When we struggle with internal emotional conflict in the present, there is a likely chance that these conflicts are rooted in core childhood development issues anywhere from birth on. Such issues usually include attachment ruptures with a lack of adequate reparation or attachment
misattunement – despite not being severe profound "big T" (single incident or overt abuse or neglect.
Within the therapeutic process, use of parts work (IFS or Ego States or Imaginal Nurturing), can be incredibly healing. As we do such work, allowing for the child within us to feel such difficult or negative feelings and practicing compassion towards that likely injured child part as awareness increases, is essential.
Mr. Rogers innately understood and accepted this child's part and its negative felt-sense experience as necessary for actuating our full humanity.
As a model of such more holistic acceptance of full human experience and potential in children and us all, Mr. Rogers's insights elsewhere can help us find a way to understand HOW to approach and build this tolerance and compassion:
"People have said, "Don't Cry" to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is, "I'm too uncomfortable when you show your feelings. Don't cry." I'd rather have them say, "Go ahead and cry. I'm here to be with you."
This is how to talk to your inner child when it is not "still."
If you would like to learn more about how to talk to your child inside or manage internal emotional distress and dysregulation, please reach out to me. You can heal, and I may be the one who can say to you, "I'm here to be with you," and help you listen and tolerate inner turmoil.
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