Letting Go of the Need for Recognition by Healing Your Inner Child.
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Life is a healing journey, and we all need to heal our inner child.
We carry with us wounds from our past. Things that happened to us when we were children, in our homes, at school, or in other places in our community. Many of these things were not so dramatic when you look at them now with the eyes of an adult, but they could have been dramatic when experienced by a child.
“Acknowledge your inner child. Even though we have found the light in ourselves today, we sometimes forget to heal old wounds of our past. Your inner child still needs to be loved in order to heal the complete self.” ~ Karen A. Baquiran
Most of our fears and limiting beliefs originate from our parental and societal programming, and come from our early years. Most of these fears and limiting beliefs are at the source of our emotional upsets and reactions to others’ behaviors, whom we often blame for how their behaviors make us feel, not understanding that we are 100% responsible for all our emotional reactions.
As I was driving to Quebec City from Montreal recently for a family vacation, I had a long intense conversation with my 13-year-old daughter as she kept insisting on changing her school so she could attend one where all her old friends are, and how we, her parents, are depriving her from being happy because we are not giving her what she wants.
As I was listening with love to her arguments full of emotions, I was acknowledging these while also trying to teach her that she is 100% responsible for how she feels. It was a long discussion which is not over yet, but it made me realize that many people in life act like her, blaming others for their emotions. Stating that they will only be happy when they get what they want.
By doing this, they are giving all their power to other people, and forgetting that happiness can only be found inside them.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
The transformation journey to raise our consciousness requires that we take full responsibility for all our emotions and reactions, and that we shine a light on our fears and limiting beliefs to make them conscious, to accept them, and do the inner work required to let them go and heal ourselves.
Our inner child wants our attention, our love, our caring. We can only heal it by accepting that it is there and by loving it. The transformation journey is a personal journey where we have to go inside with courage to face all our fears and limiting beliefs, so that we can let them go and heal, rise to our full potential as a human being, and step into our true greatness.
On my transformation journey, I have had to address many of my own, and I am still working at it. One limiting belief I had to address was that I was not loved.
All my career, I have worked really hard to be recognized. This has led me to work insanely hard to achieve extraordinary results so I could be recognized, but also to being the one who speaks the most in meetings. This extreme work ethic has allowed me to rise up the ranks all the way to being a senior executive, but my inner child was still wounded.
I used to justify my behavior by thinking that I had so much knowledge and experience that I could save the team time by sharing it. But this did not really work as others also had knowledge and me speaking so much looked like I was showing off. This created a lot of conflict with my peers and some of my bosses.
I tried so hard to be recognized, but I almost never got the recognition I thought I deserved, because most senior executives cannot give to others what they do not get themselves, and also most people are not inclined to give to people who are needy.
Even when I did get recognized, I often felt it was not enough. I wanted to be recognized, so I worked hard for it. I was not recognized to my satisfaction, so I worked even harder. I was sill not recognized to my satisfaction, and I got frustrated and sad.
After a lot of inner reflection and impactful coaching, I finally realized that all this need to be recognized came from a limiting belief that my dad did not love me. My dad was a truck driver and was away from our home most of the time, so when I was really young, I developed the belief that he did not love me.
I have since realized this was not true, as he loved me the best way he knew how, by working really hard to provide for his family, which is exactly what I am doing today. My dad is 79 years old, and recently I shared with him my reflection on this, how I wrongly believed he did not love me and how I now realized he did love me, but in a different way. I thanked him for his love and told him I loved him.
After the talk, we hugged and smiled.
Through this, I realized that throughout all my career, I had tried to get from my bosses the love I thought I did not get from my dad. Now, I have developed a lot of self-love towards myself and I have cured most of my need to be recognized, but I have to admit I have more to do on this front.
This is how healing happens. By shining a light on our fears and limiting beliefs. By accepting them instead of rejecting them. By digging deeper to understand their root cause.
I am not done healing as life is a healing journey, and I am now working on addressing my need to talk so much. I am blessed to be getting precious and caring coaching from my business partner, who constantly reminds me to be more mindful of giving some space to other people to talk, and to be conscious that although I am always interesting, I have a tendency to hog a lot of the spotlight.
Can you recognize some of your fears and limiting beliefs and their negative impacts on your life, and can you identify their root cause? Are you willing to do the inner work to let them go and rise to your full potential?
“We nurture our creativity when we release our inner child. Let it run and roam free. It will take you on a brighter journey.” ~ Serina Hartwell
The world needs all of our greatness, so it is really important that we commit to doing the inner work to heal ourselves. We must also acknowledge the presence of our inner child and love it. By doing so, we can become the creator of our life and significantly improve the quality of our relationships.
Conscious leaders are courageous, and they do all that it takes to heal so that they can be their best selves for the world.
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Stephane Leblanc, co-founder and CEO of the International Center for Conscious Leadership, is a catalyst for the transformation of leaders and organizations and the elevation of consciousness in business all over the world. He has been on a transformational journey for more than a decade, and has embraced his soul mission. He lives in Montreal, and enjoys long walks with his dog at the crack of dawn.
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