I love myths because they tell so much about the world we live in and also the dreams and wounds we still carry inside. They also carry a strong sense of structured narratives that helps us to find a direction in life and to give our past a purposeful meaning in itself.
What about the inner child? I like to explore this theme within the voice: it’s a powerful tool of reconnection to self.
However, when the inner child becomes a concept or even a myth, we can miss the whole point of liberation through the voice and the body.
Here is my view upon the illusions that can come with the concept of inner child. It is not a truth and might change overtime. There is nothing here that is prescriptive, all is based on my personal experience and my decades of teaching both children and adults how to express themselves with more joy and inner safety.
Why I was reluctant to use the term “Inner child”
For years, I had refused to write or say “inner child” when introducing my work to people, or even during workshops or videos on my youtube channel. The thing is, I did not want to imprison my child part into an inner space : I was on the exact opposite side, trying to fully show its aliveness through my voice and movement, and help people to live the same thrilling experience!
This was symptomatic of a rebel part inside of me that wanted so much to be recognized that it did not want to be reduced to something kept secretly hidden inside of me. I had lived too long with my voice muted, repressing feelings and also self-expression, overadapting myself to please and perform. My “inner child” just wanted to be a child again, for real, as if I wanted to catch up all these years and repair my childhood for good.
However, as a Buddhist practitioner, I paid much attention to Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings. I heard him using the concept of the inner child a lot. I must admit that first, I judged it as something quite mawkish. I don’t like sentimentalism. Until I really listened to the core of his teaching, what prevailed inside of me was this repressed anger and the will to become a super warrior kid instead of something weak and tender.
This is where I understood why I was wrong, and how I was right to prevent myself from building myths around the inner child. This is how my inner voice told me what I needed to learn at this stage.
Don’t mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself! Concepts are useful as long as we remain aware that the answers we are looking for are further… inside – not in conceptual thoughts that reassure the mind but deprives us from living our own experience, being our own teacher.
Illusions from a human being, souvenirs from a utopian childhood
Two main archetypes come to me when I think of a limited version of the inner child : the victim and the savior. Classic.
One fundamental illusion facilitates this confusion : the idea that time is linear.
With that in mind, it’s easy to get trapped into a fantasy where either the inner child is a weak creature that has to be rescued by the adult, either the adult has to be saved by a childlike creature.
In both cases, it seems quite obvious to me that past wounds demand to be healed. The ideal of an ideal childhood perseveres as what should have taken place instead of another version of the story…
We want to rewrite the past so that the child we have been can obtain a better destiny, at least in fantasies. And we can also idealize or sanctify childhood so much that we imagine this ideal child could bring us back the joy and the well-being we lacked.
The line is thin between recognizing one of our facets and building up a kind of myth where this inner child has the first role…
Here are the main traps I have noticed when the inner child becomes a limiting belief:
- disconnecting childhood from adulthood because of this linear vision of time. Thus ignoring our current needs as adults in order to provide this child with all that seems to be missing (or to have been missed). This can lead to escapism as a constant pursuit od what has never existed because of unfortunate circumstances (trauma, difficult conditions of life, emotional neglect…).
- not actualizing the reality, which means being stuck in all kinds of thoughts, practices, ideas, labeled as “inner child” in order to heal the past . Again, this means we confound the finger with the moon, using a concept to try in vain to nourish a part of ourselves that has been starving for recognition and love.
In brief, it is as if the child was a weak being to be removed from his past experience and given a second chance, and the adult would find the only safe space or true self in this supposed “inner child refuge”. This of course is a caricature.
We cannot rewrite the story of the facts. But we can for sure use our Voice and our Body to release what has been held or hidden, in a respectful and soft way. This is the basis for everyone who sincerely wants to grow. This is what the message of listening to the inner child means allowing the emotions to be there – all the emotions. “No mud, no lotus” as we say in Buddhism.
But growth requires something else from us : to envision the children very differently than what we were taught and what we continue to display in terms of image, education, family systems.
What does the inner child look like?
And where is he? What does he want?
If we stay in the mainstream narrative of the inner child, this one naturally wants to be loved, recognized, seen, heard. To be held in secure attachment. That’s the start. But the child also wants to grow!
He wants the adult to understand that thanks to the child, he has everything inside to express himself with the same joy and spontaneity as the child could do (in ideal conditions).
Or maybe something else?
That’s where our Voice is here to guide us. Each one of us has a purpose to unfold and this is greatly facilitated when we reconnect all the parts of ourselves : past and present, child and adult, here and now. So every experience that allows us to express ourselves with more ease and joy is a cradle for the infant to be born again and to take up space while expressing it singularity.
In a sense, there is no one to save and nothing to heal. That’s my view for now.
Everything has only to be unveiled but that requires sometimes a lot of patience and courage. But every step along the way can be alleviated when we choose to grow through experiences that reconcile all our parts without having to retraumatize ourselves.
What if adults could truly play without being labeled as “childlike”?
What if the inner child was the oldest part of us, knowing everything we need to blossom in this life if we only dare to live in the present moment?
And what if we could consider children not as little beings, but as persons with a whole wisdom to be heard?
Our past could then truly serve as a fertilizer from which we can grow without limits. And the inner child would cease to be this far country where we escape when we feel bad…
The Voice : the place where everything reconnects in the moment
I know now why I was wrong about the inner child. That’s the same reason why I have been chosen by the voice to be my path and my transmission tool.
I certainly needed to feel the adult in me could repair the child. I tried so hard to fit myself into the mould of what an accomplished adult sholud look like.
But overtime, as I have dug into the holistic practice of Bodyvoice flow, I was reminded of the essential pilar of this work of life :
if I dare to express myself as I am in this moment, with all my weakness and my power, all my contradictions and my imperfections, then there is no more separation within me. I am relieved from the pain of not being enough, from the suffering of the past. I am an adult child, or a child adult : I am not inferior, not submissive. I am just this moment, this body, this voice.
People I have worked with feel this burst of energy when their voice starts to take the lead with confidence and a true presence. They feel like playfulness is a remembrance from childhood.
But to me, this is only our vital force that is emerging again, and it has absolutely no age.
Inner and outer child merge to embody one whole being. These moments of wholeness through singing or spoken voice are precious: they tell us we are our own medicine. And if you still want to believe you have done something for your inner child this way, then it will show you that there is even more to be discovered…