Embrace the child inside you: This Practice will heal you and make you bloom as a person

There are multiple kids living inside of you.

What?

Yes! Adults are just grown kids. What separates you from a kid is the intelligence you gather. That intelligence that allows you to be able to take care of yourself. The intelligence that allows you to decide and pick the right from the wrongs. There are multiple levels of intelligence that separates you from being a kid to an adult. One of the most important aspects of that intelligence is State management. State management is a crucial life skill, the most important one I'd say. We will discuss more about why it is so important as we go ahead.

Here is what state management is

State management is managing your state of mind at all times. You must have heard that the mind is crazy monkey if not managed and made to run amuck at its own volition. Well, that is partially right. However, I look at mind not in terms of being a crazy monkey but a machinery.

Mind is a machinery that could either make your life a heaven or a hell

Like all systems, mind is a tool granted to humans by the nature to assist us. Like a saw machine is a tool with which you could either cut wood to make furniture if you know how to use it, or cut your own hand if you don't know how to operate it.

When you learn to harness the tool that is your mind, the quality of your life starts to improve. Here is how it happens:

The quality of your life depends upon your actions. Your actions depend upon your awareness about the situation that asks you to act. In your life, you will come across all kinds of situations. Some of the situations you come across your life are:

1. Situations that demand you to wake up and get out of your bed every day.

2. Situation where you have to go out of your house and interact with the external world.

3. Situation where you need to cross the road. Situation where you are asked to tend to yourself and support yourself.

4. Situation where you meet a girl or a guy and would like to interact with her because you are attracted to them.

5. Situation where you are faced with a bully who is out to trouble you because bullies like to pray on the weak.

When you will face these situations, you are going to act as per a mental model you have created for situations similar to these.

Why does your mind create mental models?

People act as per a mental model because people like to act faster. People like to act faster because acting fast is associated with being an expert in the domain. People also like to act faster because being slow is linked with retardation which tarnishes the image of a person in public. So acting faster is linked to a reward, that the person will be seen as an expert. And acting slower is linked to a punishment, that the person will be seen as a retard. That is why people like to act faster. Therefore, the mind is forced to create mental models for similar situations because people demand it to work faster.

But where is the problem? The problem with mental models is that most of them are not based on true awareness. True awareness comes from learning and meditation which most do not engage with. When the action done as a response to a situation is not based on true awareness, the consequence or the effect of that action will mostly be unfavorable. The situation demanded you to act a certain way by assessing it fully, but since the action was based on a mental model

So what are most mental models based on? Well, most mental models are products of trauma. Since most of the traumas are based on childhood events, understanding and embracing the child within becomes even more crucial to design a life of your choice rather than a life based on past events.

Embrace the child within

There are many children who live inside of you. They are parts of you with different traumas. But how are you going to identify which child is traumatized with what? Well, it is very easy. Here is how you do it...

Here is how to identify the traumatized child within

The easiest way to identify the traumatized child is to listen to it when it cries. Imagine sitting in a silent room and suddenly a child opens the door and comes running inside crying. The child's voice has broken the silence of the room. You don't have to identify what broke the silence. The crying will be the first thing you will notice when the silence is broken.

What breaks the silence inside you introduces you to itself on its own. It doesn't demand hyper-awareness about yourself. Similarly, the most conducive state you like to be in is a state of relaxation and calmness also called a state of bliss. Now whatever disturbs that state of blissfulness is the voice of the crying child. Here is an example to understand first hand:

Your girl and you are walking side-by-side. You are calm and relaxed. Suddenly, you catch a guy looking towards your girl. Now you are no longer calm and relaxed. Suddenly, your state of mind has changed. A child has barged in your silent room and the child is crying, sobbing, hauling. What do you do?

What to do next when you identify the traumatized child inside

The first thing to do when you identify the child who just barged in the door sobbing is to thank your intelligence. Your awareness has put you in a position where you are going to correct your mental models which in turn will help you design a life conducive to you.

Once you are going to see that child, you are going to look at it and find out why it is crying. Here, reading about human emotions will help you a lot to identify why that child is crying about. As per the above example, the child was crying because it was feeling weak. How can someone look at my girl in my presence. Do they think I am not man enough to have her by my side? Is that a challenge to my manhood? Am I not man enough? Aha, you just found out why the child is crying. The child inside you is crying because the child doesn't want to feel that he is not man enough. Because the child was traumatized in the past when it was made to feel not man enough.

"Now the healing begins"

The healing begins when you accept that the child is you. What is the first thing you do to console a child? You hug the child. So what you are going to do is to pick up the child, wipe its tears and hug it. Embrace it so tenderly and gently with all the love you have got. Accept the child, because it is you. Wipe its tears and kiss it on its cheek. Remember, all this is happening in your mind because you are attempting to correct the mental model your mind has prepared for you based on a past trauma.

Accepting the crying child and showing love is 80% of the work done on the path of healing the child. Healing the child inside will help you manage your state more effectively.