I had this idea to spend my alone part of the trip doing only what my inner child wants to do (about what inner child means, pls refer to the Bradshaw's book). Since I've read the book I've been trying to get the idea about who and where my inner child is. I felt like I'm nowhere close but I wasn't going to give up. So having a few days on my own in perspective I invited her to tell me what she wants to do while we are on the trip.. but there was only silence. And now, after 3 days I felt inside a kind of "pheew" relief. Is it you, inner child? - I asked myself. Yes it was her. She said "it's because I realise that you're actually not scolding me". This is amazing. I got the same feeling I was recently having while observing healthy parenting but towards myself. That's a huge step. That's the first step, the first step of gaining the inner child's trust.
Yes it is true, I was very cautious not to criticize myself in my thoughts nor push myself to do anything I thought I should be doing. Consistently. When I did something stupid I'd immediately ask myself "could anyone else do it and would I call them stupid if they did it?". And I'd constantly tell myself "you're on vacation, you don't have to anything".
Andlast important one: when I knew that my behavior would not be liked by someone I tried to think like this: maybe this is exactly part of what defines me. Yes I'm the girl who paints nails in the hostel bedroom. Yes I'm that girl who doesn't do any small talk to her roommates when she's tired, and yes the others won't know it's because I'm tired. Yes I'm that girl who left the phone charging in the common area and risked it being stolen. I don't call myself stupid or mean for that, I say to myself "well this is exactly who I am".
So I think that all this caution about my thoughts resulted in that inner child's conclusion. Because telling myself I'm stupid or lazy was exactly scolding my inner child.
One more thing I did which I think contributed hugely to hearing my inner child at all: about a month ago I started writing memories of my childhood from 1st person perspective, focusing on my interpretations and thoughts. It's amazing how many details I was not realising until I started writing it down. And this also created a domino effect, the more I was writing the more I was rembering. Somehow as if the act of writing it was opening all the linked memory resources. It felt like the little me finally had someone to tell her thoughts to and get some feedback.