What were the success rules laid down for you when you were growing up?
My beliefs became my story.
Coming from a country like India, which has a rich history of slavery and colonization, mine was “Work Hard”. The harder I work, the bigger the prize would be there for me waiting in the end.
In retrospect, I recognize that my dad believed it so much because he got it from his dad. I saw him actually building a pretty fine life with all his hard work and sacrifices. I saw him sacrificing his sleep, health, hobbies, family time and so much more in exchange for this beautiful life I enjoyed growing up. And off I went to the grind with this belief system attracting evidence after evidence which justified my belief system again and again.
So, of course, my mind gladly accepted the story. Little did I know that one day, I would grow up to dedicate myself to learning all about how my beliefs create my reality and my mind would blow away!
Psychology at play
Indians are known to be extremely hard-working, so much so that the entire West hires laborers and employees from India and China. But that’s not the only reason, right? The reason they do that is because of extremely cheaper rates.
If hard work makes you super-rich, why does a laborer who sweats 10x more than you a day and works probably two shifts a day earn not even a quarter of what you earn?
This is no guilt trip. This is psychology in plain sight. This explains how our belief systems can go on to enslave us and our entire generations to come.
Some of you might be familiar with the new age mindset and manifestation, but oh, let me tell you, it is so much more than magical journals and woo-woo TikTok videos! Yes, there’s real psychology and neural science at play when we talk about “our beliefs creating our reality.”
Where it all starts
When you were a child, precisely between the age of 0-7, you were a sponge. You looked around and you absorbed every single thing you heard, saw, smelled, felt, tasted. Your senses were super-active and sensitive creating stories.
These stories created the foundation of your beliefs. Now, these belief systems were ingrained and automated fully. This means they’d simply play on loop and just repeat the pattern over and over again instead of wasting energy to create new ones again and again.
If the stories you absorbed were healthy, you created healthy belief systems. If they weren’t, they resulted in some toxic, unhealthy belief systems. Just one of the many examples – you slog off and sacrifice yourself to be successful!
The problem
Because of our wounded inner child, we can grow up to really doubt ourselves, our abilities, and our talents.
We end up questioning our every move because we don’t know how to trust ourselves. We grow up believing that we are not enough and that we have to continuously prove our worth – which is really a very toxic pattern normalized in our modern societies.
With our inner child being wounded, we are always afraid to express ourselves fully. Naturally, our creativity is blocked. More so, so many of us are supremely talented but so shy and uncomfortable around sharing our talents, simply because we are living with that scared inner child who was perhaps told once that he or she is not good enough.
This not only blocks our action space where we could share our energy freely but also blocks any opportunity which might want to come our way because we repel it. We’re subconsciously whispering, “not me!”
And so, instead of diving deep into our subconscious, we are stuck in our conscious minds pushing more, pushing harder because we think perhaps if we push more, it will work out.
But in full honesty, is it?
What’s happening
It’s like saying “nothing works out for me” when subconsciously you are sending out a vibration saying “nothing should work out for me because I am not worthy.” We all have different stories we have picked up growing up and there is a part of us still stuck in that timeline, reacting out of hurt and woundedness.
I want to let you know that it’s not really okay to feel overwhelmed or anxious or nervous or doubt yourself and burn away all your efforts in a second with self-criticism. It might be common, which is why it is normalized, but it is not really okay.
We are worthy of feeling joy and excitement when we create or express or share in whichever environment that may be. This is what normal should look like.
These feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, self-doubt are simply symptoms of that fear which is stuck in your system and subconscious mind from your childhood.
Sometimes the story goes: it’s too good to be true to follow what you love to do – and so no matter what you do, every time you reach toward following your passions, that story pops up its head and takes you down on a self-sabotaging road.
Another way your inner child’s wounds can hold you back and block you is when you want to do something out of your comfort zone – perhaps start a business, or ask for a raise, or even expect a promotion.
Either that wounded inner child unworthiness will not let you take any action (you know those spiral thoughts and stories- what’s even the point? It never works out! Wait one more year! Look at other candidates! Why me? Amongst so many others!) or even if you do take an action, your vibration, aka vibe, will speak of your unworthiness and repel those opportunities.
People see us how we see ourselves.
Mmm, I want you to get into this space of – why not me?
At any given point, we are enough.
We are worthy.
And it’s not enough to just say that to yourself – I wish it was. But until your mind truly believes it, it will keep playing out the patterns in a loop.
Healing our inner child
There is a continuous future looping with these fears. What is your mind protecting you from? Is there a real danger if you ask for a raise or messed up a presentation? Most likely not. But because there is an unhealed past story, your mind keeps playing a broken record of that wounded belief system again and again.
“If you break the rules, you will be punished.”
“If you do what you love, you will be scolded”
These are just a few of the examples but really powerful stories that will get your mind to prioritize safety above everything and hold you back.
Your mind wants to keep you safe, not happy.
As conscious and aware spiritual beings, we understand that our wound was not our fault but our healing is definitely our responsibility.
And so you start your healing journey through:
Awareness,
Empathy,
Compassion,
Forgiveness,
Acceptance,
Re-parenting and
Finally giving yourself the permission slips your inner child is still waiting on.
I love affirmations like: I give myself permission to play. I give myself permission to relax. I give myself permission to believe in myself. You can write your own affirmations, or pick these up and write them down on sticky notes or in your journal as a humble reminder and a way to reprogram your mind.
The magic
When you heal that particular story or belief by taking on that inner child healing journey, you unblock an aspect of you that is primarily responsible for fun, play, creation, receiving and so much more that we truly desire.
A woman or a man with a healed inner child is confident because she has embraced all aspects of herself. There is no shame hiding anywhere, anymore. The fragments of you have been reclaimed. Your power is restored. Inner child healing heals your self-esteem to the core.
Once a woman heals her inner child, she is unstoppable! Her energy is truly magnetic because she has tapped into an aspect of herself she held so much shame or guilt against. Her energy is vibrant and she’s ready to express herself unapologetically. She owns her place on this planet and will no more doubt if she is worthy to take space or not. She knows who she is, who she always was.
The fun part is how not just inner child healing propels you to take bold, vibrant actions unlike ever before, but also how you start magnetizing the right opportunities and the people. If you’ve ever heard slightly about manifestation being magic, know that this is the magic!
Because you have deeply gone down that space, healed it, you energetically speak your worth. The right people now start seeing you and your great work, simply because you have given yourself the permission to be seen. You aren’t chasing illusions like perfectionism before you can allow yourself to receive that abundance and success you have always been worthy of.
This is what propels quantum leaps. Launching that right program at the right time, raising your prices finally, your one Instagram post goes viral, your LinkedIn catches the eye of your dream employer, someone recommending your name – the possibilities are endless.