The Parts of Us That Grow Up With Us

Have you ever found yourself reacting to something in the present and wondered why it affected you so deeply?

Perhaps a situation seems quite small, yet your response feels much bigger. Maybe you feel hurt, rejected, anxious or overwhelmed, and you find yourself thinking, Why am I reacting like this?

Sometimes, our reactions have a history.

As we grow up, we learn all sorts of things about ourselves and about the world around us. We learn what feels safe, what might lead to rejection, when it is okay to speak up, when it might be better to stay quiet, and sometimes, what we believe we need to be in order to be accepted or loved.

We don't necessarily make these decisions consciously. Often, they are simply ways of making sense of the world as a child.

And what makes sense to us as a child may not necessarily serve us in the same way as an adult.

Perhaps we learnt that it was safer not to express how we felt. Perhaps we became very good at looking after everyone else. Maybe we learnt to avoid conflict, to keep the peace, to be independent, or not to ask for too much.

At the time, these responses may have helped us.

But sometimes, the things we learnt when we were young can quietly follow us into adulthood.

We may find ourselves struggling to say no, even when we want to. We might worry excessively about disappointing people. We may find criticism particularly difficult, or feel a strong need to get things right. We might find ourselves withdrawing when relationships become difficult, or becoming very hard on ourselves when things don't go as planned.

None of these things necessarily mean that something is "wrong" with us.

They may simply be ways of responding that have been learnt over time.

This is one of the reasons I have become interested in what is often described as inner child work. The term can sound a little unusual, but for me, it is really about becoming curious about the younger parts of ourselves and the experiences that helped shape who we are today.

It isn't about blaming our childhood, or suggesting that everything we experience as adults can be explained by what happened to us when we were young.

It is about understanding.

What my own experience taught me

My own experience of exploring my childhood and what is sometimes described as inner child work was significant for me.

It gave me an opportunity to look at some experiences from my past from a different perspective, and to recognise that some of the ways I had learnt to cope had followed me into adulthood.

There were things I had perhaps accepted as simply being "the way I am" that began to make more sense when I looked at them with a little more curiosity.

And that was important for me.

Because there is a difference between knowing that something happened and beginning to understand how it may have shaped you.

For me, exploring these things wasn't about becoming stuck in the past or searching for someone to blame. It was about developing a better understanding of myself.

It also helped me recognise that some of the things I had been critical of myself for were, in another context, understandable responses to experiences I had encountered earlier in life.

That changed something for me.

I became less interested in asking myself, "What's wrong with me?" and more interested in asking, "What happened that might help me understand why I respond this way?"

That shift from judgement to curiosity can be quite powerful.

What did you need then?

When we begin to think about our younger selves, we can sometimes ask questions that we may never have thought to ask before.

What did I need then?

What did I learn about myself?

What did I have to do to feel safe, accepted or loved?

What did I learn about expressing my feelings?

Did I learn that my needs mattered?

What did I believe I had to be in order to belong?

And perhaps one of the most important questions:

Are those beliefs still serving me now?

We can't change our childhood.

We can't go back and give our younger selves the experiences they may have needed.

But as adults, we can begin to understand those experiences differently. We can become more aware of the beliefs and patterns we carry, and we can start to question whether they still belong in our lives today.

Sometimes, that understanding can bring compassion.

Not necessarily compassion for what happened, if what happened was painful, but compassion for the child who experienced it.

The child who perhaps didn't have the words to explain what they were feeling.

The child who was simply trying to make sense of their world.

Bringing that understanding into counselling

This is something I hold in mind when working with clients.

Every person has their own story, and two people can experience something similar and be affected by it in completely different ways. I would never want to assume that I know what someone's experience means simply because I know something about their past.

Instead, I think counselling can offer a space where those connections can be explored if they feel meaningful to the person themselves.

Sometimes, understanding where a particular belief, fear or response may have come from can allow us to see ourselves differently.

It can help us recognise that perhaps we aren't simply "too sensitive", "too emotional", "too needy" or "not good enough".

Perhaps there is something underneath those feelings that deserves to be understood.

And sometimes, what we discover isn't what we expected.

We may realise that something we have spent years trying to change was once something that helped us cope.

That doesn't mean we have to keep it forever.

It simply means we can begin to understand it before deciding what we want to do differently.

For me, this is where the idea of the inner child becomes less about a particular technique and more about compassion, curiosity and understanding.

The past doesn't have to define us.

But perhaps it can help us understand ourselves.

We cannot go back and change what happened.

We cannot become the child we might have been if everything had been different.

But we can begin to offer ourselves something in the present that perhaps we didn't have before — understanding, acceptance, patience and compassion.

Sometimes, understanding ourselves isn't about finding something to fix.

Perhaps it is about finally being able to see ourselves with a little more kindness.

And perhaps the parts of us that grew up with us don't need to be left behind.

Perhaps they simply need to be understood.