I call my bear, ‘Straddie’ as he was created by a beautiful creative woman who lives on Stradbroke Island.  I found him whilst visiting a market the island,  where this Lady makes and sells these little bears in all shapes and sizes. 

 Straddie is my healing bear and often accompanies me when out and about, he’s mischievous and loves to share my food, practises a bit of yoga and plays in trees.

You might think I’ve gone a bit loopy, most of my friends and family do, except for when they get involved and share the joy in finding new photo opportunities for bear to pose.

I’m pointing here to the power of our imagination, and the benefit of connecting to our Inner Child.

The Inner Child being a metaphor for our innocent, pure, playful healthy relationship with the inner child. My inner child is where I am playful, not afraid to be silly and laugh at myself, free to be creative, where my self-esteem is high, and I easily form healthy relationships with everyone I meet.

When self esteem is low, you will be constantly seeking approval, have low self-worth, live in fear of rejection with a sense of abandonment. All this indicates a reason to re-connect with your inner child.

Modern life can leave us feeling dis-connected to our inner child.  If you feel a need to be perfect and only feel love if you succeed at everything, you may even be creating your own impossible to achieve high standards. Experiencing abuse, emotionally, physically or sexually rids us of our innocence.  Often, we are told as children to ‘grow up’, stop daydreaming and face reality.  

Once we do  grow up, the best thing we can do for ourself is re-connect to our innocent inner child.

Doing inner child work can help establish the cause of current fears or life patterns, figuring out where the thinking originated enables us to let go of old out dated habits, limiting beliefs. Allowing our inner child a sense of peace, freedom and healing.

INNER CHILD VISUALISATION MEDITATION.

It might be useful to set a timer, allow yourself to connect on a regular basis until you find yourself automatically allowing your inner child to shine through.

Find a place where you can relax comfortably without being disturbed.

1. Take a few nice deep breaths and imagine relaxing every muscle from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.  Imagine any unnecessary nervous tension melting away, drip by drip, allowing you to relax more deeply. 
2. In this space of relaxation, Practice using your imagination. (you have permission) 
3. Imagine yourself as a child standing right in front of yourself.
4. Give him or her a great big tight bear hug, let them know you love them.
5. Visualise a golden light of love pouring from your heart, tell them all they need to hear, whether I is encouragement or apology.
6. Feel your inner child in every cell of your body. Re-connecting to the love in a way that’s just right for you.
7. Allow your inner child to know that they are enough and that they matter.
8. Bring that sense of love back to the present with the inner child alive in your heart.

Ways to connect with your inner child:

I have my little bear and often play with my Poodles.

Read old books from your childhood. I’ve just bought a book for a $1.00 a memory from my own childhood called ‘First Term at Mallory Towers by Enid Blyton.

Other Suggestions for you to connect with your inner child:

Read fantasy books

Play with kids or animals

Engage in activities you loved as a child

Allow yourself to be playful and silly

“Life is too important to be taken seriously” – Oscar Wilde

Sometimes life can seem to hard, difficult and impossible, these are the times when you need to escape from the seriousness of events, situations and challenges, just for a little while and re-connect to your playful, innocent, curious inner child.

Very young children are wise, they can be really happy and absorbed in the moment and then a child steals their toy, for a while they throw a tantrum, the world seems like a bad place until someone offers them an ice-cream and they forget to be angry. I’m not condoning the behaviour of whoever stole the toy in the first place.

How wonderful it is that a young child can be in the moment they are in. A brief time before they realise the ability to take thoughts seriously, before they form limiting beliefs that distract the mind from living in this moment.

Growing up to adulthood, our innate inner wisdom gets lost, we begin to hold grudges, believe our insecure thinking and learn to live in fear.

When we fear things’ we are lost in our insecure thinking, fear is ‘false evidence appearing real’. 

Interestingly,  when we truly are in danger we lack thinking.  Our mind goes quiet, there’s silence and in that silence we know what to do.

The innocent child inside of us knows much more than the adult, so what a great reason to re-connect to the wisdom of your true self, your inner child, the you who existed before you knew you had a body or a mind.

Have fun!

Ange