11.How old am I, really?

In my previous article I invited the question:

How do I feel?
An honest reflection on soul, body, and everyday life.
But today, as I continue my inner work, I feel a different question emerging:

Who answers when I ask myself how I am?

At some point in life, we feel like adults by definition-at least anagraphically.
But what if, within that response, there is an older voice?
A forgotten voice, sweet or rebellious, that we have no longer heard?

For years, I believed that the inner child would appear from time to time, in a tender way.
An almost poetic kind of nostalgia.
‘We all remain a little bit children…’
But what happens when it’s not poetry, but pain?

When that child appears not with grace but with discomfort, with reactions that make us ashamed?

And if we shush it, as we did as children so as not to disturb, what happens?

"Many of us learned to bury feelings as children in order to survive. But what has been buried alive does not die: it waits to be heard."
- John Bradshaw

Sometimes it doesn't take trauma to disconnect us from our "inner child."
All it takes is a life in which, in order to feel safe, we choose to act like adults ahead of time.

I did.

I received compliments for my maturity. For knowing how to ‘stay in my place.’
And the authentic child? Left behind. Good. Polite. Repressed.

Today, as an adult, that part comes knocking back.
And I feel it, I get annoyed, sometimes ashamed.
"But can one, at almost 40 years old, still feel certain childish emotions?"

"The inner child is not something to be cared for once and then forgotten. She is a living presence that accompanies us every day, waiting for someone to say to her, 'Now you can speak. I'm really listening.'"
- Julia Wiederspohn, from Inner Child - Understanding and Healing

Yet every time I push her away, something breaks inside.
She doesn’t want to throw a tantrum.
She just wants to be welcomed.
As I should have done for her. As the adults back then could have done.

A call to listen to your inner child

Try to pause.
Be still. Not inside your house, but inside yourself.

Ask yourself:
"Who is reacting in me now?"
"This emotion, how old is it?"

"When we overreact to a present situation, it is often our wounded child who is trying to be heard."
- Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child

Write a letter.
Not as a therapist, nor as a mother.
Write it as yourself, as an adult who has the courage to ask for forgiveness and offer space.

And ask yourself:

"If you were my ally today, what words would I say to the child I was?"

Conclusion

How old am I, really?

We have a thousand ages living in us.
And the true act of love is to include them all.
Not with nostalgia, but with truth.
Not with judgment, but with respect.

Today I can say:
Yes, I am 39 years old.
And I am also 5, and 9, and 14.
And all these voices deserve to be heard.

"Only when the adult within us becomes a parent of himself can true transformation be born."
- Lucia Capacchione

Sources of inspiration:

John Bradshaw-Return to the Inner Child(Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child).

JuliaWiederspohn-InnerChild- Understanding and Healing(Inneres Kind heilen - Wie wir uns selbst lieben lernen)

Alice Miller-The Drama of the Gifted Child(The Drama of the Gifted Child).

Lucia Capacchione-Dialogueswith the Inner Child(Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self)