An Inner Voice

"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice. "
Peggy O'Mara

The way we talk, our assumptions and expectations, how we respond to their struggles, all of these form our children's inner voice. Our own inner voice, too, has been formed by parents and teachers and culture.

When we're struggling as adults, it's easy to feel that the problems are outside of us (and of course they are to some extent!). Our struggles are also the internalized beliefs of that inner voice, telling us we're not good enough, or that we shouldn't be sad, or that we have to fix something even when we don't know how to, or (fill in the blank).

There's nobody around us who can change that. Our kids, friends, even our parents can't change it, because it's an internalized story from the past.

But we can change it! When we notice the voice--learning to listen as though it's the voice of a little one, naming the emotion, handling it gently and lovingly, offering connection to our lost little inner child, we can rewrite the old stories that are stuck inside of us.

Transforming the inner voice is possible, courageous, freeing, and a service to this messy world.

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