We hear a lot of talk, both in and out of recovery circles, about “finding our inner child”, “nurturing our inner child”, comforting or parenting our inner child. Many of us have forgotten who that child was, and that’s too bad for both the adult us and the child.
One of my morning readings suggested keeping a photo of us as a child in our wallets, to remind us of who it was and who we were. I don’t carry a regular wallet, just a Crabby Wallet®, so that’s not really an option for me. However, I do have several photos of me as a small child. Most of them echo the unhappy kid that I often was, but there is one that shows me as the happy child that I should have been all the time.
I think this one’s going to get scanned, printed, framed, and put in a prominent place in my workspace. The happy child deserves to be remembered, as well as the less happy version.
What...Me Sober? 
Thanks. I’m afraid I’m not quite so cute any more, but I do look rather more distinguished (I think).
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Perhaps you could speak with your therapist about working on anger issues in general. Some EMDR might be helpful, too, after you identify some of the reasons you’re so hard on yourself. Emotional abandonment is a possibility too.
Just a thought. Congrats on your sobriety, and
Keep on keepin’ on!
Bill
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I’ve been using my baby pictures to promote my archive blog posts on Facebook and boy do I look like an unhappy baby! I never smile, maybe it’s because my mother was very ill after I was born and I didn’t meet her until I was 3 months old so we had no bond. I do try to parent my inner child and given that I was 11 years clean a month ago and all my addictions and mental health problems are in recovery for the first time in my life I must be doing something right. My big problem in recovery is that I find it very difficult to express anger to other people so I take it out on myself instead and can speak to myself in a very abusive way. Which is not nurturing to my inner child at all – it’s just the same abusive way that my mother used to speak to me. But progress not perfection, I am not killing myself with drugs, bulimia and alcohol I am not self-harming am not paranoid and am doing very little OCD,
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What a good idea, very relevant for me now too… (p.s. Super cute pic.)
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