Inner and outer child states

For anybody who doesn't understand the inner parent, child and adult states, the inner child is typically scared (like children are), and then what happens is a slightly older outer child comes to protect that. It could be that you're the sort of person who says, “Oh, I'm not doing it, it’s their loss, I'm not going to do it”. That's not an adult state, because an adult state has no emotion in that way. That is typically a rebellious ‘reframing’ outer child state!

I don't know about you, but my over protective outer child state is about 14 and she’s a gutsy, don't mess with her type - she will just rip you down a peg or two. Feisty, very bombastic, very outspoken because she's protecting the 12-year-old who was really badly bullied through school, and that 12-year-old is just terrified of everybody and everything. And still at 52 that happens and I have to talk to both versions of myself so make sure they're both OK!

I know my 12-year-old is scared. You know, when we're talking about getting to the next level of business, the inner child goes, “What? No. No, no, no, no, no. I've just got used to this level. This level was hard enough. My adult self had to desert me to go and do all the stuff!” You didn't have the fun and didn't take care of yourself (or her). So that poor little inner child is going, “No, you've deserted me enough. Don't go to another level. I'll see less of you. I'll get less of you. You won't give me any attention”, just like a real child would.?

It's the next level of fear inside you. So, that outer child is the one that's saying, “I'm going to do it anyway”.?

There's a lady who helps people with video, but her whole business is being run by her outer child. I watch her and she's like, “I'm this, and I'm that”, and I'm like, “No, you're not, but your inner child is really hating on this, and you're making her do that”.?

It's like if you've got an older brother or sister and the younger sister was really shy, and then the older brother was really, really bombastic, and you're sort of stuck between them as the adult going, “Blimey, what's going on here? I've got one that's terrified and one that's making me do things, and I'm sitting there going, what?” It's a bit of a mind mess, fair to say!

There are lot of NLP processes that we do to align these parts of self, and we've got one that is all about getting that inner balance, so working out all these parts of yourself. If we've got fear and we've got excitement going on, sometimes it's very confusing and we've got an internal battle… that inner conflict. So, we've got a process that very quickly sorts that out, because typically, all parts of you want the same thing - they're just scared of it, or they're excited by it, and there's a whole load of stuff going on. A little shy usually means, “I'm really scared”, and it will show up like that.?

One of the best public speaking talks I ever saw was a lady called Cat. It was years ago, and it was at a woman's only conference. There were about 400 women in the audience and you could tell she was nervous. She got onto the stage and it went silent, and I was thinking, Oh, blimey, and at the time, I was imagining me being in that position. It was long time ago and I don't think I'd ever spoken on a big stage like that, and I was thinking, Blimey, she must be terrified, but she just leant forward and went, “Wow, you all look a bit scary”, and we all laughed and it broke the energy. It was almost like she gave herself permission for her inner child, to say, “Actually, I'm scared”. Every woman in the audience connected with that and it completely changed everything. She then got into her adult state and delivered her talk fabulously. I thought that? acceptance was really powerful because we don't allow this showing up for ourselves. We don't allow that version of ourselves. And even if we do, then we get called a hot mess, or we've got all this trauma that we shouldn't show. Everyone's got it, and if they haven't, they're in denial and they're hiding it and they've got it trapped in a box waiting to get out.?

Anybody that's had a life has had experiences that weren't positive. It's impossible to go through life where everything's positive, so that's why we're scared. We're scared of judgement. Especially the judgement we received at school. We were judged for having the wrong shoes on, the wrong hair, being too fat, too slim, too studious, too fun, too rebellious, too tall, too short. We want to fit in because then no one picks on us… which is no good in business as we need to be picked on, because we need to be picked??

It's a really tricky one. It’s a very hard balance in business. We need to stand out instead of blending in.

There’s a lady in my programme who is really good at expressing her emotions. She can really cry. She can start crying and finish crying. It's like she's really good at crying. That sounds weird, doesn't it? But she really allows it and embraces it. She’s showing up as herself, not for herself.?

If we're not showing up ‘as ourselves’, it doesn't matter how anyone else feels about us, we just don't believe it. Because if we show up as someone else and not ourselves and someone likes us, we still don't think they like us because they don't know us. That little head will say, “But if you really knew the real me, you wouldn't like me”, in which case you can't win. That's where loneliness comes from.That's where solitude comes from. Even if we're surrounded by people, if we're not being ourselves and showing up as ourselves, no one can ever like us.