When I think back to my childhood sometimes, I wish I could see the younger version of myself and just tell her that everything is going to be okay. I’d tell her that she was enough while I’d hold her, and we both could cry together. I envision that often just being able to get the chance to just go back and time and be that love for her that she was always looking for.

Lately I have really thought about this, and I realized that it is possible to do that now – just not in the sense of time travel haha. I realized I can love her now, because she never left. She has been there this whole entire time with me. I just often forget that she’s still a part of me. I think as we become adults we look back and think our child version of ourselves is this completely different person, but that child is always alive inside of us. It’s who we are when we strip everything else away from ourselves. The inner child in us is the purest, most authentic part of who we are. It’s us without the influence of others’ opinions, or the mask that many times we feel forced to wear in this world we live in. We just often forget who that child was because of how we get conditioned.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about my inner child and who she is at her core – how she talked, how she viewed the world, what she cared about etc. I have also been thinking a lot about the ways throughout my life that I have neglected her. The times in my life that I made decisions that hurt her and didn’t give her what she needed. I was talking to a friend yesterday and I was telling her how when you are a child your parents are supposed to tell you to eat the vegetables even when you don’t like them, because if you just let your child eat twinkies all day, every day it could have extreme consequences for that short term happiness. As kids, we don’t really understand that concept yet we just know it feels good stuffing a twinkie in our mouth. We don’t quite understand the negative consequences of those actions yet.

Ironically, this same concept applies to us as adults; however, we don’t usually have someone telling us not to do something because it could be bad for us anymore. As we become adults, we have to be the parent to ourselves and have to have the self-control to stop us from doing things that can be damaging to ourselves. Just as hard as it is to not eat that twinkie as a kid and eat veggies instead it can be just as hard to make these kinds of decisions as adults. We want that high (like we do from eating a twinkie) out of certain situations, but we don’t always think about the long-term consequences of our actions. We are doing things in our everyday life that may not be good for us, but we are not looking at how that can impact us.

The way that I’ve been trying to work on making better decisions lately for my overall well-being is to think about that inner child who still lives inside of me. The more I think about my inner child, the more I just want to make decisions that are good for her, and that benefit her life. I want to protect her and give her that love she always has deserved. I realized I can show her safety and love by making decisions throughout each day that are healthy no matter how big or small. That even when she wants that twinkie, I don’t let her have it because I know it’s not good for her, and I redirect her to something healthy instead.

To those of you reading this I want to leave you with some questions to ask yourself — What are the metaphoric (or maybe non metaphoric) twinkies in my life? What do I know is not good for me, but I may allow into my life? What is a better decision I can make to help this inner child in me?