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Good morning Path to Warren podcast, Matt Warren. And it is a beautiful Wednesday morning, July 22. And this is episode 20. In this episode, I would like to share with you something that I’m learning that I’m quite all in about right now. And I want to share with you the process of me taking this all in and kind of what I’m picking up on. I was in a meeting the other day or on a call, a Zoom call meeting. And this gentleman was sharing. And a part of his story was that he’s working on right now healing his inner child. And I just kind of froze when he started talking about this and what he’s going through to heal his inner child. Because I believe that a lot of the addictions that I’m recovering from and a lot of the active addictions that I was in, I believe a lot of that comes from childhood trauma. I believe that the love and the sex addiction that I was a part of at one point, sex with self, all of that is a trauma based addiction. I get told that over and over and over this inner child work is going back to that age four to eight, when some of the videos that I’m learning from and some of the therapists that I’m listening to are saying that this inner child work, you have to go back and heal that broken child that’s been through trauma, whether it was a death of a loved one that was really close to you, whether you were abandoned, whether it was sexual abuse or dysfunction in the household, all of those things they’re describing as traumas from childhood. And if I step back a minute, I was told early on in this recovery process when I started to get sober in AA, I learned that this is like an onion and you’re peeling away the layers of the onion to get to the causes and conditions, get down to the root of the problem, the root of, say, a childhood trauma or many childhood traumas. As I shared this morning with my accountability partner, we meet twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday mornings at 6:00 AM To 7:00 AM. I shared with them. I feel like I’m right at the core. I felt like I was right at the core when I started attending these meetings, to stop looking at porn and to stop having sex with self, to stop having crazy relationships and wondering why they’re messed up all of that. I felt like I was really close to the core of the onion when I got into that and started staying away from those bottom lines, staying away from those impulsive behaviors that mess with my serenity. This inner child work is closer than that. It’s like now that I realized that I have a love issues, that I have trust issues, that I put everything I’ve got into things in general, it comes down to the core and that is this inner child. They talked about identifying that you have an inner child issue. And then this lady began to talk about the chakras and how this first Chakra of the very bottom Chakra and it’s right in the reproductive area, which makes sense with the sex and love issues that I’ve worked on recently. But this whole first Chakra getting the energy and working, obviously, I’m still learning about all this and this will be many more podcasts to come. But focusing and repairing the balance. If you imagine like a globe, this Chakra is like a sphere and if it’s out of balance, it doesn’t spin right. I get that if it’s out of balance because the trauma as a child, trauma based, childhood based trauma, if it’s out of balance, then you will have trust issues, love issues, relationship issues, you’ll have insecurities. And I’m like, oh man, this is it. It makes me want to cry and get emotional about it. This is it. I found what I need to work on next. And it’s this inner child healing. They talked about doing mantras, coaxing that little child, this gentleman on this meeting shared how he invited the inner child in on a walk with them and talk with the inner child. Just like if it was my daughter bringing that eight year old in and sitting down with the child and talking to the child, loving on the child, caring for the child, listening to the child, healing the child, healing the child. It’s such an emotional thing. I’ve had issues growing up with siblings that I didn’t get along with very well. A brother that bullied me, a sister that had bipolar that we had to walk on eggshells forever. And then I’m so tired of walking on eggshells around all of those child based traumas are so close to the core, so close to this inner child work within me that I’m Super excited about learning. I really feel like I need to check in with my therapist that I’ve met with like two years ago when I was first getting sober from drugs and alcohol and possibly do some see if he does inner child healing work. I’m sure he does. But I want to I want to bring that child in and love on him and say, Matt, You are loved you’re heard, you don’t have to be insecure. You don’t have to be inferior to an older brother that’s pushing you around. You don’t have to believe the things that you don’t want to believe today. You don’t have to believe the things that you know are not right today. Growing up in a household where homophobia was laughed at, made fun of being a Democrat or the thought of being anything other than Christian or the thought of being anything other than Presbyterian or just all of these things that are coded, she describes, they’re coded in your DNA. Because when you were a young child between ages like four and eight, she said, maybe even nine or ten. You were in a position where you just had to do what your parents said. You went along with the family. These things are embedded in you, encoded in you whether you liked it or not. You absorbed it. You watched your family getting along or not getting along. You watched the arguing. You watched the bickering. You watched your father die of cancer. For example, my wife lost her father when she was nine due to colon cancer. And she remembers having to clean up the floor where the bag from his colon burst and her mom was out of town or her mom was away and it was just her and her dad at the home. And she remembers having to get on the floor and clean up the nasty bag from his colon that spilled the floor while he was suffering from cancer. And then he passed away at age nine and ten. Such trauma as a child to go back and heal that child, talk with that child and walk through that experience with the child. That’s the only way that I can get better. That’s the only way that I can be free of this trauma is to heal from the trauma. Put distance between what happened. You don’t just cover it up with drugs and alcohol and masturbation and porn and eating and spending and don’t cover it up with that stuff. Stop masking it. Why don’t we face it and talk to that child, repair the damage that was done at an early age with the therapist, repair it in my core because I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back to the bottom that I experienced. So I really want to encourage you. If you’re listening to this podcast, if you know somebody that is struggling with this thing called addiction that so many people struggle with, even with codependency. I shared in episode 19 yesterday, I shared about dealing with family members that have codependency issues. If I put myself in that person’s shoes and I look at all of the trauma, the abandonment, the trauma that that inner child went through, I can’t help but look with empathy. I can’t help but understand that the codependency issues that this person has today is a direct link to the pain that was caused when she was five and abandoned by her mother when her mother got taken away to a mental institution by two men in white coats. That’s a real story. I have to love on that child and say, look, you were broken. Nobody’s judging you for what you’re doing today. All I’m trying to do is make you aware of it. I think very much back when I was drinking and drugging and someone tried to call me out on my drinking and drugging, I didn’t want to listen. I did not want to hear much less do lunch with somebody that’s going to sit there and judge me and tell me I need to stop. If they would have had empathy and say, look man, you’ve been through some stuff. You lost your granddad. I think you went through some stuff with your brother and your sister that were dysfunctional. I think you went through some stuff growing up in a household with a dad that’s a workaholic all of this stuff. If they’d have said that I’d have been like, yeah and that’s one thing that alcoholics anonymous. When I came into the program these people got me. They didn’t judge me, they understood, they had empathy, they listened and I got help. I would encourage you to subscribe to this podcast or share it with a friend. Check out my website PathToWarren.com where I’m going to be sharing more about this inner child therapy and I’ll share what I find as I find it keep you posted. I love you, you are loved. Have a wonderful day and please remember to make a contribution. Thanks guys. Have a great day.