And Still We Rise
The "And Still We Rise" Podcast (formally known as The Ego Project), is hosted by mental health therapist and group practice owner, Cristine Seidell. It is a space where look deeper into our limiting beliefs or behavioral patterns, seek to understand our authentic self and find new and exciting ways to celebrate the radiance we are meant to bring into the word. Through unscripted and unedited conversations with thought-leaders, therapists, spiritualists, and creatives, And Still We Rise explores how childhood wounding and intentional healing impacts our lives.
And Still We Rise
4 Ways to Attune to Your Inner Child and get Unstuck
Feeling stuck is actually a message from your nervous system that doesn't feel safe to change or move forward. This episode explores how our inner child influences our adult patterns and how honoring those early needs can lead to authentic transformation.
• Stuckness is not laziness or self-sabotage but a survival pattern from childhood
• The inner child is a living emotional memory that carries our earliest experiences of love and belonging
• Early emotional environments created neuropathways that operate automatically in adulthood
• People-pleasing, shutting down, and avoiding intimacy are adult manifestations of childhood protection
• Unfreezing begins with listening to what your stuck part needs, not forcing change
• Creating safe micro-moments of intentional care helps build safety in your nervous system
• Play and imagination help reconnect with your inner child's language
• Working with a guide or therapist provides external attunement that your inner child may need
• Transformation happens when you feel safe enough to be authentic, not when you force yourself to change
If you'd like to take the step into healing your inner child, reach out to our practice through the link at the bottom of this page to get matched with a therapist, coach, or guide who can support your journey.
Thank you for tuning into And Still WE Rise! If you would like to learn more about me or the work our practice is doing, feel free to follow us on Instagram at:
@atltherapygirl and @risetherapycenter
Or check us out at www.risetherapycenter.com
Disclaimer: And Still We Rise is meant to provide perspective and meaningful conversations around mental health topics. It is not meant to provide specific therapeutic advise to individuals. If anything in these podcasts resonates, ASWR recommends consulting with your individual therapist or seeking a referral from your primary care physician.
Hello and welcome to and Still we Rise. I'm your host, christine Seidel, and today we're going to talk about stuckness. If you've ever found yourself feeling stuck emotionally, spiritually or even physically, you're not alone, and we're going to discuss that today. Stuckness may present itself as maybe you're in a relationship that doesn't feel right, but you can't seem to leave or get out of a rut that doesn't feel right, but you can't seem to leave or get out of a rut. Maybe your body has been experiencing anxiety, panic, pain or physical or somatic blocks, but the doctors try and tell you nothing is wrong. Or maybe you're constantly second-guessing yourself, repeating patterns that drain you, even though part of you knows that something has to change. Well, today I want to explore what's really happening underneath that stuck feeling, or that physical stuckness, and what this may have to do with your inner child. So let's get started. So let's get started.
Speaker 1:When we talk about feeling stuck, we're often talking about a nervous system that doesn't feel safe enough to move or change. This is not laziness and it's not self-sabotage, and it's definitely not that you're broken. Often it is a younger part of you, the part who had to survive early emotional environments that never really got the chance to feel safe enough to try something new or to speak with authenticity. Those early experiences created neuropathways that you believed were true in order to keep you safe. And now they are continuing to operate subconsciously because that neuropathway is automatic and familiar for the nervous system. The ego doesn't know what's good or bad for it. It only knows what's familiar. So maybe you grew up in a home where expressing big emotions just wasn't allowed or expressing different opinions was shut down. Or maybe you were the caregiver, the good child, the one who held everything together, the peacemaker. And now, as an adult, you're navigating your relationships and your choices from that same emotional blueprint. This could be people pleasing, it could be shutting down if there's conflict or situational overwhelm. It may be avoiding intimacy or over-functioning for others or sometimes unconsciously creating chaos. But there's a long list of other maladaptive patterns we continue in adulthood.
Speaker 1:And here's what's really important. That stuckness is a message. It's not a flaw. It is a part of your nervous system that is calling you to pause and be still long enough to begin listening. It's your inner child saying I'm overwhelmed, I'm afraid to trust again. I don't know how to choose something different. I feel like I'm always going to be in trouble because I never saw what it looked like to be in safe love as a child.
Speaker 1:And the inner child is not just a metaphor, it's a living, breathing emotional memory inside of you. It is a part of your ego, your self-concept and a very integral part of your parasympathetic nervous system that is developing between the time in utero through age seven or eight. Through age seven or eight, this part carries your earliest experiences of love and belonging and your beliefs about your worthiness and your value and your understanding of how to survive emotional pain through connections. And when your little self didn't feel emotionally attuned to, or when their needs were ignored, minimized or maybe even punished, they learned that it's not safe to feel so they will just stay small, quiet and frozen, and this is what had to be normalized so they can navigate the world in a way that was safest for them. And that is where stuckness comes from. It's not from failure, it's not from being incapable, but it's a deep, brilliant survival pattern that once protected you but now holds you back. But the good news is that it's not needed any longer and there is a way to begin to unfreeze. And so we ask how do we begin to unstuck ourselves First. We begin by listening, not fixing and not doing, which I know is the most frustrating part of this, and as a clinical therapist, my clients are always like that sounds great, but like so what do I do? And I understand. I was there too and still sometimes try and rebuff this part when I hit my own stuckness. But here are four ways to begin stilling yourself, to start unfreezing and opening up to the guidance that only the inner child can bring us to. And this is the part that brings about change.
Speaker 1:And I encourage you to journal or record or note what comes up for you as you make a point of creating and spending time within. The first one is to pause and create stillness. Try to find a place in your body where you feel like the little one may be speaking from. Maybe it's your heart, maybe it's your belly, your throat. There's no right or wrong. It's the place that comes to your mind first and in stillness, in a way of quieting your mind and your body, place your hand over your heart and ask what does this stuck part need me to know right now? It doesn't need to be pushed or shamed, it doesn't have to do it right or wrong. Just give it time to be seen and heard and permission Write whatever comes up first.
Speaker 1:Number two create safe micro moments of intentional care. Let safety build in small ways, doing breath work or movement in nature, speaking kindly to yourself when you're conscious of your inner bully. Think intentional co-regulation before transformation. Change cannot occur when we are chaotic within ourselves. Number three use play to reconnect. Your inner child speaks the language of play. Even something as small as coloring or dancing or making eight-year-old jokes or noises still one of my go-to or talking in a British accent or using your imagination in any way communicates the language of childhood in play that the world is not as scary as you once thought.
Speaker 1:And number four work with a guide, if you can, whether that's therapy, a trusted mentor or group work. Often our inner child needs to be witnessed by someone else first before we can witness it within ourselves. I use the analogy of a toddler overwhelmed and overstimulated will become dysregulated and inconsolable. It is in these moments a child needs an adult to attune and attend to them, and the adult is able to determine what the little one needs. Maybe it's a hug, maybe it's a snack, maybe it's some chicken nuggies and a nap. This is the role of a healing guide. They hear the need when others can't, and sometimes not even you can yourself.
Speaker 1:In closing, you don't need to rush, you don't need to be healed tomorrow. You are not behind. You are called to do this work at a time just as this and it is a loving call. When you begin to honor what your inner child never got or wanted or needed, you slowly begin to move forward, not because you forced yourself, but because you finally felt safe enough to be you. And that's the real transformation when you're moving from your inner child survival to love-based, authentic connection within yourself. You can then find it with others.
Speaker 1:Now I understand this concept can be very, very wide and it's a very holistic look at it. But if you'd like to take the step into healing your inner child, I invite you to reach out to our practice, to the link at the bottom of this page, so we can match you with a therapist or a coach or a guide and point you in the right direction. And as an inner child therapist, I offer gentle, grounded ways to work together so that you know you're not alone on this path. Thank you, and we'll see you guys next time.
