Inner Child - WTF?

We hear talk about our inner child and here at Way of Play we’re here to try and nurture the joy of our Inner Child. But what is it? Who is it? How do we find it? Why? And surely we have grown out of him/her by now!

So the idea in the Western world  is generally considered to have been thought up by this guy called Jung, and related to some ideas by another guy called Freud. These guys were not related. The inner child is all the stuff that happened to you as a child that came to form you as you are now. If, like my grandson, you are still only 5, your inner child is probably your outer child which could explain why he likes to run around the kitchen shouting ‘Loud, Loud LOUD!’.

Most folks’ childhood had a mixture of joy and difficulties. So that’s pretty much like most folks’ adulthood. The difference is that when you were a child all the stuff went in to make you. As an adult all that stuff is left for you to carry.

Discovering your inner child is a bit like dissecting a sandwich - the bread is your carefully baked layer of adulthood, the conforming, the suppressing, the people pleasing, the big doughy buffer. The insides are the Inner Child, all the stuff that’s real and tasty and sour and gooey.  The big sorrows, the temper tantrums. The big joys, the playfulness, the curiosity. 

As you might have already guessed, The Way of Play is about those big joys, playfulness,  expression, joyfulness and how to cultivate and savour them. How to find that uninhibited joy without the bread. That is not to deny childhood darkness but perhaps to bring it into the light with honest vulnerability amongst people who will listen and not judge. For all our inner children are light and dark, yin and yang, cheese and pickle. 

Just like the art of sandwich perfection, Inner Child work is important. It helps us heal childhood wounds, address suppressed emotions, and break negative cycles and triggers. Most wonderfully Inner Child discovery cultivates Self-Compassion and Resilience. Even more brilliantly it restores Joy and Creativity. 

Through play we can rediscover the joy, express the hurt, and have a lot of fun doing it. 

May you never pass a puddle without jumping in it.