How to Really Heal: Hug Your Best and Worst Parts Together
It’s all in the stories we tell ourselves
People are generally unhappy but rarely know the real reason for it.
Sometimes it seems what happened to you in your 20s or 30s broke you, not some trauma from your tender age. But even those with “a happy childhood” have early beliefs that put them into trouble many years later.
Recently I read a book The Child in You: The Breakthrough Method for Bringing Out Your Authentic Self and it changed the way I see myself. Written by German clinical psychologist Stefanie Stahl, it is useful both for people in therapy and those who do deep soul work on their own. In it, Stahl explains that each one of us has two parts:
- The shadow child — the insecure part of yourself with all unhelpful opinions about yourself and the world (such as “I’m not good enough”)
- The sun child — the happy and easygoing you that you should strive for (like “I am good enough” or as Popeye would say: “I am what I am, and that’s all that I am”)
According to Stahl, the catch is to get to know both of these parts and make peace between them. In other words, to befriend your inner child and make your authentic self happy.
