Inner Child Work
Affirm Your Inner Adolescent
Like your earlier school days, you probably remember much from your adolescent years. However, if you suffered very heinous abuse during this time, you may have incomplete memories. As a means of survival, our awesome brains will often block memories that are too horrific for us to remember, or until a time that we are strong enough to remember. If this has happened to you, but you feel strongly that you were neglected and/or abused during your adolescent years, based on witnessing others in your family being abused or from overhearing re-told stories of abuse in your family, John Bradshaw supplies an "Index of Suspicion" beginning on page 157 of his Homecoming book.
Just as in earlier developmental stages, your inner adolescent will have internalized unmet needs from that period of your childhood. It is an important part of recovery to acknowledge and affirm those needs now, as an adult.
One challenge you may face during this stage of affirmation that you may not have experienced during affirmations of earlier inner children, is overcoming or finding compassion for the defiance and defensive attitude exhibited by your inner adolescent. This is totally understandable. John Bradshaw explains it this way, "A wounded inner child can be a devastating force of contamination during one's adolescence." Even "normal adolescence is one of the stormiest times in the life cycle." "It is in adolescence that we begin to act out our original pain and unmet childhood needs." When you meet your inner adolescent, you may find a very angry, defiant, defensive person. Judith Corvin-Blackburn of
calls this your "little teenager" instead of inner adolescent, in her book Journey to Wholeness: A Guide to Inner Healing. My little teenager was very angry and defensive of the other, smaller, younger inner children when I first met her. She does not like my given name and prefers to be called Marissa instead.
Don't be surprised if your inner adolescent blames the adult you at first for all of the problems your wounded inner children experience. Instead of providing specific, individual affirmations for the angry inner adolescent, John Bradshaw believes it is necessary at this stage to reclaim and integrate these splintered inner children or "whole inner family system." Beginning on page 168 of his Homecoming book, Bradshaw leads you through a guided meditation in which your little teenager/adolescent finds, greets, embraces and rescues your younger inner children from the house in which the original abuse took place. Judith Corvin-Blackburn provides a very similar meditation in her book, but it is the adult self who does the rescuing.
Either way, I feel that this process is very important. Your inner children need to feel safe in order for any inner child work you do to be successful. If they are still stuck in the house in which your original abuse took place, they will never feel safe or secure enough to come out into the open and help you heal.
Affirmations for the Inner Adolescent/Little Teenager
Rescuing your inner children, creating a mental safe place for them and integrating your disowned parts are things we will discuss a little later. I have found that you can positively affirm your inner adolescent during the early stages of inner child work without having to make them rescue your younger inner children. Actually, I found those things easier to do once I established trust and helped my angry little inner teen believe that the adult me loved her and all of the younger inner children. Once she became convinced that the adult me had good intentions and was there to help, she was more cooperative in the rest of the process.
In addition to the affirmations that ALL inner children need to hear; "I'm glad you're here, I love you just the way you are and I will never leave you," your inner adolescent needs to hear affirmations that are specific to this final stage of child development:
I know what you've been through. I know better than anyone else what you've gone through, the hurts and pains you have suffered.
I am here to support you.
Of all the people you will ever know, I am the only one you will never lose.
I will take time for you and spend time with you as often or as little as you need me to. I know you are growing up and there will be times that you don't want me around and that's okay. There will be other times that you will want me there and I will always be there for you.
I love you, _________________ with all my heart.
Use the name your little teenager has told you they prefer even if it is not your given name, if it is different than the name preferred by all of your other, younger inner children or even if it is a name the adult you does not like.
Once you have positively affirmed each of your inner children and gained their trust, it is time to find the nurturing parent within you. If your real parents did not provide the nurturing you needed to develop in a healthy way as a child, your wounded inner children will need the adult part of yourself to be their parent and provide this essential nurturing. Please click:
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