb and had all our needs met automatically, without
struggle, worry or anxiety. Of course, life isn't about regression and never
will be, and that's where false-selves come into play. Assumed identities
enable us to cope in public while we secretly burn with our failure to find a
state of natural happiness once again. Most of the time, we find ourselves
trying to trick others into filling these gaps. We look for mates who we tell
ourselves will meet these needs. And when this fails, when these mates are
unable or unwilling to meet our every need, to make us feel loved and safe
at all times, it becomes the very root of relationship problems.
As we come across relationship patterns, we trigger our defenses, and when
our false self finds anxiety too much to handle, we fall into what is
commonly referred to as primitive defenses.
Primitive defenses, as the word suggests, are those defense mechanisms
previously mentioned; the ones we developed when we were very young
and began to lose touch with natural happiness. They aren't very
sophisticated and they don't require a lot of energy to employ. So in our
adulthood, when our developed defenses become ineffective, we fall back
on our primitive defenses and transform into the innocent child who was
wounded in its youth.
Here's the kicker: The only way that you can escape and heal the wounds
you feel deep inside is to remove the mask of who you think you are and
develop your true self, which is an embodiment who is capable and strong,
self-sustained and self-aware. You must learn to get still—especially during
emotional storms—to listen to your inner self and figure out how you can
use your individual skills to achieve your goal of inner healing.
Neither time nor years of therapy can truly fix your problems. It is up to
you to fix them by remembering your True Self—a realization that
instantaneously heals the inner child within you.
Oh, happy day!
 An Important Look at What You "Lost"

With the many things that have happened to you, the lingering memories
that make it super hard to unleash the fearless child that's still inside you,
it's imperative you understand the qualities of your inner child that have
been pushed out of your awareness by unpleasant experiences and how to
go about recovering that part of yourself; because it's still who you really
are—believe it! That's why you started to experience emotional pain when,
for whatever reason, you started to focus elsewhere.
Happiness

How long have you felt unhappy? What situations bring it about? Take a
moment to see if you find yourself in any of the following:
• Having a bad day—every day
• Not seeing much value in living; at times having thoughts of ending
your life or not waking up in the morning
• Overworking yourself needlessly because you believe happiness
comes as a reward for hard work
• Never feeling relaxed; stressed out or tense most days
• Taking life too seriously; rarely smiling or even finding it hard to
laugh
• You're socially isolated, or have very few friends or confidants who
know how much you're suffering inside
• Unable to enjoy being around family and friends and struggle with
letting your guard down
If any of this resonates with you at any level, it indicates your
unhappiness is mostly subconsciously rooted and it is to that part of your
innermost mind we must go in order to begin healing for the last time.
Restoring Your Natural Happiness

So what do you do when you find you have grown to be a hostile adult who
is perennially unhappy but deeply looking for a way to fix your life
experience?
• Make a habit of sitting quietly just being aware of your own
awareness for 15 minutes every morning and evening
• Buy a journal for yourself if you don't already use one. Explain your
feelings in writing as if you're writing a letter to someone who cares
about you and wants to understand exactly what you're going through
deep inside.
• Consider your need to love, be loved, cared for and nurtured. You
should also recognize that there's nothing wrong with seeking to attain
the carefree happiness you once enjoyed as a child.
• Observe your critical, obsessive patterns of thinking. Did you think
in this fashion as a child? Allow yourself the space to recognize this is
simply a habit of thinking.
• Look at your emotional disappointments, hurts or broken dreams. If
you want the inner child to heal, you must practice looking at these
events in your life differently.
• Play more. Do fun things. Pay attention to things that make you
laugh. Laughter and fun are healing balms.
Once you have daily practiced and mastered the above points, you the
split causing the emotional pain within you (the inner child) will heal
and your natural state of contentment will emerge. It's important to
review how you benefit:
• You're healthier mentally, physically and emotionally.
• You discover the infinite happiness that is enshrined within your
inner child who has no fears, worries or doubts.
• You start realizing the good things all around you when you stop
perpetuating negative energy.
 • You will love yourself more when you rediscover how simple true
happiness really is.
• You will become more innovative because your mind has
circumvented its learned, practiced—and painful—limits.

Creativity
What happened to your creativity? This is yet another aspect of your life
that's usually hurt and subdued by the path into conventional adulthood. Do
you remember the days when you could see toys in almost everything you
came in contact with? The days when you could dismantle any toy or object
to create another toy?
Your natural instinct to play and have fun was unfortunately disciplined to
what the adults in your life preferred. And that's how adulthood can
basically kill most people's natural creativity, which can result in the
following tendencies:
• Your perennial fear of doing something wrong, fearing the consequences.
• Your mind and beliefs neutralize inspired innovation long before it
develops into something useful to you or society, because you have grown
to believe what works and what doesn’t based on what your environment
taught you.
• You are obsessed with the need for self control, such that you feel
unmotivated to try anything unconventional or left of center.
• Fear of failure, shame or humiliation control most aspects of your life.
• You tend to use logic to justify your lack of creativity. Your mind believes
that if it doesn’t make sense based on what you know is logical, it's ill
advised and won't work!
The Antidote
So with these inhibitions to unleashing the creative self of your inner heart,
how can you release them and actually become more creative and fearless
about getting it wrong or being judged harshly by people around you?
• Fake it until you make it. Just give yourself a week to be child like
—let go and pretend!
• Suspend the learned belief that there's a right and wrong way of
doing something and just do something, go for it! Any outcome is an
adventure when you are open to the experience as children often are
before the adults around them fundamentally change who they are!
• Rest in quiet every morning and evening and practice the thought of
having more faith in yourself. Remember the things that excited you
as a child. You can just observe what gets any child excited and put
yourself in their place. This really is very effective at re-wiring the
mind when you make it a regular practice!

Smiling and Laughter

How often do you smile or laugh? As I mentioned before, these are
extremely powerful healing agents. Babies and children often smile and
laugh with no particular reason at all. But when you see them, it's infectious
and everyone starts laughing with them.
Here's how to heal your inner child and damaged heart with smiles and
laughter:
• Try seeing your body in a new light; as your vehicle through life. Do
you take better care of your car than your body? This gets reflected in
the mind in the way you think about yourself! Feel good about
exploring every aspect of it.
• Feel hatred towards someone or something? Any bitter resentment
in your heart. Step out of your usual view of these people or things
and imagine yourself laughing at them. Just try it. Journal about this
 experience, whatever thoughts come up. Later, go back and spend
some time reviewing what you wrote.
• Reconfigure your mindset to start seeing things as a child might see
them. Any judgments now? Harsh interpretations?
• Find interesting things to do! Play with things you might normally
consider childish, like riding merry-go-rounds, roller coasters,
jumping on trampolines. Schedule more fun! Make it a habit!

Self-Esteem
How do you feel about yourself? How did your mother feel about you when
you were growing up? Your father? Aunts and uncles? The neighbors?
These relationships all tend to play a role in the way we see ourselves today.
What happened to the person you once were, before you started
reacting to what others thought of you? Are any of the following
behaviors familiar to you?
• Overanalyzing situations; second guessing your decisions
• Steady consistent voice in your mind saying you're not good enough
and always coming up short when compared to others
• Secret or overt feelings of flat out incompetence and ineptness
• Antisocial; suffer in silence types
These patterns stifle and suppress our True Self. We become afraid of play,
too busy worrying about who's listening, who's watching, who's around;
anything we feel overly cautious about as adults.
So how do you reconcile your inner wound after spending years swimming
—or drowning—in low self-esteem. Next we'll discuss key techniques for
re-establishing a healthy self-esteem.
Recovering & Healing Your Self-Esteem
Step One: Communicate With Your Inner Heart
It's imperative that you begin allowing your inner child to express
him/herself rather than continuing to suppress the powerful emotions. You
can do this by:
• Addressing any father and/or mother wounds from the past through
your journaling. Write your mom or dad a letter (don't worry you
won't be sending it) and let them know what you needed from them
but never received. This can help to relieve the pressure in your heart
immensely!
• Journal another letter addressed to your inner child—the wounded
place in you—but this time use the three personality egos to talk to
them: the child, the adult and parent.
Don't stop at one letter. For those of us with dense emotional pain, it may
take several different letters to get everything released.
Step Two: Design Self-Care Activities
You need to determine whether your need for each of the following is met:

1. Need For Friendship

In order to meet this need, you need to be around other like-minded people
in order to make new friends. They don't have to be the "popular" crew—
people with too many "friends" are often very shallow and vein.
Join an organization, group or club with people with whom you share
similar interests. You can take advantage of social websites like Twitter or
Facebook to meet new people. Joining a team, such as a sports team, band
or choir with a laid back attitude and no competitive mindset can also be a
great way to make friends with people.
2. Need For Respect
If you're looking to get respect, first ensure you respect others. Try not to
badmouth other people because it makes you feel better about yourself by
feeling better than them. If there's enough of a problem with someone, try
addressing the issue directly rather than talk about them behind their backs.
Also, ensure you're demonstrating respect for yourself. Take care of your
appearance, have good hygiene. Ask yourself if enjoy your own company.
3. Need For Affection
Everyone needs affection. The primary and most effective way to enjoy
affection is via a pet, be it a cat or a dog. Pets offer us unconditional love.
But be careful: Nothing should be seen as the source of your happiness.
That's always you.
You can also find a good friend, mate or companion or participate in any
available free hugs campaigns around you. You can also create your own if
you dare to be outgoing enough. In addition, you can also join an online
community that you feel comfortable about and make friends on the web
you may one day meet in person.
But again: be careful not to become a co-dependent—someone who
depends on someone else for emotional stability. If you catch your mind
attaching to an animal or a person for your happiness, you must start re-
wiring your thinking all over again. Always remember that you are the
source of controlling the way you feel about anything, whether happy or
sad.
4. Need For Supreme Being
If you are feeling sentimental, there is no better way to find inner peace
than setting aside the time for prayer or meditation, regardless of your
religious affiliation.
5. Need For a Creative Expression
Children appreciate and have fun learning and developing new skills such
as coloring, painting, writing, arts and crafts and making music. This is a
great way to express your thoughts and feelings.
To develop creative expression, it's vital that you avoid taking yourself too
seriously. Look for a place that will inspire you and help you rekindle your
creativity, such as a quiet and peaceful spot like the outdoors; or a bright
and colorful place that makes you feel artistic. Don’t be shy about trying
new things. If you want to have a go at sculpting, who's stopping you? You
can always try something else if you find it's not for you after all!
6. Need For Play and Fun
Life is short; no one gets out alive, right? In order to include more fun and
play in your life to improve your self-esteem, you need to reinvent yourself.
Change your routine! Schedule some movies, walks, dances, massages or
music in your life.
7. Need For Serving Others
Being of service to others in need can be a source of joy for you and those
you help out. And it doesn't have to be much. You can volunteer at
hospitals, social service agencies or shelters by offering your services to
those in need. In addition, it doesn't hurt to do something unexpected or
random. It can be as simple as sending an e-mail to a friend or family
member, telling him or her why you appreciate them. Send something
honest, from the heart.
8. Need For Intimacy
Being intimate isn't all about sex—it's so much more. Simple acts like
breathing together can be extremely intimate and sexy. Even holding hands
and having a nap on your partner’s lap can be relaxing and comforting. It's
all about being more vulnerable with other people.
Step Three: Write A Letter of Support To Yourself
Be sure to address each of the following when you are expressing your
inner child:
• Pain
• Anger
• Regret
• Fear
• Desire
• Intent
As you write, if you're right-handed, try using your left hand and vice versa.
This often helps bring back your childhood feelings and state of mind,
which is very helpful to this process.
Step Four: Surround Yourself With Positive, Supportive, and
Encouraging People
Being around negative people can have a negative effect on you. On the
other hand, surrounding yourself with positive people can create the
nurturing atmosphere you need for healing your heart's wounds.
The key to healing emotional disturbances is to concentrate on observing
your moods—are they more negative or positive in most situations?
Evaluate those around you, the people in your life, be it casual, personal or
professional. Avoid getting into situations where you have to deal with toxic
or overly negative people. Be sure to seek out team members, friendships,
relationships and even companionship with people who welcome every
obstacle in their way as a challenge rather than something that drives them
into anxiety and fear.
Step Five: Read, Listen, And Watch Personal Growth Material
Lifting your self-esteem is all about learning to be naturally positive and
developing a positive energy around you. You don't have to manufacture
your unhappiness, right? So it's all about getting to the other side of the
coin. You can increase your positivity by immersing yourself in personal
growth material such as positive magazines, other self-help books and
motivational television programs.
Step Six: Practice Receiving Approval From Yourself Rather
Than Others
Create a list of people your mind believes you need approval from and
explore this need through your journaling. The need for approval from
others greatly affects your healing time. These phantom concerns can cause
you to neglect doing important things, make you procrastinate and
experience unnecessary fear and anxiety.
In order to start feeling better, you need to make a decision, not for others,
but for yourself. As you see the nothingness of these beliefs, you strengthen
your sense of self-acceptance in such a way that you no longer need to look
for approval from others in anything that you do. You may seek advice or
counsel from those you respect, but the inherent sense of insecurity will no
longer be there.
Step Seven: Become Knowledgeable or Skilled
Develop and grow in one subject or area that you enjoy, such as sports,
music, politics, nutrition, social concerns, art, gardening, history,
spirituality, parenting, cooking or culture. The greater your skill set and
capabilities, the more of your True Self you're drawing on to sustain them,
which creates a naturally healthy self-esteem.
Stress
It's very important to eliminate as much stress from your daily experience
as possible. For those with stressful or high-tension jobs, finding ways to
manage stress well is key to this inner work. Uncontrolled stress can be a
significant inhibitor to your ability to unleash the inner child that's hurting
within you.
Understanding the personality your stress tends to inhabit helps cut to the
chase so you can discover exactly what works best for healing the
emotional pain. Take a look at the following stress personalities to
determine who you are, in whole or in part.
• The Worrier: Mentally wringing hands with a tendency to see
things getting worse with negative 'what if' statements.
• The Perfectionist: You tend to believe that you never do enough
and need to work harder or do better. There's often a fear of looking
bad or of someone finding fault with you or the work you've done.
• The Critic: You're almost constantly judging yourself negatively,
concentrating more on your weaknesses and suppressing or even
refusing to recognize your strengths.
• The Victim: You feel hopeless, helpless and you're full of despair
about the future. You habitually think things like: "I’ll never stop
feeling this way," or "Things will never change for me…"
Ask Yourself These Questions For All Types:
• What is the evidence that supports my pattern of thinking?
• Is it always true or am I just used to believing it?
• What are the odds I can see things differently?
• What's the big picture?
Journal your responses and review your answers later. Wash, rinse,
repeat. Soon—and I promise—you will eventually discover that some of the
fears you've grown to cause your low self-esteem are actually completely
unfounded.
 Conclusion

The work is hard. Rewiring habits of thought is hard. We weren't

wounded this deeply overnight. We're used to feeling hurt, feeling deep
pain, used to suffering. I've written this e-book to share the path that's
helped me and many others I've worked with who just couldn't make all the
advice stick, couldn't heal the wound once and for all. The key is facing the
feeling. Expressing them without continuing to think in the ways that fuel
and feed the pain.
While it may seem impossible now, just remember the words of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.:

“Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just
take the first step.”

Here's to healing!

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