Inner Parent

Studies of the "inner child" are ubiquitous. And I know that in particularly challenging times in my life, my becoming aware of previously unrecognized fears and needs has reawakened a part of me;  and that now this "rebirth" is contributing enormously to my peace and happiness.  I remember that shortly before my first marriage (and well before psychologists had popularized their research about it), I had written a farewell letter to the childlike part of myself, saying that now I would be entering a new dimension of my life that had no time or place for her.  Some years later, in the counseling that was helping me cope with the loss of my marriage, I suddenly recalled having written something;  I found it in a box of papers from my "premarriage" life, read it and was taken aback by the unconscious knowing, for at the end of my farewell to my former self, I admitted my fear that I was giving up a part of me that was important and that I feared I might never get back.

When I took this letter to my next session and read it to Tina, my therapist, she visibly shuddered, and I remember her soft eyes of compassion.  We worked hard to restore the part of me that I so totally needed to get back.

In writing this, I am setting out to record, not accounts of my "inner child," a subject so overwritten as to cause immediate eye-rolling, but to talk instead about my "inner parent," the pesky do-gooder, hyper-vigilant, task-organizer, safety-ensurer, priority-organizer.  I'm tired just thinking about her.  And the most irritating time that she starts scurrying around inside of my head is when I am meditating.  There I sit, fully intentioned to release myself into a peace, a calm, envisioning a circle of light-infused love, feeling my breath, my heart, opening for a spirit-blessing, when "bam!" the door to my room crashes into the wall, as this frenzied overlord barges in and starts rummaging in the drawers for pressing to do, looking at dusty tabletops for grocery lists, in the hamper for dirty laundry, and in my desk for appointment calendars.  No matter that I try to ignore the rude intrusion, that I take a deep breath and slowly release, and return once more to the edge of peace, she chides, demands, finger-wags in my face, and yells: "This is important!  You must do this, this, this!"

So far I've patiently out-waited her, but, my goodness, she can be such a bother.  I can hear her even now --that I need to go to the grocery store, Christmas is coming and I'm not ready, and oh yes, when in the world am I going to plan the Christmas dinner?  If I have been able to awaken my inner child, how might I find the lullaby to settle into a sweet nap that pesky and intrusive parent?