✍️ Editor’s Note:
Zalman is my therapist—and my secret weapon.
When I was unraveling, he didn’t just offer support. He helped me see the patterns running my life and gave me language sharp enough to cut through them.
His insights show up everywhere in Permission to Be Powerful—because they changed me. Now I want them to reach you.
This is your introduction to Zalman, LCSW. You’ll be hearing more from him.
—Anton
Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,
Everyone has an Inner Child, a child self.
It's the part of us that responds to the particular emotional environment in which we grew up.
It's the part that responds to challenges and stresses of not getting core basic emotional needs met or being emotionally abandoned, abused, or neglected in some form.
Where the Inner Child Comes From
The ways the Inner Child responded to all that were the only things she discovered, and by trial and error, they somewhat worked.
It helped her survive and get through the experiences on some level.
That child was receiving emotional treatment that was hurtful, as well as going without some critical emotional needs: validation, acceptance, reassurance, and feeling loved, worthy, and valid.
Those unmet needs don't just go away. Instead, they remain something the child seeks external, for years, sometimes a lifetime, in the hopes of getting them met.
Or until you learn how to meet those needs yourself and start to enjoy also getting them met by the people around you that are healthy, positive, and good for you.
For example, in response to harsh, critical, never-good-enough parenting, kids often absorb it and tell themselves that it's their fault they get treated that way.
It works. It helps them continue to trust they are safe and loved and okay, but it leaves a mark and causes damage to their sense of self.
It's also a false belief that is not true, and thus, it leaves a child living with a sense of self at odds with who they truly are.
That's intensely uncomfortable, anxiety-provoking, and depressing.
Moreover, this false sense of self is deeply embedded and absorbed, and escorts the child throughout their school years and relationships, and all the way into adult life.
That's the Inner Child: that kid part who responded to the childhood environment, and picked up a sense of self as a result, and still remains a very strong, vocal part of ourselves here and now in the present.
Everyone Has An Inner Child
But, just as you have that Inner Child part, you can be confident that everyone around you and everyone you meet also has that.
The people you meet are either healthy and mature or unhealthy and immature, to the extent that they've connected to that kid part and begun to meet those emotional unmet needs themselves through their efforts, like in therapy.
In addition, as those emotional needs finally get met, those old defenses transform into strengths, like sensitivity and compassion, insight and awareness, attention to detail, drive to be great, and more.
Kids in Adult Bodies
The more a person heals and grows, working in therapy and engaging in personal growth work, meeting their emotional needs consistently each day, the more they realize that the emotionally controlled Inner Child still dominates the vast majority of people around them.
In effect, they remain children in adult bodies, which explains the temper tantrums, immature behavior, and emotional extremes many display.
Use this awareness to help you feel good about your personal growth and as a guide for better interaction with others.
For example, you would never lecture or enter a deep discussion with a child having a temper tantrum.
Regarding your friends and other people, remember that you can never know what someone else thinks and feels or what their intentions are unless you ask and they tell you.
You may have insights, ideas, or thoughts that may sometimes be true or close. But it's never your job to play mind reader, and you can never get to the truth unless the person shares it since their thoughts and feelings are knowable only by them.
Ongoing Relationship With Your Inner Child
You can do what you're doing: begin to be on the lookout for everything around you, guiding you, supporting you, directing you, providing you with examples, and further supporting your growth efforts.
Building a relationship with your Inner Child enables you to experience his emotions less intensely, feel more secure, safe, and valid, and deal with others more effectively.
Daily interactions now become opportunities to practice getting in touch with your triggered feelings, hearing and accepting them, and using them to build your relationship with your Inner Child further.
When done regularly, your confidence, esteem, validation, and worth grow strong, and you're empowered to be assertive and speak up on your behalf in all of your relationships.
— Zalman, LCSW
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