The inner child is the difference between a child and an adult.
A child needs assistance in regulating their emotions.
He may feel exaggerated emotions, such as fear in an unjustified situation. So the role of the parent is to help him regulate his emotions.
The parent does not simply say “there is nothing to be afraid of from cats that might open the window from outside and enter your bed, this is nonsense, we have never seen a cat that did such a thing”.
Rather acknowledges his feelings, does not push away their existence, but tries gently to encourage the child and help him calm down.
What are we talking about? The child within me. An adult who feels negative emotions is the one who is supposed to regulate them for himself.
To say to himself: “Okay, enough, you have been sorry enough about the money you lost in that story, now come move forward”,
or: “Okay, enough, it is regrettable that I did such and such, it is forbidden, that is not where I usually am in my Avodat Hashem,
one needs to regret, yes, and to do teshuva, yes, but I have regretted enough so enough, now forward”. Like that.
But if he cries to those around him and waits for them to help him, what is the difference between him and a poor beggar who asks every person who comes into his surroundings to throw him a few tens of agorot?
The expectation of a husband from his wife and of a wife from her husband for emotional regulation – is nothing but a childish expectation.
A partner is supposed to be careful not to suppress emotions, is supposed to feel empathy for emotions, but is not supposed to manage emotions.
Acceptance: the ability to accept that not everything goes as I want – is also an ability of an adult.
A young person, called a child, finds it difficult to bear that not everything goes as he wants. So he cries
But an adult, why are you crying? That is, getting angry? This is one of the forms of crying of us, supposedly adults.
“The child within me”: one of the concepts used by psychology enthusiasts is “the child within me”.
The context is common: “the child within me, who did not receive love from his parents, now needs endless love”.
And also: “the child within me, who feels paralyzing fear in the face of childhood traumas, cannot function in a normative way in stressful situations. Therefore I lose it. It is not me, it is the child within me”.
So as a direct continuation of the matter of emotional regulation, also in this space emotional regulation is required.
If you are unable to do it by yourself, you can seek help from a professional.
But what is certain is that it is not within the power of the partner to heal all your childhood wounds.
To be precise, even if it were within his power, it is not correct that he should do so.
In practice, reality causes childhood wounds to gradually heal through a process that a person undergoes with himself, with the help of the life experience that becomes healthier together with the partner,
besides the well-known doctor, namely the passing time that takes us forward.
But even this doctor does not come to work if you do not let him in and get stuck in the mud of the past for our enjoyment.
Is this about contempt for “childhood wounds”? Heaven forbid. Childhood wounds are wounds, they hurt, they do not heal easily.
All this does not mean that the partner is responsible even to any degree to heal them or to bear their suffering. He is indeed supposed to be there, planted in his place alongside the partner who is going through his process.
And yet, and yet,
each one of us also needs to know when not to be differentiated.
Pay attention, the message is in the ability to be differentiated.
Pure differentiation is not our way. Pure differentiation is impure.
Like any value in its purity, entirely turned white it is impure.
There is no single value in the world that we hold in a complete form, in it and only in it.
We hold a set of values, generally we balance between them but in practice we must place them on a scale, because what will happen when value 1 clashes with value 2? We must know in advance which is deferred before which.
There is no value to differentiation, there is value to the ability to be differentiated.
Who can be differentiated? One who can also be not-differentiated.
Only a Jew can be impure, whoever is greater than his fellow his inclination is greater than him,
only one who can gain a lot can lose a lot, only one who can lose a lot can gain a lot.
One for whom it is easy to be differentiated, should slow down. One for whom it is difficult to be differentiated, is in the right direction.
One who can be differentiated, and in a moment identify that now it is appropriate to be not-differentiated, and indeed be emotionally involved with the spouse, is the one worthy of differentiation.
From now on say:
It is proper not to take responsibility for the partner’s emotions, it is proper not to ask the partner for responsibility for your emotions.
In order for differentiation to exist it is good that both will be completely in this frequency: one will not take responsibility and the other will not ask that responsibility be taken from him.
But what will be the ruling in a situation where one asks that responsibility be taken from him and the other does not want to take it?
Here one needs to be able both to take and not to take.
Because if the one who asks has not yet practiced differentiation and the one asked has practiced a bit more, a frustrating gap is created.
He asks and does not receive and still does not know that dad no longer prepares sandwiches in the morning…
He asks and does not receive and is still used to being helped to regulate emotions, that they calm him when he is agitated, he is not prepared for this jump in class.
So hey, one must be fair. Differentiation is truth, but it is also not truth.
More precisely, it is truth only if you acquire it alongside the ability to be completely not-differentiated,
It is wonderful that you have become organized, but this is a virtue mainly because you can also be not-organized,
because from time to time it is good to be not-organized for the sake of another value more important than order.
It is wonderful that you have excellent food on Shabbat, it is wonderful that there are 18 salads on the table,
but it is good only if you can also eat the challah with the chraime sauce or with the soup.
Do you understand me?
To succeed is wonderful, but only if you also know how not to succeed, without losing sanity.
To write is wonderful, but only if you know how to stop writing.
In prayer for good tidings!
Yours,
Invited to be impressed by this kit
