Taming Your Outer Child. Susan Anderson
to learn how to get the recognition I deserve.
Now it’s your turn. Zero in on a specific goal and write it down.
WHAT’S STOPPING YOU?
Next, list the little things you do that interfere with you achieving your goal. These counterproductive tendencies are, of course, prime examples of Outer Child’s underhandedness. Let me use another example from one of my workshop attendees, Bob:
My goal is to make more money. Being broke all the time makes me feel like a loser. If I had a better job, I’d like myself more. I don’t make enough money because I don’t feel good about myself. And I don’t feel good about myself because I don’t make enough money. But when I thought honestly about what I could be doing to reach my goal and what I had done, I could start to identify behaviors. Here’s what I wrote:
My goal is to make more money. My Outer Child interferes by:
1. Procrastinating
2. Coming home and vegging out instead of networking
3. Forgetting to buy the paper to check out the help-wanted pages
4. Falling asleep in front of the TV instead of researching jobs online
5. Being self-indulgent instead of taking initiative
6. Avoiding making phone calls to promote myself
7. Succumbing to distractions.
Okay, in what ways does your Outer Child interfere with your identified goal? Write them down! Like this:
My goal is ________________ and my Outer Child interferes by: ________________, ________________, ________________, ________________, etc.
WE CAN DO BETTER
Your next task is to list behaviors you would like to perform, productive behaviors that would help you reach this goal. Here’s what Bob wrote, as unrealistic as they seemed to him at the time:
These things would help me reach my goals:
1. Every day, find out more about how other people make money—what jobs, businesses, or other ventures are more financially rewarding than what I’ve done.
2. Take positive risks.
3. Change my daily regimen; take a small step every day toward finding a better job or venture.
4. Avoid distractions.
5. Stay determined until I reach it.
6. Pursue training or a degree if that’s what I need to do.
Now it’s your turn: Write down a list of things you could do that would take you a step closer to your goal. Writing them puts these would-be behaviors on your radar screen. It helps you lay the groundwork for a new way of thinking. Just fill in the blanks:
My goal is ________________ and here’s what I would like to do to reach it: ________________, ________________, ________________, etc.
FROM NOW ON
Great! Now it’s time to put your Outer Child on notice. Explain what your goal is and let Outer know about the changes you plan to make to achieve it. Make sure that when you address your Outer Child, you do so affirmatively. For instance, rather than say what you would like to change, speak as if you’re actually going to do it (even if you’ve never considered making these changes). Like the exercise we did in the previous chapter (adopting your Inner Child), visualization is involved in this exercise. It helps you picture yourself making changes, which in turn stimulates brain cells that neuroscientists have recently dubbed mirror neurons. These newly discovered cells are the focus of numerous ongoing research studies that demonstrate a remarkable brain function: When you visualize taking an action, you activate the same areas of the brain that would light up if you were actually taking the action. Thanks to your mirror neurons, visualizing something allows your brain to take a trial run, strengthening the neural connections that would be involved in the action you plan to take, increasing your skill set. This neurological practice increases your capacity for and likelihood of reaching the goal you are aiming for.
Writing this note has another benefit. It performs the work of separation therapy I’ve been telling you about: It identifies your automatic, habitprone Outer Child as apart from your Inner Child or your Adult Self. Once separated, these voices can interact in constructive new ways, with Adult Self in the lead, gaining strength along the way.
Bob shared his note with the group:
Dear Outer,
My goal is to make more money. I want you to cooperate. I want you to stop doing these things: [here he listed his Outer Child’s self-defeating behaviors]. Now I, the Adult, will be taking responsibility for the situation.
I know you were only trying to help . . . and that I’ve been letting you run around loose out there on your own. But now I’M going to be calling the shots. Here is how I’m going to do things differently: [here Bob listed steps he would like to take].
Sincerely,
Bob’s Adult Self
Now write a note like this to your own Outer Child.
Don’t expect this simple exercise to make you feel better on the first try. In fact, it probably will feel more awkward or hokey than anything else. Remember, this is physical therapy for the brain. And just like physical therapy for the body, it involves a series of small steps. Raising your right arm five times or writing this exercise may seem pointless, but that’s only because it is too early to expect results. When you put your Outer Child on notice, you are beginning a new internal dialogue with yourself whose benefits reach fruition through practice.
The note focuses your mental energy on how you would like (plan) to resolve the issue. You’re picturing yourself as free from self-sabotage and taking goal-directed actions. Picturing yourself in this way actually increases the possibility that you will ultimately act out those behaviors. Writing focuses your mental energy on the solution rather than letting it stagnate on the problem. It gets you out of a rut and creates a new mental space where productive behaviors begin to germinate.
If you slip back the next day into one of your self-defeating behaviors, don’t beat yourself up. Remember, Outer has a penchant for immediate gratification and has only been trying to help in its own misguided way. Outer has remained unsupervised for so long that its habits are entrenched. You can always write Outer another quick note to firmly call him on the behavior, saying “Thanks but no thanks” and restate your adult action plan.
CREATING A RECIPROCAL DIALOGUE
Writing to your Outer Child is the first stage of separation therapy. To stretch your mental muscles further, we go to the next level and create a dialogue between your Adult Self and your Inner Child. This second-level dialogue builds on the legacy of Bradshaw, Robertiello, and others, getting you to exchange communications with your Inner Child. The reciprocal dialogue gets underneath the problem to deal with the cause. Working with the primal source taps into your motivational core, approaching your Outer Child at an oblique angle. You discover that what had been the source of your interference and pain now becomes a wellspring of motivation and forward-moving energy.
THE CAST
Before you open a dialogue, first take a minute to clarify who’s in your psyche, and cleanse the concept from any debris that may have inadvertently collected on it.
Remember, Inner Child represents your feelings, not the behaviors those feelings may trigger. To get in touch with your feelings, consider how much you’d like to be rid of those self-sabotaging behaviors and how frustrated and trapped you feel right now. These feelings—desirous, frustrated, impatient—all belong to your Inner Child.
Like any small child, Inner Child is full of