Up-Level Your Life with Mindy
Reconnecting with Your Inner Child: Anat Perri on Emotional Healing and Resilient Growth
Embarking on a journey of self-discovery can often lead us down unexpected paths, but what if the key to unlocking our potential was as simple as reconnecting with our childhood selves? That's precisely what we explore in a heart-to-heart with Anat Perri, a sage in the realm of personal growth, who guides us through the intricate dance of inner child work on our latest podcast. Our candid conversation challenges the skepticism some might feel towards this transformative approach and promises a deeper understanding of how nurturing our inner child can catalyze profound healing and emotional resilience.
As we navigate through the complex landscapes of our emotions, we uncover the importance of creating a sanctuary for emotional processing and the impact of childhood experiences on our adult lives. Anat shares invaluable insights into 'riding the waves' of our emotions and employing transformative practices like deep breathing and journaling to achieve clarity and self-awareness. These tools not only help manage our emotions but also serve as stepping stones to emotional freedom—where we no longer let past patterns dictate our present experiences.
In our final moments, we dive into the core essence of healing through the five stages of transformation. From the initial awareness of our emotional triggers to the stable ground of integration, we discuss the vital role of patience and self-compassion. The parallel drawn between the psychological journey and the physiological response to cold plunging offers a unique perspective on training our nervous system for resilience. Our dialogue with Anat Perri leaves us with a powerful message: embracing and understanding our inner child is not a detour but a direct route to personal growth and fulfillment. Join us for this enlightening session and unlock the doors to a more resilient and emotionally aware version of yourself.
To learn more about Anat, visit:
https://trainingcampforthesoul.com/
To learn more about Mindy CLICK HERE
Embarking on a journey of self-discovery can often lead us down unexpected paths, but what if the key to unlocking our potential was as simple as reconnecting with our childhood selves? That's precisely what we explore in a heart-to-heart with Anat Perri, a sage in the realm of personal growth, who guides us through the intricate dance of inner child work on our latest podcast. Our candid conversation challenges the skepticism some might feel towards this transformative approach and promises a deeper understanding of how nurturing our inner child can catalyze profound healing and emotional resilience.
As we navigate through the complex landscapes of our emotions, we uncover the importance of creating a sanctuary for emotional processing and the impact of childhood experiences on our adult lives. Anat shares invaluable insights into 'riding the waves' of our emotions and employing transformative practices like deep breathing and journaling to achieve clarity and self-awareness. These tools not only help manage our emotions but also serve as stepping stones to emotional freedom—where we no longer let past patterns dictate our present experiences.
In our final moments, we dive into the core essence of healing through the five stages of transformation. From the initial awareness of our emotional triggers to the stable ground of integration, we discuss the vital role of patience and self-compassion. The parallel drawn between the psychological journey and the physiological response to cold plunging offers a unique perspective on training our nervous system for resilience. Our dialogue with Anat Perri leaves us with a powerful message: embracing and understanding our inner child is not a detour but a direct route to personal growth and fulfillment. Join us for this enlightening session and unlock the doors to a more resilient and emotionally aware version of yourself.
To learn more about Anat, visit:
https://trainingcampforthesoul.com/
To learn more about Mindy CLICK HERE
Hey friends, this is your host, mindy Duff, and you're listening to Uplevel your Life with Mindy, your number one personal growth podcast that will bring you closer to uncovering your greatest self. As a certified holistic health and nutrition coach, I created this podcast for anyone who desires to improve physically, emotionally and spiritually. I'll be interviewing experts and sharing tips and tricks that have helped not only my clients, but that have guided me on my own transformational journey. I believe that we all have a greatness that lies within. We just need to uncover it. Are you ready to level up? Let's begin.
Speaker 1:Hi everyone and welcome back to Uplevel your Life with Mindy. I am your host, mindy Duff, and today we are going to be delving into the world of personal development a little bit. I know I cover lots of different types of topics here on this show, but I brought a guest with me today because we're going to talk quite a bit, I think, about inner child work and then just some other ways that we can improve our lives. I've done a lot as relates to inner child work. I am, for sure, experienced with some of this and 100% not the expert. I brought a not-perry on today to help share a little bit of her expertise and her knowledge. I not thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, mindy, for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for getting out. We were just talking about we're in two different time zones and it's early where a not is, but she's awake. She's ready for this. Before we dig too much into this inner child work and what this stuff is, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for the past 19 years I've been in the self development industry and eight years ago I started my business training camp for the soul, working with individuals who just wanted to heal and really discover their true self. That was my own journey for 10 years, and feeling that level of liberation and creativity and like just zest for life, I knew that that's what I then wanted to bring to others. And then the past three years I've been running my certification program, so training other coaches and healing professionals in my methodology. So it's a real pleasure now to pass the torch, so to speak, and to be able to make a bigger impact globally because I'm now training others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, and I think that the more healers that I talk to, or people in this personal development world that are kind of leading this, so to speak, I feel like it's first stems from personal experience and then, like you say, that need to share this with others, like this realization of wow, this is so much, this is like a game changer. This is a totally different life that I'm living now. Other people need to hear about this, and so that's why I'm so grateful for you to be on the show today, and we'll keep spreading that light a little bit further and we're going to talk specifically to now and not I know you know about all the things personal development, but we're honing in on Inner Child today.
Speaker 1:And I want to know what is our Inner Child to you? Some people might be listening to this going what the heck are you even talking about? I know, for a long time I even was. I was interested in personal development. I was kind of dipping my toes into some of this stuff and I would see Inner Child work articles or blogs and I would just kind of scroll past like I don't need that, like it just didn't didn't sound interesting to me because I didn't really understand it or what we're talking about here. So explain a little bit about what are we talking about? Inner Child and why is it important to do Inner Child work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I'll summarize it and say you know, your Inner Child is really the access to everything that your heart desires. So, in all of the self development and I have done the gamut of it it is, it is the most, it's the deepest work that you could do. So to answer your question of what is the Inner Child, I like to use the metaphor of your Inner Child is the part of you that holds all the emotions, that feels so, whether that's joyful, excited or anxious and sad. Think of that as a child that's walking into a room. So, mindy, your parents, how many kids do you have? Three kiddos, three kiddos. Well, guess what? You now have four.
Speaker 2:That fourth one is Little Mindy, and anytime that you are experiencing any emotion or if you're stuck in some kind of thought belief, I want you to imagine Little Mindy walking into your bedroom and she's the part of you that's saying I feel sad or I'm scared, or I don't know if I'm going to make it through this project or whatever it is that is concerning you, that's keeping you up. So if you relate to your emotions and all that in that way, what do you imagine Little Mindy then needs from you?
Speaker 1:A lot Support To be heard, to be listened to, encouraged and loved on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that you said all that. Now let's take Little Mindy aside and go back to before understanding this. When you have these thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and emotions that maybe you don't enjoy right they're not joyful and peaceful, they may be sad, anxious, angry how would you normally interact with that part of yourself?
Speaker 1:It would depend on the situation, but very, very differently, I think, sometimes. We just sometimes shove it aside. Oh, I need to just pull up my bootstraps and deal with it. This is just life. I think that's a common reaction sometimes, yeah, so imagine now I love that you said that.
Speaker 2:Going back to Little Mindy in the room, and she comes in and she's so sad or upset about something or nervous about something, and you're just like you know, get your act together. You just like put your boots on and get out there, figure it out. Kiddo, give me a loan. How well is that going to go? Imagine your other three kids. How well is that going to go? Well, right, so we do that or we go into fixing mode. Why do you feel this way? How can I fix this? Oh, let me just tell myself you're going to be fine, everything's going to be great. And think back to when your children and this is easier for those of you that are parents to really understand, because you've lived it when your kids were little I don't know how old they are when they were little and they were upset. How well would it work if you tried to talk them out of it yeah, not so good.
Speaker 2:Not so good. But if you said, it's okay, mom's here, yeah, you're upset, yeah, feel that, yep, all the way, yep, it's okay, I'm here, I love you, when they moved through that emotion, then they'd be ready to what. What would they do after they're done having their tantrum?
Speaker 1:Sometimes they just drop it completely and are ready to move on.
Speaker 2:Ready to move on just because they feel safe? Yeah, and ready to move on back to play, to creativity, to endless possibilities. And that is why I say that your access to all your desires is your inner child. The better you get attending to it, the better you get to being back to the full potential of what you desire.
Speaker 1:I love that and I love that you mentioned the fixing, because I think that is for maybe not everybody, but I know I in particular want to fix, whether it's myself or friends or family, like let's fix it, let's get to the root of this. What's the problem? What's causing the problem and that's not always the best thing, I mean some. You know, sometimes there is a problem you do have to fix it, but sometimes, like you say, just being there, being heard and comforted you don't is enough. That's, that is the fix. You don't have to do anything or take action, as you were talking.
Speaker 1:I was just thinking about. Oh goodness, my youngest is nine and just recently, over Christmas break, I'm trying to remember what happened. He got really upset. I think it might have been something where he had done something wrong on accident maybe and got in a little trouble, something to that. I can't remember exactly what it was, but he was really upset by it and was crying but like didn't want to be, like was kind of embarrassed that he was crying, but he was very upset by whatever this was that happened and he went over kind of in a little corner in our house by himself and he sat there just like crying because he felt I knew that he felt bad for whatever it was that had happened.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say it was like the.
Speaker 1:TV remote broker, I don't know something like that, something kind of silly. And I went over and now I am not always this parent, I'm gonna be a hundred percent honest, but in that moment I just had a little flash of awareness. It was just the kind of situation where you can see you're like, okay, this isn't that big of it. He broke a plate. That's what it was. Now I remember he broke a plate. I'm trying to think why did I have this awareness? And it was because I had broken a plate, like just a week earlier, same kind of plate. I just dropped it. I don't know why I just dropped it and he did the same thing. He just dropped it.
Speaker 1:But because he's a kid, sometimes we yell at our kids like oh you should be more responsible and whatever don't drop the place, but I had just done that.
Speaker 1:I had the awareness of, oh, you know what these things literally happened, because it just happened to me. So he felt really bad and he went and sat down and was crying and I just went and I sat next to him and I didn't, I didn't say, oh, it's okay, you're gonna be fine, or it's just. I didn't say anything for a while because I didn't even feel like he could hear it. I just sat there with him and then, before too long, you know, he kind of calms down a little bit and then I could say, hey, guess what? I broke a plate too, like it happens, you know, and but like I couldn't have said that at the beginning.
Speaker 1:I needed to just be there with him and then once he was like, oh, I'm not in super big trouble, this isn't just, this is just a plate, it's just a thing, we don't care, yeah, just we'll all have to be careful, okay, and then he could get up and move on, versus having this be like some. You know, I just think of my own childhood and we all have these moments where something happened and now, as an adult, you always remember that, oh gosh, I thought I was, you know, in so much trouble, and that always stuck with me for my whole life you know that little plate incident he was able to release, hopefully, and move on, but yeah, yeah, what a gift you gave him to give your presence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know there's definitely a place for action for, you know, resolution, but it's not in the initial moment of when the emotion arises. And the emotion arises. We need to learn to ride that wave. Yeah, and come, come, come back to shore, then we could take a new action.
Speaker 2:It's like trying to take that action while this wave is coming at you is is just like you said it's gonna go on deaf ears. Yeah, they're just. They're in their emotions, they're not in their, in their logic mind. They're not thinking just like for us. You get into fight with your partner or something, and the, the emotions take over and it's like you're not thinking clearly. Yeah, of course we're not thinking clearly. I'm, I'm in my emotions right now, and so for us to learn to honor that.
Speaker 2:Your emotions are like waves in the ocean, and sometimes they're small and pleasant and you could just float, and sometimes they're big kahoonas and if you freeze and I like I don't know what to do, how do I fix this? It's, you're just gonna get smacked down with it. And so learning to ride the waves of our emotions is really where you build capacity to handle more, and what I mean by that is, like I'll say more as far as your emotions go. There's certain emotions that you grew up with that feel very familiar. So if you grew up in a house where it was chaotic, then chaos is familiar. Actually, if things are calm and peaceful, you might find that you sabotage it and create chaos because that energy, that type of wave you're like oh, I could ride that wave, I'm familiar, meaning your nervous system is familiar, it's a tune to it, it knows how to respond to it. Does it mean it responds? Well, no, it might respond with, with freezing, with hiding, with shutting down, but either way, it's familiar with it and has some kind of response to it.
Speaker 2:And so when you learn to be with emotions at what I call the level of sensation, so there's the label of good and it's usually put into two categories good or bad. Right, happy, horny, yes, more of that. Scared, anxious, angry. How do I fix it right? There's this like judgment of it, but really, ultimately it's creating a sensation in the body. They say excitement and anxiety feel very similar in the body. The difference is how you label it and what's what's going on, that your boss call you into the office or are you walking down the aisle about to marry the love of your life? But the sensation is similar, so we can get away from the label of it and get curious about how it feels in our body. Then we're speaking the language of the nervous system. Sensations is the language of the nervous system.
Speaker 2:So if it's oh, it's tight, it's in my throat, it's warm, it's prickly right, whatever it is, and it takes something, it takes some effort to slow down enough and laser focus on where I'm feeling this. And for some people they may say I don't feel, I'm numb, like they don't know how to be in their body. So I'm not saying this is easy peasy, but what I am saying is that this is the practice, this is the way. This is what it is to do in our childhood. It's to learn to create enough safety for yourself by saying I'm here, I'm safe, let me take some deep breaths, I'll let myself know that it's okay. It's okay to feel whatever's coming up for me and that I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna be with this right Exactly what a child needs for mom. Like you went and you sat with your son, you gave him more permission, you gave him this bubble of safety that if he fully goes into crime mode, that he won't drown in it, he'll know mom's here. So, same thing we get to practice learning to hold ourselves in that, to imagine our younger self walking into the bedroom and having this belief, thought, fear, experience, emotion and excuse me and giving yourself that hug, perressing yourself literally, like physically doing that right now and taking some deep breaths and letting yourself know I'm here, I can be with this, and it's gonna feel uncomfortable, especially if you've never done it before. You're gonna wanna run, you're gonna want it to end quickly and sometimes, whatever it is may need to be felt through for a while.
Speaker 2:So, but that's the beginning process. And then from there I'm like okay, I'm here, all right, it's slowing down and checking in. Where do I feel this? Oh, I feel it in my throat, I feel nauseous. Oh, and if a client says that to me, I always say to them ride the waves, marry that energy instead of swallowing that down, instead marry it like allow it. And then I just cough it up like really, think of it like a wave in the ocean. And you're on that surfboard and you're like okay, this is what this one is like. This is the size of this one, the intensity of this one. I'm gonna allow that energy to be fully felt and experienced.
Speaker 2:And when you allow it to be fully felt and experienced they've done studies of this at Harvard it's about 90 seconds to move through an emotion, or it comes in 90 second waves, right, for example, grief you're not gonna move through grief in 90 seconds, but grief is gonna come in 90 second waves when you fully surrender to it. It's actually about 90 seconds. And those of you that are parents, try this with your kids. Give them so much permission, presence, love, acceptance, cheer, lead them, encourage them, acknowledge what they're feeling. Put your timer on 90 seconds. Now. It might be five minutes before that where they're wondering if it's okay for them to have that tantrum, but from that moment of you creating that safety for them 90 seconds or less they're gonna move through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up that Harvard study because how I maybe maybe like a year ago came across that maybe less than a year ago.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking of that while you were talking and I'm glad it's a good reminder, because, even though I knew about it, I had forgotten about it till you were talking about some of this and I found it to be true. If you don't feed it, if you're sitting there going, okay, I'm feeling rejected by XYZ right now. My friend didn't respond to my text message and I'm feeling it feels gross and it feels icky.
Speaker 1:Okay, so sit there Like you say where do you feel it in your body, Start to identify it, but you can't feed it, you can't go, oh yeah. And then last week I remember when she didn't do oh and remember that one time, like if you feed it, it's, you probably could add a 90 seconds for everything, right.
Speaker 2:Like thing that you're feeding onto it, but if you could just sit there with it yeah, I found it to be absolutely true that it's 90 seconds or less.
Speaker 2:And I love that you reminded me of that. Thank you, because a lot of times people say, oh, no, like it's much longer for me, and the next thing I say to them is are you feeling the fire? Are you feeding it? Because if you're feeding it, then exactly, add another 90 seconds for each one that you feed it, and so that's why it's a good practice to imagine that it's your younger self walking into the room and you don't wanna add and say those things, like if your kid walks in your room and says, yeah, I'm sad, tim didn't wanna play with me today. He was being mean to me and you said well, that's cause you're a loser, that's cause nobody likes you, you're always gonna be by yourself. I mean, you feel horrible Right yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is the practice, and one of the ways that you can develop this practice is by bringing it to what I call your inner best friend your journal. So you know, when you call your bestie up, you could be like no filter and she'll totally love the hell out of you. I truly do. Instead of that, I want you to imagine that your best friend is gonna read your journal. Right, you're gonna pass it along to her. So you grab your journal and anytime that anything comes up for you, you just dump it out. And the reason that you do this as opposed to just sitting here and thinking that you could visualize it and effectively do it, especially if you're new to this is because there's a lot of other voices in your head.
Speaker 2:It's like a dinner party with a Italian family. Everyone is talking over each other and you only hear the loudest one. And the loudest one is usually not the inner child. It's not gonna be your emotions. The loudest one, a lot of times, is either your inner critic who's judging you, or your ego, and your ego is actually your amigo. Your ego is your ultimate protector. So think about it like when you're not tending to that child. That child needs a babysitter to protect it. The babysitter's job isn't gonna be to sit there and create loving space and hold you through it. It's gonna be like let's watch TV, let's see you're better than this person, you're prettier than her, go compete. It's gonna be.
Speaker 2:The ego is all about look external to feel better, and so a lot of times we either fall into that type of behavior like distracting ourselves in some way or judging ourselves and beating yourself up even more and then just stuffing it all down. And so if you wanna hear your inner child, it helps to dump it all out on the piece of paper. So whatever's coming up for you, you just let it be messy, doesn't have to be full sentences or anything like that. You write it all down and then go back and you circle anywhere that you wrote. I feel dot dot dot. I feel like dot dot dot, I am dot dot dot. That's your inner child speaking. Now you could take just those sentences and imagine that little one walking into your room and saying those things and holding him or her through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great exercise and I like that you. I like the analogy of the babysitter ego, because that's so. I've really never thought of it that way and I think even in the world of personal development sometimes ego gets a bad rap, like, oh, we need to get past our ego and your ego is going to tell you all these lies.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not that none of that's true in some ways, but I always have felt conflicted because I feel like if it wasn't somehow beneficial, we wouldn't have it right, just like yeah, that's why I tell people I'm like your ego is your amigo.
Speaker 2:You do not want to annihilate your ego, but you want to just give it less of a job to do, and the way to do that is to get better at tending yourself to your inner child. The more you tend to it, the less of a job there is. The more you tend to it, the more you'll live in your heart as opposed to. You'll be heart driven driven as opposed to ego driven. Right, your access to your heart, which is your creativity, it's your desires, it's your, it's your. Your courage is your inner child, right? Just like when a child is upset, they don't want to play, but as soon as they move through that, they're back in their imagination. They're back out there, feeling fully self-expressed, able to play. We're the same way. You just get to remember that and bring that into life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's such a good. I just like it so much, that analogy because you know you think about a babysitter that I know there's some really great teenage babysitters out there, but you know you're you're 16 year old neighbor coming over to watch your four year old and they have to feed them supper. And the kid says I don't want that. And the babysitter's like all right, well, you have to eat. And they, no, I don't want that. So an inexperienced babysitter's like all right, well, what do you want? Ice cream, let's just eat ice cream. Like I got to feed you, I'm supposed to feed you.
Speaker 1:So here you go, here's ice cream, here's chips, and then you just eat, and then the kid eats because they got what they wanted, and then they're happy. And we do that, like you say, with. You know, when we are distracting ourselves or trying to fill a void with social media or shopping or alcohol or whatever it is, we all have a tendency to do this at some point, that's that trying to trying to smooth things over and make things feel better, because I don't, I don't know what to do here. I'm just a 16 year old babysitter, so let's just do anything to like soften the blow here.
Speaker 2:Exactly because when mom comes home, you say, oh no, they didn't eat anything, nothing. Yeah, what you starved my child. It's much worse than well. They didn't want to eat that. They didn't want to eat their veggies, but you know, they had a few pieces of chicken and then I gave them some pizza. Good enough, okay.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:They ate good enough.
Speaker 1:But if we're always operating on good enough, then that's when you're going to have run into issues in your life.
Speaker 2:If your child is always with a babysitter every day and every night, how well is that child going to develop and be able to operate out in the world, to function out in the world? So yeah, so we get to bring that back.
Speaker 1:Another thing that I've been thinking of as you've been talking about this is this idea. You know it's so easy to to see in a child example, like when I think about my own kids and for those of you listening that have kids, even if they're older, if you have grandkids, you can think, oh yeah, my kids do this. I see this. It's really easy to see things in other people and in young children Like, yes, we see that, but when is the point where we stop needing that same comfort? I mean there isn't a time when you think of a kid that, oh, I was bullied on the playground and I come home and I'm sad, and then you're that parent that's loving and saying, okay, I'm just going to sit with you and I love you and I'm going to hold space for you. But what is the age where you don't need that anymore? When you grow out of that? I mean, you don't right.
Speaker 1:But we think somehow in our society. It's like we do we think that we do yeah.
Speaker 2:So here's another metaphor for you you are like a garden. When does a garden stop needing tending? Yeah, never. If you stop tending to the garden, the weeds come back. It stops giving you the you know, the fruit or the vegetables or the beautiful flowers. So we are one with nature. We're the same way, and sometimes there's more tending to than other times. So it's like saying, well, when do I get to stop loving myself? Right, this is the act of self love and it gets you know, the better you get at it, the more capacity you have.
Speaker 2:So, going back to what I was saying about you know, someone who's new to learning to serve, they're going to get smacked down a lot. Now, if you're new to saying, okay, I'm just going to be with, whatever emotion comes up, you're going to run a lot. You're going to freeze a lot. You're going to fail at it in the beginning a lot. You're not going to want to. You're going to be like, okay, I could be with sadness, right, there's those of us that are leakers. I call them the leakers, myself included. So it's being like, oh yeah, I could access tears and cry and no problem, but it's like anger. Do I even have that emotion. That was definitely an emotion that I never wanted to feel or to express, that felt too much for me, for my nervous system, like very scary. So it took some time to be able to build up to that type of wave. But the better you get at feeling all your emotions, you have more range, you have more capacity and your nervous system goes from uh-oh this isn't familiar to me, so let me freeze, let me fight it or let me run away from it to oh, okay, I could be with this and it regulates and processes it really quickly. So you go from. Let's take someone who, uh, anger is an emotion that they owe it, like they always go to aggression. So to go from like being angry and upset for you know, 30 minutes to 30 seconds. Same thing with um.
Speaker 2:I started cold plunging in the past two months about like 47 degrees for water, and what I've noticed in the past month and a half of doing it is it used to take me about 30 seconds for me to stop having to like breathe heavy. Now it's about down to like five seconds. So within five seconds my nervous system can regulate. Where I could have this, I could have a full conversation with you right now. We could be in the water right now and I'll be talking to you just like this. And I was like, ah, this is the same thing. This is where I'm training my nervous system to, uh, to adjust to cold temperatures in this way. And now it's like it's so familiar that I'm like I go in and I'm like, hey, it's only five seconds of torture and then it's just cold sensation on my skin.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's incredible yeah.
Speaker 2:Just becoming familiar getting.
Speaker 1:So when you're like you said, you know your body seat says oh, this is an emotion I'm not familiar with. I don't like it. We usually shove this one away so let's get out of here, or whatever it is. But if you it becomes more familiar with it the more familiar it is, the more you'll be able to stay in that space. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, therefore, the less scared you are. So life is not going to stop handing us challenges and opportunities for growth, and the more capacity you have to feel whatever emotion arises, the more you're going to embrace those challenges and those opportunities, because ultimately, that challenge or opportunity is, at the end of the day, going to just bring up some emotion and you're just like, oh yeah, my nervous system could swim in this, I can handle this. So you go from living a life of fear or living a life of complacency to meeting the next edge, to feeling like you can create the life you desire. You can expand past your comfort zone, because expanding past your comfort zone just means oh, this is just new to my nervous system. I'm going to train it how to be with the sensation. And now look at me, I have a bigger comfort zone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I love that. That's kind of a fun new way to look at like, different challenges in your life or things that you know, the good things that you're afraid of doing. You know it's good for you, but you also have that fear, Instead of thinking, oh, I have to. This has to go well, just like no, it might not. I'm training my nervous system.
Speaker 2:The truth is it might not. Yeah, now you're no longer afraid of it, and so this is why I said before in our child, work is the access to all your desires, because your desires on the other side of those fears and those opportunities. And then there's the things that life's going to hand you, like you know death of a pet or a loved one, or just you know challenging financial times or all that, and how are you going to meet that?
Speaker 2:Because it's going to happen, do you want to have resiliency around it as opposed to collapsing in it and having it spiral you down. So this is where we get to build our resiliency, build our power, and to me, this is freedom. This is the ultimate freedom, the freedom that people want. It's not financial freedom and it is but there's plenty of people that have financial freedom and they don't have freedom, because the true freedom is the freedom to be in the full spectrum of your emotions, to know that, no matter what wave comes, you can ride it to school.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that, I love that. So what are some examples or some ways that our inner child holds us back in life, like, what might that look like to someone that's like well, I don't you know, if this is new to you and you're kind of disconnected from this, you might be thinking, well, I don't have, my inner child is not holding me back, I don't have this problem, but you probably do, because I think we all do. But what could it?
Speaker 2:look like yeah. So you know, just replace the word inner child with your emotions. What emotions do I avoid? And you'd be surprised. Sometimes I ask this question in my programs. I give them like top emotions, like joy, love, peace, anger, sadness, anxiety, and ask them which one do you avoid, which one do you indulge in? And sometimes people say I avoid love and peace, like that is scary to me. So think about emotions, think about all that, and what do you? What do you avoid? Or what do you run to? Are you someone that always needs to run to pleasure Because you can't be with discomfort, you can't be with pain? Yeah, and that may feel like, well, yeah, and that serves me. It's like, yeah, but at some point, life is going to smack you with something that you're not going to be able to run away from, yeah, yeah. So here's your opportunity to become what I call an energetic Jedi. Let's develop your ability to, to be with any energy, because that's what our emotions are Just energy. And emotions.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. So you've you've mentioned journaling and, you know, just sitting with your emotions, but are there any other ways that we can heal or connect with our inner child?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so your inner child learned everything, like you learned everything from what you saw, heard or felt energetically, and most of it by the age of seven, and from mom and dad. Whether mom and dad were present or were absent, they gave you your script, they modeled it to you. Mom modeled everything about the self. Mom is the role model for the self. Reason is you spent nine or so months in mom's belly the second you were born, and mom held you right when you held your children, they didn't know they were looking at their mom. They didn't know that it was, they didn't understand what you were saying, but your energy and your voice felt familiar. It felt like home to them and in that moment they're like this is me, I am mom. They don't see you as separate. That's why they need mommy the first three years more than daddy. They get hurt. They run to mommy. Mommy is home, mom is my safety, mom is me, I am mom. So they look at you for everything related to the self how to treat yourself, talk to yourself, take care of yourself, love yourself and you either copy, rebel to do the opposite or create a way to survive because you needed to. And so when you're exploring something that you're like gosh. I keep doing this pattern, keep abandoning myself or keep people pleasing or keep distracting myself. Ask yourself, who modeled this to me? Who did I learn this from? Is this mom's energy? Is this dad's energy? And dad is everything. That's not the self. Dad represents love the first time you experience something outside of you loving you. So we hold dad on a pedestal. He either lives up to it or he breaks your heart, and you're always trying to get back to that first initial experience of love that you received from dad. Daddy can do no wrong, and even when he does, we're just in denial of it. So dad represents everything that is not the self, others, the world, how to relate with others. And there's times when what you learned, you learned both from mom and from dad, and so in that case, you always want to start with mom, you always want to start with your foundation of self, and again you copy or you rebel. So sometimes it's tricky to identify it. That's why people come and do my programs, because I help them. Sometimes your ego doesn't want you to see it or your identity is too afraid to see it, but you get to explore.
Speaker 2:Who modeled this to me? Whose energy is this? Oh, this was my mom, my mom always, you know, she didn't have patience for me, she didn't see me, she was just like. She just wanted me to already feel better. And now I see where I don't have patience for my struggles and myself. I go to fixing it and I really want to like feel better, wow, yeah. So there's tons of examples there. So you get to just explore what did I learn? And sometimes, oh my God, this wasn't even my energy, this was mom's energy. This is how mom felt about herself and I've just really taken it on as like this is the way to be, this is how you be in the world, excuse me.
Speaker 2:So, for example, some of you may say, oh, but I had the best parents. Mom and dad were great. That's awesome. There's no quote, unquote, big T trauma there, but there could still be a gap in developmental learning and functional learning. So, for example, let's say mom, mom was always there for me. She was always there, she took care of us, she took care of the house. She was always busy running around doing everything for us. Did you ever see mom sit down and do something for herself? No, yeah. And now you struggle to self care, to put yourself first, because you learned to keep busy, put others first, don't have needs, or your needs don't matter, because that's what you saw from mom and you copied it. So you don't know how to slow down. You don't know how to give yourself what you need. You don't know what you need. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's always a lot of things that you need to do. You don't know what you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there's always something for all of us to be young. There's always something.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So continuing on to that journaling of, let's say, as you dump it, your inner child says I don't know what to do, or I don't know what I need, or I just feel like I have to do what he wants. Right, let's say that's what you write down in journals. Oh, who modeled that to me? Where did I learn I have to do what others want? My God, that was my mom with my dad. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:And then you start to see where you took it on. And it's not who you are, it's just what you learned. And if you learned it, you can unlearn it. And so this is a process of self discovery through unlearning and then reparenting your inner child the way you always wanted and needed mothering yourself the way you needed. Yeah, so this was how mom was with it. Well, what did you need from mom? Well, if you knew you were safe, you would have asked her, for I needed her to be present with me and hold me and tell me everything's going to be okay. And so then that becomes the practice of giving that to yourself.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah. So in continuing with, with healing, once you've identified some of these things, I know that you do a lot of like body, body, mind connection work. So how can we use the body and the mind? Because I think you can't just intellectualize yourself out of these things. So you might you know, maybe somebody listening, you were listening to a knot use one of these examples and you thought, oh yes, that's me. I identify with that exact example you just gave. You can't just think your way out of it and go, oh well, then I just won't be that way anymore. So how do? What are some ways that we can use our body and our mind to work together to create that change?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you're going to move through what I call the five stages of healing. So there's five stages and it's really combination of the body and the mind, and I love what you just shared of like you can't just become aware of this thing and then fix it, say, well, I don't know, oh, that was my mom, so I'm not going to be like that. Instead, I'm going to be like this. It's like, okay, good luck. It's like identifying a weed in the garden and then trimming that weed. You have to get to the root of it. So stage one is awareness, and this is where, yes, there's whatever is top of mind for you, whatever screaming really loud at you, and this is where bringing in that practice of journaling brings you deeper into awareness of what else is there as well as who did I learn this from? So even in stage one, there's deeper to go than just the top of mind issue or top of mind emotion, so doing a bit of that exploration. Stage two is acceptance, and this is the hardest stage for people to get past, because acceptance means there's nothing to change, nothing to fix, there's just a learn to be with it at the level of sensation, right. Stage two is the riding, the waves. Learning to ride whatever wave is there, accepting it and sometimes accepting these things brings up more emotion, more waves, but learning that like well, you can't skip this step right. So, learning to ride whatever is there or learning to accept whatever you just became aware of.
Speaker 2:Stage three is getting to the root of it. So, being in that exploration of either where do I feel this in my body, what is that sensation, as well as the exploration of who did I learn this from? Is this mom? Is this dad? What did I need? And then stage four is rewiring and re-parenting. So this is where you get to give that to yourself, right? Or if it's something you learned from father, it's not about giving it to yourself. It's about bringing vulnerability and connection to others to like, bringing it out into the world. Whatever it's father learning related, it's a lot more action, it's more of the masculine energy. It's not about the self, it's about others and the world. But you have to have, mom, the self intact, the self love has to be there before you're ready to address others in the world.
Speaker 2:The rewiring so once you've cleared something out, there's room for something new, you know, if you've really sat down with holding yourself through whatever you're upset about and you had that good cry and you loved that little one, something. Then there's space. You will feel energetic space for something new and you get to ask yourself that question of like, what's possible and available now that wasn't before, for myself, with myself, wow, to be at peace, or that I get to be unapologetically me or whatever it is, and sometimes it's the opposite of whatever you became, of whatever you came to awareness of, and sometimes it's not, it's not like, oh, you know, I let me see if I can come up with an example here. I can't. You know, I have to get it right. Everything has to be perfect. That's what mom modeled to me, because mom always yelled at me when I didn't do things right. And then, as you move through all of like, well, what did you need from mom? I needed mom to tell me it's okay that you know the dish broke, it's all right, that happens, it's fine, and like or like that. I had a client that this was his thing. His mom was always like having him do chores, but then telling him that he wasn't doing it right and he just wanted to play, he just wanted to be a kid and so, on the other side of loving and accepting himself because he came, became someone that felt like he needed to always accomplish and do things right and be rigid and be the judge himself. On the other side of that, the re-parenting was I just get to, I get to play and have more fun and let it be messy, and so that was the new affirmations, the new possibilities that became available.
Speaker 2:And then stage five is integration, education and stabilization. This is where lasting transformation happens. Lasting transformation happens in the integration. It's like you pull a weed by the root and you plant a new seed. That's just the beginning. You can't just leave that seed and hope that it blossoms and grows. You have to tend to it the right amount of sunlight and water and all of that. So it takes time for us to shift into a new identity. It's about 18 months if you're looking at something that's a big character in the movie of your life, like if you've always played a people pleaser, it's gonna take a while to integrate someone that knows how to say no and put themselves first. And so I always remind my clients lots of compassion and patience for yourself in stage five.
Speaker 2:It's not a question of will you fall off the horse? You will fall off the horse, you will fall back into old pattern. It's about how quickly can you recognize it and get back on, so giving yourself permission to learn this new way of being and integrating that and integrating it through action. So how does someone that now believes that I get to play and it's okay to let things be messy, how does someone like that act in the world? And so you may know, or you may have no context for it, and if you have no context for it, no modeling in your past for it, then you get to find that model Whether that's through a book that is specific to that or a podcast or someone in your life that could be a role model for that and then copy, copy that person, model yourself, get that education and bring that into practice.
Speaker 2:And then eventually the stabilization happens, where you're so solid because you've brought in so much reps into playing that new role that you're ready for that opening night, you're ready for center stage. You're like I don't even remember what it was like to be that person. So this is the journey, and if you've done self-development work and there's parts of you that you still struggle with, ask yourself where am I in the five stages? Oh, what stages did I skip? Oh, this is why you know this was me for the first 10 years of my self-development journey. The training that I had at the time didn't cover stage two, three and four, so it's constantly going from stage one to stage five or trying to thinking I could just, you know, transform myself with a weed wacker, but you can't transform a garden with a weed wacker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, momentarily.
Speaker 2:And then that's not a tool Momentarily, and that's the thing is that a lot of people are in that fixing, in that momentarily relief. You want deep, lasting transformation. These are the steps and these are the tools, and that is what I teach.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. I love those five steps. I'm gonna have to go back and listen to that again and like write them down, because I mean, I think I think I talk about awareness a lot. That's the first step in a lot of things, but you have to have all of those, you have to be able to sit with the uncomfortable parts, you have to be able to feel it. You have to do all those things or, like you say, you're just gonna be cycling back to square one again. Well, I still have this issue. So I guess I just aware, start with awareness again. Okay, but then what are you doing All of those five steps? Otherwise it's just gonna come back. I love that. I love that so much. So, anah, what is one thing that you wish everybody on the planet would do in regards to their own wellbeing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, learn to love and accept all parts of themselves. So, really, whatever you're feeling experiencing, validate it. Just validate it, even if it's like, oh, you want me to validate that I feel depressed or that I'm scared? Yeah, because, guess what you do, this is where you're at. Yes, you wanna be somewhere else, but to learn to validate where we're at, because that's where we can listen for more. Okay, now that I've accepted that, well, what else does this look like? Do I wanna say to myself, what else is there? Well, just get out of this relationship. Oh, now I can actually hear that that's the root of why I'm not happy for example.
Speaker 2:So validate and accept whatever you're feeling and know that the only way through it is through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah to go sit in it and feel it, To feel it and experience it yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:I think that there's. So you know when we think of oh, what are your wishes for the world? A lot of people. Well, if people would love more and will have world peace, and that's true. But it's not the way. I think most people think it's not that external. Well, I just need to learn to love my neighbor, you need to learn to love yourself, and if we're all loving ourself by default, you're gonna end up loving your neighbor.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it goes back to the more safe you then feel with yourself, and the child that feels safe and knows how to love themselves and accept themselves is gonna open their door and go out into the world as someone that is heart driven, because they feel safe. If they are not tending to these things, they're gonna go out into the world ego driven, and that's what we're seeing in the world is a lot of ego driven of compete and defend and protect right the ego, the ultimate protector. And so we get to learn to tend to all those parts and love all those parts so we can go out to the world.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. I love, love, love that. So that's the goal. That's what we're working on, Anat. If people are interested in learning more about you or working with you in some capacity, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:I hang out on Instagram. When I post on Instagram, if you follow me, you will get a DM from me within a week maximum, because I wanna get to know you and hear your journey and see if there's any way I can support you and my website, trainingcampforthesoulcom. And although it says on there for coaches and healers, yes, that is who I am targeting the most now because I want to, you know, grow the impact by training them.
Speaker 1:But my work, my foundational program, is available to anyone that needs healing Awesome, and I will put links to Anat's places and the show notes here so everybody can just find you easily with a click of a button. Anat, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, Mindy. Thanks everyone for tuning in and everybody that's listening.
Speaker 1:I hope you gained a little bit of something from this podcast. Feel free to email or message me and share what your thoughts were on this. I love hearing feedback from you guys and, wherever you're at today, I hope you're having a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next one ["The Last Day of the Day"]. That's it for today, friends. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe or, even better, leave a review and let me know what resonated with you the most. The more you tell me what you love, the better I'm able to create future episodes with even better content. I'm sending you so much love and light. I'll see you in the next episode.