Nurturing Your Inner Child: Playful Boundary-Setting for Personal Growth

Set yourself some boundaries and stick to them!

As adults, we often relish the freedom to make our own choices without parental guidance. However, deep down, there is a part of us that craves structure and longs for the safety it provides.

Healing our inner child involves assuming the role of a responsible and loving parent, setting and enforcing boundaries in a kind, firm, and nurturing manner.

When we become our own loving adult guardian, we fill in the gaps that we may have been missing in our development. By doing this, we can unlock our energy and imagination, enabling us to fully experience life and make positive changes in the worlds we inhabit.

Creating a Sense of Safety

“Good morning, time to wake up!”

“Okay, time to clean up so we can go!”

“It’s bedtime! Remember to brush your teeth!”

As a child, our adult guardians played a crucial role in establishing structure, rules, and restrictions. These boundaries create consistency, reliability, and a sense of connection with life's rhythms, ultimately fostering a feeling of safety.

As adults, we have the opportunity to take on this role ourselves, offering comfort and security to our inner child.

By setting boundaries, we provide a framework where our inner child can thrive. Having this realm of safety helps us navigate life's complexities with a greater sense of stability.

The Power of Boundaries

Being an adult comes with many perks! We get to dictate our time, energy, and attention! No one can tell us what to do. We get to create our own rules!

There’s a difference between creating our own rules, and having none at all.

As adults, we are liberated from the constraints of external authority. This doesn’t mean that we should live without any rules at all! It can be tempting to indulge in unrestricted freedom.

We may relish the ability to sleep whenever we want, eat or say anything without inhibition, and live life on our own terms. However, amidst this freedom, an underlying sense of dissatisfaction can arise. Our inner child, yearning for structure and guidance, quietly reminds us of its needs.

You may feel a sense of dissatisfaction if you indulge in hours of Instagram scrolling. You may begin to hear the Inner Critic if you avoid tasks and responsibilities. You may sense the Inner Guide reminding you of the promises you made to yourself.

When this happens, take a slow deep breath, and listen in.

By embracing the natural boundaries we create for ourselves, we continue building a foundation for our personal growth.

Nurturing the Inner Child

We often see what happens when wounded children grow up into adults. Some harden their exteriors and project their pain onto others. Healing the inner child is an essential and empowering journey for adults. It involves assuming the role of a responsible and loving parent to ourselves, and making more loving choices that support ourselves and others.

Just as a caring parent sets boundaries for their child's well-being, we can do the same for our inner child. However, it's crucial to approach this process with kindness, firmness, and love, rather than resorting to punishment or harsh discipline.

The goal is to create an environment where our inner child feels safe, nurtured, and supported.

Speak to yourself in more loving ways. Even when it feels unfamiliar or silly at first. With practice, the inner voice begins to line up to this more positive frame of mind.

The loving words become more real.

The worlds you create become infused with this love.

Finding Freedom in Limitations

While the idea of boundaries might initially sound restricting, it's important to recognize the immense feeling of joy and safety they can bring.

Playfulness is a key ingredient in establishing and maintaining boundaries with our inner child. Rather than seeing boundaries as rigid constraints, we can view them as the framework for a playful game of self-discovery.

Sometimes, we don't realize that a boundary has been crossed until after it’s already crossed. Perhaps you work so hard that you forget to eat lunch, which then affects the rest of your day and your interactions with others. Upon reviewing you day, you realize that you worked too hard, and prioritized an external result over your own well-being. You realize you’ve crossed your own boundaries.

Take this as an opportunity to affirm yourself. Give yourself a new boundary by setting an alert for the next day. Assess the situation, make a choice to change, and set up the parameters. This provides both your inner child and external adult a sense of security.

Embracing Transformation

Setting boundaries with our inner child is an act of self-care and growth.

It allows us to provide the structure, stability, and love that our inner child craves. By embracing this responsibility in a sincere and playful manner, we create an environment that nurtures our authentic selves, unlocking our energy and imagination.

Through this transformative journey, we not only experience life more fully but also have the power to make positive changes in our own lives and in the world around us.