Our Most Vital Connection: The Journey to Our Inner Bond – Most of us think that the most important connection we have in our life is with our partner or our child. Maybe even a special animal.
But many of us fail to realize that the most significant connection we have in our lives is the one we have with ourselves. It is your connection with yourself—how you feel about yourself—I mean how you really feel deep inside.
As a Licensed mental health therapist of over 30 years, I can attest for this statement. I have borne witness to the transformative power of nurturing this inner bond. It holds the key to everything about us.
Over the decades, the people who come to me for help with any depression or problematic anxiety are people who have broken connections with themselves.
We are born into this world as a sponge, emotionally taking in any and all sounds, expressions, tone of voice and kinds of touch. And as early as age 6, believe it or not, our internal connection with ourselves and how we feel about ourselves is already established and continues to be influenced.
Our Most Important Connection
It sets in motion the thoughts we think and how we behave as we go through life.
It determines how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us. It also determines how well we function emotionally and psychologically. It is a huge determinant of how we do school and in our vocations. It greatly influences our choice of friends and our choice of a partner. As this describes just about everything, I’d say our relationship with ourselves qualifies as our most important connection.
This is an area I specialize in because I know how extremely important it is to determine the essence of every single individual. I have so many years of doing this work that usually, within 30 seconds of meeting with anyone, I can tell what kind of connection they have with themselves on the inside.
When I work with clients, this is one of the first areas I focus on. If they are motivated to do some healing work, I might ask them to close their eyes and list any problematic feelings they tend to feel most often during their day. I have them narrow it down to two. Then, I ask them what was the earliest time in their lives they remember feeling those two feelings.
Understanding “Problematic” Feelings
We usually trace it way back to childhood and then take some time to explore what was going on. From there, I help them to understand those “problematic” feelings, make sense of how and why they appeared inside them, and what their function was. It helps them to realize that the specific feeling actually helped them at that time. It sounds counter to what the person would normally assume and, therefore, helps them to normalize the feeling and have compassion for it.
A further helpful tool that can help to start the healing process is as follows: I ask them to look in their collection of childhood photos and find one or two photos of them as a child with an expression on their face that captures that feeling. Something in their face (even so slightly) indicates how they were truly feeling inside. Candid photos tend to work best for that. As an example, It would not be a posed formal family photo used as a Christmas card that shows them with an artificial smile.
Write A Handwritten Letter To Yourself
Once they have found the particular photo that resonates the most with them, I suggest they put it up somewhere close where they can see it during the day. And just be cognizant of what that little being was feeling and going through. One exercise that can also continue the healing is to have them set a time when they can be undisturbed, sit down with the photo of them as a child and write a handwritten letter to themselves in that photo. (it’s good to have a box of Kleenex handy for this). My clients who have done this have always remarked that they found it to be not only a meaningful exercise for them, but for many, it has been life-changing.
Important note: If reading the description of this exercise feels scary or emotionally stress-inducing, I would highly recommend not doing it until you can find a skilled therapist who can guide you through it and help you process what comes up in the letter effectively.
Get In Touch With Your “Inner Child”
This is an experience of getting in touch with your “inner child” and it can be some of the most powerful healing work of all. Some of my clients choose to purchase a favorite cuddly stuffed animal as that can many times be symbolic of a loved stuffed animal they had or perhaps one they never had but always wanted as a child. Animals are the beings on earth who truly give unconditional love. Clients may find calm and security by holding their stuffed animal and some even choose to hold it while they fall asleep at night.
For so much of our lives, we spend our energy doing anything and everything to AVOID getting in touch with that young child. It is a travesty. S/he has been inside us all this time, just crying/dying to be recognized and heard. But instead of spending the time to connect with them, we overwork, overshop, overeat, etc. all in an effort to numb the pain. This not only doesn’t work, but it will only make that little one inside you cry harder trying to be heard and thereby can increase depression or anxiety over time. The hurt needs to be healed, not temporarily numbed.
For anyone interested in gaining self-insight and perhaps improving their psychological, and emotional health, I hope you think about the information in this article. If nothing else, allow yourself just to be curious about that little soul inside you. They are and always have been…. sacred.
If you’re curious to explore your inner being and would like some guidance or further information, please feel free to get in touch with me. Doing this work can make a world of difference in the quality of your life
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