Most of my bad decisions are courtesy of my inner child.
My inner child is socially awkward, self-sabotaging, and a perpetual self-fulfilling prophesy of painful life lessons. My inner child is very cute, really, but she doesn’t quite fit into the “normal” category and she lacks the polish that most girls are expected to have. She far too often says whatever is in her head (please refer to the first line of this blog post).
Simultaneously, my inner child does and does not care about what other people think. She worries about whether or not she is liked even though she knows she will never be what other people consider “popular.”
When my therapist asks me to talk about what my inner child might need in a particular moment, it is usually to be told that I am okay – that the awkward, outspoken, unpopular trainwreck that I can be is okay just the way I am. I need to be loved for all of the messiness that I am.
I remember thinking that other people didn’t have as much of this inner mess as I do, but now I realize that there are people who are working on their sh*t and people who aren’t. And it’s a lot easier to look like you have everything all together when you sweep everything under the rug.
As an exercise, I wrote my inner child what I thought she needed to hear. It turned out to be a conversation between a mother and her daughter.
Will I ever fit in? Will they like me enough?
Will they laugh at my jokes or will they say I’m too much?
I know that I’m different – I thought different was good
But different can be misunderstood.
My darling child, oh can’t you see? Your wide-eyed wonder is beautiful to me.
So many people just follow along without seeing life’s colors or singing her songs –
Yes, you are different, that certainly is true,
And different is beautiful, and it’s beautiful in you.