Shadow Working Tool: Inner Child + Shifting Perspectives

Hey Soul Fam!

In this lesson you will learn the importance of changing perspectives during the shadow working journey, through a very important meditation exercise that will also help you to connect with your own inner child. If you have not practiced the trance meditations for beginners yet, then STOP and go to that blog first.

How do we learn how to change our perspectives? By learning to view yourself in others around you- basically learning how to put yourself in the shoes of others and viewing them objectively. When you are on this healing journey and are healing your inner child, it becomes easier to see the wounded inner child in those around you too. By practicing viewing people as their wounded inner child, it is much easier to understand them and what drives or motivates them. Hurt people, hurt people. When you see people as the hurt inner child within, it becomes easier to forgive and release lower resonating emotions that you carry towards them. There are different layers to the changing of perspectives, but ultimately each of these layers serves as a way to help bring you closer to forgiveness and releasing. Forgiveness is important on this journey because it allows us to release the emotions and the trauma that we are still holding onto. Forgiveness does not mean forget though, it simply is an acknowledgement and a releasing of emotions still tied to the subconscious and wounded inner child.

A big part of this process is to learn how to commune with and access your own inner child. This is done through this inner child meditation. The premise of this meditation is to learn how to access your inner child and begin doing inner child healing work. For this meditation it is extremely important that you choose a “safe place”. This safe place can be either a real place or an imagined one, what is most important is that this is a place where both you and your inner child will feel safe. Some people like to choose their favorite childhood places, or the place they felt most safe as a child, while others didn’t have such a space and have opted to create an imaginary space. Keep this place in mind because it is the space where you will be meeting your inner child. You will also be using a method of descent to “go down” and descend into your subconscious and root chakra, where your inner child lies, like you do with trance meditations. This method could be an elevator, stairs, a ladder, you could float down, or swim down- the method doesn’t matter as much as the visualization does. So, before you begin this meditation, pick your safe place and pick your method of descent, which you should have already picked if you’ve practiced your trance meditations for beginners. If you have not practiced trance meditations yet, STOP and go to that blog and start there first.

INNER CHILD MEDITATION EXERCISE

Begin by finding a calm space where you can begin relaxing your entire body. You can choose to be sitting or lying down when you do this meditation. Next, choose the breathing pattern that you will hold during your meditation session. I prefer my beginners to start at a count of 636 but if this strains you in ANY way, please try 525. Begin your foundational power breathing, and after a few minutes you should be relaxed enough to begin your visualizations practice. You should have already chosen your safe place and method of descent.

1. Begin with your foundational breathing and the counting of your breathes. Do this for a few minutes so that you can calm yourself and bring yourself into a relaxed state. Once you've slowed your breathe down enough, you can begin the visualizations.
2. Once you are relaxed, you can begin your visualization for your method of descent. Imagine yourself going down (in whatever form you have chosen). When you reach the bottom, you will find a door. This door is the door to your “safe space”. Imagine yourself walking to that door and then walking through the door. When you enter the door, you will enter into your safe place.
3. Once you are within your safe place, go and find you inner child. When you find them, give them a big hug and a kiss and tell them how much you love them. Tell them that you are sorry for everything that has happened, but that you are now here to take over. Let them know that you are there now to take over and take care of them. Do your self-love affirmations with them: I love you. I will always have your back. I will never allow anything bad to happen to you. You can then speak to them if you wish about your life and what your life has been like from then until now. You should choose to speak about both the good and the bad with them. At the end, tell them that it is all OK because we are still here and whatever we have experienced, we survived.
4. Once you are done having a talk with your inner child, give them a hug and kiss and tell them that you love them and will see them again soon.
5. Walk back towards the door and exit your safe place.
6. Walk back over to your method of descent and you will use to go back and ascend. When you have ascended, you can open your eyes and you will be done with this exercise.

NOTE: This exercise is VERY important to inner child healing. In order to properly get through this process, you should do this exercise at least once a month- or more often depending on how you feel about the process. Some people will move through this process slower than others and that is perfectly fine. We need to unravel our trauma in ways that will be beneficial for us without causing ourselves unnecessary emotional or psychological harm. That means that you will be meeting your inner child at different ages and stages within your life as you see fit, and only when you feel ready to do so. I like to begin people with meeting their 5 year old self, because psychologically by that age, most of the trauma to program you into who you are today had already occurred. We then usually meet with our 7/8 yr old self, then 10/11, then 13, then 15-16, and then 18. After the inner child work has been done, I also have people meet with older versions of themselves between the ages of 21-25.

At some point you should also move your inner child from the depths and darkness of the root chakra and into the light of your heart chakra. The space that we start in is a “safe space” within the darkness of the root and behind a closed door. When you move your inner child though, they should be free to move freely within the heart space and this is also a signifier of your freedom. When I am teaching this meditation in class or with my Sister Circles, I will usually have them move their inner child when we get to their 18 year old self. This time of your life signifies the moment that YOU became the master of your own life and universe. This also marks the moment that no one else around you had control over you had control over you or your life anymore. Once you turned 18, you became an adult and every decision that was made after that point was yours and yours alone. This act of moving the inner child at this point signifies that you are now taking over and choosing to actively reparent your inner child, while filling all the voids and holes that your parents left behind. It signifies that you are now taking over. At this point, you should also be doing mirror working and self-love work. If you don’t know what that is, then I highly suggest you read my blog about that and begin your self-love mirror affirmations.

It is also important to do this meditation because the more you connect with your own inner child, the more you will be able to see the inner child in the people around you. This can become very beneficial during the healing process, as its easier to resolve hurt feelings and emotions when you realize that hurt people, hurt people. It is easier to take things less personally when you realize that people are just projecting their own wounded inner child onto everyone else around them. It is also easier to commiserate and empathize with people (especially your own parents), when you realize that most people don’t do their own shadow work and are really just walking around in grown bodies with the psyche of wounded children. Changing your perspective will become a crucial part of this process because you will come to realize that EVERYTHING on this journey is truly based on your perspective and the ways in which you choose to perceive things. It will also become easier to then forgive others and yourself, which is crucial to the healing journey and process.

Well Soul Fam, I hope that this information has helped you with connecting some dots. Until next time… Sending mucho luz + amor always!

XoXo,
Luna Estrellas