Okay ya’ll, we’re doing something a little bit different this time. Chances are you’ve heard of inner child work, and if you’re listening to this podcast you’ve probably also done some inner child work yourself or are curious about trying it. When we hear the words “inner child work” we often imagine cathartic moments, full of difficult and complex feelings, but that’s not all it is. Connecting with your inner child is also about establishing internal trust and allowing that younger version of yourself to have freedom of expression and to play. Many of us who were traumatized, abused, or neglected as children never really had the opportunity to freely enjoy our childhood. And heck, even if you didn’t experience childhood trauma, having to be an adult all the time is so boring and frustrating! So today, we hope you’ll join us for a bit of a game. Let’s all allow our inner child to express themselves through a series of timed challenges that are as fun as they are fascinating. There will be lots of unmitigated joy, some internal battles of will, and some unexpected heartfelt moments; which is honestly exactly what a lot of us need right now.

AUTUMN

0:00

Welcome to the Different Functional Podcast where we explore the triumphs and challenges of trauma recovery and being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. Today we're going to be playing a game with all of our inner children. And yes, that means yours too.

I am Autumn, the older sister, and one of my favorite activities as a child was spinning. I loved spinning, whether it was on a merry go round or rolling down a hill, or just standing in one place and spinning around. I loved that. And I will say I do feel my inner child still wanting that so badly. And I have tried to give that to my inner child as an adult. And I mostly just get really nauseous and dizzy because something about being an adult has completely eliminated my threshold for spinning.

IVY

0:50

I also used to really like spinning when I was a kid. It is definitely not possible as an adult. I, like Autumn, have attempted to do some spinning, but no. Like I also get nauseated and a little bit dizzy and it takes a while for that to wear off.

I am Ivy, the younger sister. I think, even though I really loved spinning as a child, I think my favorite childhood activity was actually blowing bubbles. I remember having so many different types of things with which to blow bubbles and so many different bottles that just had bubble solution in them. The giant ones all the way down to the itty bitty ones they like to hand out at weddings. I really, really love bubbles.

I only made one mistake with the bubbles. I don't remember how old I was, but I had one of those things to blow bubbles with. It was shaped like a pipe and I was blowing the bubbles and I had all my bubble solution in the pipe. And I was so fixated on how pretty the bubbles were that I looked up and all of the bubble solution ran out of the pipe and down my throat. It was built on a sore throat for about a week. I did not suggest a drinking bubble solution. It does not go well.

AUTUMN

2:12

That's kind of sad because part of me was hoping there would be some way to be like a bubble dragon. That would have been awesome.

I've also seen these things where you can do big bubbles now. Like, I don't think this existed when I was a kid. Or if it did the bubble technology was so expensive I never was exposed to it. But you can make these huge bubbles that are as big as you are now. And part of me is like, You know what? I want to do that. I like blowing bubbles as a kid. I am an adult now. Perhaps I could now choose to find some money to afford this new bubble technology and have bubbles as big as I am because I feel like that would be very exciting.

IVY

2:52

Yeah, that would be pretty exciting. I don't know. It might have been around when we were growing up, but we did not have access to it in our tiny town in the boondocks of Missouri of less than 200 people. But I have seen videos of people using those and they kind of look like hula hoops. But for bubbles instead. They're very large and they create impressive bubbles. And yeah, I would like to try that. That does seem like it would be fun. They can't be that expensive. I wouldn't think.

AUTUMN

3:20

I would hope not. Maybe we'll have to look into this for our inner child, you know?

And speaking of buying things, before we jump into the meat and potatoes of today's episode, let's take a detour into adulthood really quick and talk specifically about purchasing things. Well, kind of. We want to remind all of you that we have merch, you know! We've got t-shirts and phone cases and pillows and hoodies, and I don't even know what all we have. We have a ton of stuff and we've put a lot of time into designing it.

And usually we tell you about this at the end of the episode, but we decided to put it at the beginning today, just in case you cut out at the end, which is totally fine. We get that, you know, we're wrapping up. But just want to remind you, merch. Ivy do mind telling them how they can get our merch if they were so interested in purchasing such things either for themselves or their inner child.

IVY

4:12

No. Why would anybody want to buy our merch now? Just kidding, you should buy our merch. Or at least, well, look at our merch. We are on TeePublic.com. But here's the thing with TeePublic. They are some stingy bitches about who they let show up in their search function. So the best way to find our merch on TeePublic is actually to go to our website, differentfunctional.com, and on the homepage there is a link that will take you to our TeePublic storefront.

Or if you follow us on social media, you may have noticed that in our Facebook and Instagram stories, these merch announcements have been popping up and I always put a link on those as well. So you can either look for a link in our stories on Facebook or Instagram or just go to our website and click on that link on the homepage.

Don't try to go to TeePublic and look for us directly because like I said, they are some stingy bitches about who they show up in search, which is really frustrating. Eventually we will get our merch onto some other websites and hopefully at some point find a way to get it to you guys even more directly. But that's what we got for now.

You should definitely check out our designs because Autumn did an amazing job with them. They are super cute and super funny and I'm definitely going to be stocking up on, I think, every design that we have to this. I actually really like all of the ones that that we currently have. So and I'm not just saying that because I want you to buy things. Like I said, if nothing else, just go look at them. They're really funny and they're really cute and it's pulled from random things that we say in episodes or that were inspired by random things that we say in episodes. So if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you will probably recognize some deep cuts on there.

AUTUMN

5:55

You know, you noted that TeePublic is really stingy with their search results and so if you search, Different Functional will probably not pop up. But if you - I did find this because I was trying to show somebody the merch - if you enter the search term “dick hands” (dick space hands) and then you select to view the mature content, you will see one of our stickers, which is Don't touch me with your dick hands. So if you do go to TeePublic directly, just search dick hands and look for the mature content.

IVY

6:25

Yeah. If you do find that one, they do show who the designer is. So if you click on that design, you should be able to also go to our storefront. That is awesome to know. I am glad to know that at least at least one of our designs is searchable and I am amused that it's the Don't touch me with your dick hands that I feel like that's fitting. I appreciate that.

AUTUMN

6:52

So let's go ahead and move away from the mature content and drop into the juvenile content that is the core of our episode today. And what we're going to be doing today is playing with our inner child, just like we said in the introduction. And how we're going to be doing this is a series of two-minute timed challenges. Now, the idea behind this is to try and help us connect to that little kid within us, which can be very, very difficult.

Because while many of us realize that inner child work is very important, especially if we've had childhood trauma, it can be really difficult accessing our inner child. It can be hard to shut down our logical brain and societal input and allow ourselves to be a kid again. Or for some of us that have gone through childhood trauma to be a kid at all because some of us were never allowed to be a child.

Now the idea behind the two-minute time frame is to help us keep our adult brain from taking control and basically us just being an adult through this. We're really wanting to access that inner child and kind of get into that intuition and some of that impulsiveness that is hopefully buried within us. Some people may need to have a little bit more than two minutes. And so if you do need more than two minutes to complete this challenge, please, by all means take that.

But we do really want you to play along with us today. This is me and Ivy's inner child asking you to please come play with us. And if you are willing to do that, then you may need to be in your home or an environment that will allow you to go and run around and do these challenges instead of in your car where it would be a lot more difficult and possibly dangerous to do some of these things.

All right. So the framework for this episode essentially is going to be this. We're going to give you the challenge and then we'll let you know to go ahead and pause so that you can give yourself that time to try to complete the challenge. And then after your time limits up, come back in and start the podcast up again. And then we'll talk about whether the challenge was challenging at all or if we were even able to get in touch with our inner child and if we were what that felt like and what kind of experience we had with it.

IVY

8:57

We do really hope that you guys will play along with us. Obviously, you can't interact with us in real time, but what we would love is that if you do these activities, please reach out to us and let us know. Send us an email, reach out to us on social media, any of those things. We will give you all of that contact information at the end of the episode, just as we always do. We would really love to hear from you guys as well.

Obviously, we're going to talk about our experiences doing these challenges in real time, but we also want to know how this went for you and we would love to have some of that interaction. So if you do this along with us and you feel safe enough and open enough to share that with us, please do reach out. We would really, really love that.

AUTUMN

So let's go ahead and dive into the inner child challenges of today. And the very, very first one is to dress for your inner child. So our first challenge is you have two minutes. To find an outfit that your inner child would absolutely love. So go ahead and pause and dress for your inner child.

[ FUN MUSICAL PAUSE]

All right. So challenge number one, dressing for your inner child. Let's talk about how that went. So first off, how easy or hard was this for you, Ivy, to find something your inner child would actually want to wear?

IVY

It was quite hard because Child Me liked bright colors and really pretty feminine floral things, and Adult Me really struggles with that. So I don't have a whole lot of colorful things in my closet. I do have a costume box of all of the Halloween costumes that I've collected over the years, and I really wanted to get into that box. But two minutes was not enough time for me to access that box and rip all the tape off of it and dig through it for something my inner child would like. And it maybe it might be cheating anyway to do that.

So I just had to kind of grab at random what I had in my closet that appealed to my inner child. And like most children, dressing themselves, the things that I ended up with do not match at all. So I would say yes, quite, quite challenging to find anything in my adult closet that little me actually enjoyed.

AUTUMN

It did sound like it was challenging to find something, but it sounded like you were able to get in touch with what your inner child wanted pretty quickly though. Like you were like, yes, randomness, colors, flowers, femininity. So that's good, right, that you were able to identify that pretty, pretty easily.

IVY

Yeah. I mean, Inner Child Me was pretty frustrated with how lame adult me is because adult me mostly has yoga pants and black tank tops. That's mostly what adult me has and Little Child Me is very unimpressed with my with my wardrobe. It took her quite some time to actually find something that was worthwhile. Although I don't know if the mismatch of it all is something that would have been improved had I had more options available to her, or she still really would have just chosen a bunch of mismatched stuff. I'm thinking probably the latter. She would probably still would have piece mailed it and been like, I like this and I like this and I like this and I like this. So yeah. It was challenging but not challenging, I guess, at the same time.

How about you? Was it challenging for you?

AUTUMN

It wasn't really all that challenging. Because I realized as I ran to my closet and I was rushing to meet that two-minute time frame, apparently, I buy most of my clothes based on the inner child anyways. I mean, I definitely have some adult stuff that is comfortable, but like automatically I was like, Oh, I have this skirt and this skirt and this skirt. And for whatever reason it was all skirts, which I rarely ever wear as an adult, which is super sad. But it does now explain why I have so many skirts and feel so compelled to buy them when I never wear them.

But I did find a really colorful skirt. The more challenging part was the top. Like I could all my tops were just stupid. Like that was the thing that kept coming to my head was like, This is stupid. All your shirts are stupid. And then I realized part of the problem is I kind of wanted to be topless. And so I found, like, this cute little sweater thing, but it's not going to cover my boobs. And to which my inner child said, Well, boobs are stupid and my adult person kind of agrees with that as well because they get in the way so much. And so I will have to carefully, when we do the pictures for the resource page, I will have to be careful how I do that because I got a pretty green lace bra that my inner child was like, Fine, we'll cover the boobs with this if you got to cover your boobs, But it's going to maybe show in the picture a little bit.

IVY

All of the things that you just said, there's just like child written all over that. You know, I actually did not expect for this challenge to be nearly as difficult for you as it is for me, because as I have gotten older, I have wanted to stand out less and less and less. But you have always, for the most part, I think, maintained similar styles across the board. You did go through a stage in your teen years where all you wore were blue jeans and way oversized gray t shirts. But for the most part, you have always been a very colorful person and have always dressed very much like what I expect a child would dress like if their parents just like let them do whatever they wanted because your clothes, it's just giving in to your whims.

Your clothes are all based on comfort and nice fabrics that you like and like colors. So seldom do your clothes actually match anyway. And they're usually bright and colorful and the sorts of outfits that I would expect a small child to put together, which honestly is one of the things that I love most about you because I really struggle with that.

Because I see so many things on other people or in stores and like that look so cool. I wish I could do that. But as I've gotten older, I've become increasingly more a wallflower. And so I find that adult me is always trying to hide. And there's no better way to hide than wear boring, bland black clothes. You can make black clothes exciting. I don't though. I try to be as inconspicuous as possible, try to just completely blend in. So I figured this challenge would be much easier for Autumn than it would be for me because Autumn has never completely relinquished her inner child the way that I have. I've always kept pretty tight grip on mine and that is embarrassingly obvious now.

AUTUMN

I don't know that it's so embarrassing. I think that's just how it is for a lot of people. I mean, no matter where you are on that mental health spectrum, that's part of growing up, is they want you to put away childish things and think that kind of sucks. And that's part of why I still dress pretty much however I want because they're pretty and I like feeling not scratchy.

All right. So let's go ahead let's go ahead and describe the outfits that we chose. So I'll go ahead and start because I already gave a little bit of it away. But it's a green lacy bra because that was the only thing that my inner child was cool with me covering my boobs with because boobs are stupid. And then I have a bright red, green, white striped sleeveless sweater because that was really pretty and exciting and I had a bright long maxi skirt that is kind of like this diamond-ish pattern that's all yellows and oranges and blues. It pretty much looks like a crayon box vomited on me, it looks like. And honestly, inner child and me are very pleased with this outfit. But adult me will have to find a shirt to wear over the bra if I choose to wear this in public.

IVY

Yeah, that tracks everything that I know of you and your sense of style over the years that totally tracks.

I love my outfit because it's a hodgepodge of things. So I have this very feminine floral mini dress that's pink, a nice, like warm pink. And then I have my invaders Zim, Gir hat scarf combo thing that has like super long ear things that turn into mittens, which I know makes no sense. A Gir hat. So we're talking bright green, bright green with a pink floral mini dress and black doc Martin boots.

Which I feel like if I had a little bit more courage, I could totally wear out of the house and possibly be able to pull it off as stylish. Still, based on what I see people wearing on social media, which seems to be a bunch of random shit that makes no sense to me. So I'm thinking if I could work up the courage, I could actually wear this in public and Inner Child Me is very convinced this would be extremely cute as a combo. So Adult Me is like halfway there, but Adult Me is also terrified of wearing this out in public.

AUTUMN

From what little I saw, Adult Me and Child Me both agree with Ivy's choice there. I think that is a great outfit.

Okay, so let's go ahead and jump into the second challenge of today. And this is to find a song your inner child would like. So go ahead and pause the podcast. You've got two minutes to find a song your inner child would like.

[ FUN MUSICAL PAUSE]

All right. So the second timed challenge, finding a song your inner child would like. And apparently Ivy whooped my ass on this because when I let her know the timer was good and we could start doing this, she's like, Oh, I already got this. And I'm like, sitting here, like, Googling like, children's songs because the idea that, you know, songs existed that a child might like just froze my brain. There were no songs in existence. So I did finally found one. But it did take me well over a minute to get it.

OK, since yourss was right off the bat and you're like, Yes, I knew what this is. I don't even need more than a second. What was your song?

IVY

Okay, so my song is probably one that a lot of people probably will not have heard of, but it's called Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet. And I have loved this song since I was itty bitty. It was my favorite song as a little girl.

I mean, the story of it is just adorable. There are two hats in the store and they fall in love with each other and then they get separated and then they find their way back together in the end. And it just made my little heart so warm and fuzzy when I was a child because I've always loved a good love story. And that was one of the first love stories that just it just touched my heart so much.

And I think part of the reason it was able to touch my heart so much is because Disney, they used to show like little short clips of old, old cartoons. So there'd be like an old Goofy cartoon or Mickey Mouse cartoon. And sometimes they would have songs that had essentially music videos. And so Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet, there was this adorable little animated music video essentially for this song, these two hats falling in love. And it just warmed my heart. And I still love that video. I will see if I can find it for the resources page because everybody should be exposed to Johnny Fedora and Alice on it.

AUTUMN

I feel like they should be exposed to this and I have no memory of it. So I don't know if I just never saw it. But I feel a little there's a little deficit in me that I have gone potentially 40 some years without being exposed to the song because it does sound adorable.

So okay, I did do my little Google search and I came up with some children's songs and I was like, Oh no, that's stupid. I don't like that one. That one had a creepy video. No way. And then I saw one where I was like, Yes, this, this is Little Autumn’s song. And it is Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Because you get to move. I love moving. I don't want to sing like I wanted to move. And so it was the “Head, shoulders, knees, nose your head, shoulders, knees and toes. Knees and toes. Knees and toes. Eyes, ears, mouth and nose.” [Sung horribly] That one. Maybe I'll do a little video and put that in the research picture of me singing it.

Because I still love that song as an adult. Like, I don't know any more of it than that. I don't know if there's more to it, but just the idea that you get to like, touch your body parts was really awesome to me. I think in part because even as an adult that's still slightly challenging to figure out where my body is in space and time. And so even now I'm like, No, wait, that's not my head, try again.

IVY

So in some ways, Autumn and I are so alike and in some ways we were so different. I hated that song because as a small child I did not like to move very much and didn't feel safe to move. I think that's what it came down to. I did not feel safe to move because every all of the adults in our household were just kind of like high strung and tense and on edge all the time. And so it just felt way safer to just sit still and be quiet. So I hated that song because it required me to do big movements very quickly, and that was very disorienting and felt very unsafe to me.

So it's interesting that Autumn had a completely different take on that on that song. But to be fair, Autumn has also always been much bigger than me in how she expresses herself. I still to this day am very pulled in and not very physically expressive. And Autumn has always been lots of big movements and excitement. And so that's yet another way in which Autumn is always, I think, been way more in touch with her inner child than I have been, although my inner child is pretty fucking shy, so I don't know, maybe I am still really in touch with her.

AUTUMN

That is an interesting question to me though. Like you said, as a little child, you didn't really feel safe to move. And so then that question becomes as an adult, when you're allowing your inner child expression, what part of that inner child like are you able to provide a safe enough arena where that inner child now feels like they can move? And if so, how would they want to move? Or is it that even as an adult, your inner child still doesn't want to move? They like being quiet. They are shy.

What do you think about that, Ivy? Do you think like as you do more inner child work, that child could open up and blossom into somebody that would want to dance and shake her little booty? Or do you think your inner child is always just going to be kind of shy because that's how she is?

IVY

You know, I have done a lot of inner child work in these last few years I've been working with my therapist. And one of the things that I have gathered about my inner child is that she is kind of a quiet child and likes to keep to herself, and she usually plays quietly too and prefers to play on her own. So she'll spend a lot of time walking around in the woods and picking wildflowers, or she'll spend time building stuff out of blocks or Lincoln logs, or she spends time reading, but she is actually pretty quiet for the most part. She likes being outdoors and walking around and exploring and getting her hands dirty and stuff like that, which is something that is very true of adult me as well.

What is interesting, that's a juxtaposition between my inner child and adult me is that adult may cannot sit still to save her life. I do not sit still well, especially for long periods of time. As an adult, I am always moving. That's part of why I chose the career that I did. Because as a massage therapist, you are always up and moving as part of your job. And I love going to the gym and I love going and doing outdoorsy stuff and I love going for walks. I am a very physically active person now.

I don't feel free enough, I guess, to do things like dance. Like Autumn said that maybe she'll try to do a video of her doing the head, shoulders, knees and toes dance. And honestly, the idea of that mortified me like it, me doing it. Oh hell no. No, I do not dance. I don't dance. And I would not let other people see me dance. But I don't even dance when I'm by myself. That is far too embarrassing.

And again, not super physically expressive, very physically active, not very physically expressive. And I think that is true of both my inner child and of me as an adult. I don't know if that would have been any different had we had a more nurturing environment growing up. Maybe Inner Child Me would have been shy initially and then been able to express herself more. But because we didn't have a nurturing, safe environment, she just stayed shy. She didn't she never really blossomed beyond that or got to a space where she felt safe enough to express herself. So I don't know that I would have been this reserved naturally had I been allowed to develop in a healthier and happier and more supportive home.

AUTUMN

That is one of the interesting things about inner child work, though. I mean, your inner child is a reflection of the childhood you had. So how much development can they experience and how different can they be once you're able to provide that safe arena? Because again, they are the product of the childhood you did experience. It's just an interesting way to kind of look at things.

IVY

26:2

Yeah, it is an interesting way to look at things. I will say that the work around that my inner child did find for ways to express herself - part of the reason it was so easy for me to find a song was because music was such a huge part of my life when I was little. Because our mom really loved music and she started teaching me to sing when I was very, very tiny. Pretty much as soon as I started talking, Mom started teaching me how to sing. And so music was a way that I could express myself.

I could sing all day long, and that was fine. And I did sing all day long and annoyed the living shit out of Autumn for most of our early childhood because I never stopped singing. But that one was safe for me. And the same with writing. With writing, I could be as expressive as I wanted to be. I could be as creative as I wanted to be, as big as I wanted to be. So I was not able to feel safe to physically move around a whole lot. But I did find workarounds by being able to sing and by being able to write, because those were two areas that I was safe to express myself and encouraged to express myself in those way. Other than my Autumn, she did not encourage me to express myself through singing. Cause it mostly just annoyed her, especially my choice in songs.

AUTUMN

Yeah, I was very super feminist. And you were singing Showboat and original Disney tunes, so I mostly encouraged you to shut the fuck up a lot during our younger childhood. I like to hope that I've grown beyond that, and my more mature adult self is more nurturing now because sometimes, you know, I'll say this inner child's their children, they can be kind of assholes.

All right. So let's go ahead and move on to the third challenge on our list. And this is to gather five items that you could turn into an art project. Now, you don't have to do the art project in two minutes. But go ahead, pause it and see if you can find five things that your inner child could make into an awesome craft project.

[FUN MUSICAL PASUE]

Okay. Third challenge gathering five items in your house you could turn into an art project. Let's go ahead and start with just what did you even find, Ivy?

IVY

A bunch of random shit. Because if there's one thing that Adult Me and Child Me have in common, it is a love for chaos and things that don't make sense. I have a giant bag of feathers that I have collected over the years. There's feathers that I've picked up in parking lots or at parks or out in the woods. I also have some seashells that I also found myself. I have a big spool of sparkly gold ribbon. I have some colorful beads. I also have a random bag of little things like tiny little mirrors and glittery little like stick on things. And a bunch of doll eyes. That's what I have. It's going to be a mixed media project, whatever it is.

AUTUMN

Very mixed media. I found that my inner child, Little Autumn, she also was grabbing random shit. And I actually, honestly, I found this one a little bit challenging because of that, but I'll get to that in a second. Let me go ahead and tell you what I found first off. So despite Adult e arguing with little Autumn, Little Autumn was able to select: A bag of modeling clay. She found six beads, wooden, shiny beads. She likes a tiny bag of guitar picks that I didn't even know I owned. I'm not sure why I have them. Some really pretty pink like jute ribbon. I'll have to put some pictures up to explain what that is. And a tiny bunch of felt hydrangeas. So, yeah, random stuff.

And this is actually why I found it really challenging for me. Because Adult Me kept being like,You can't make anything with that. How are you going to connect these? These won't connect. These won't go together. You're not going to make anything with that. There was a lot of judgment from Adult Me about whatever product Little Autumn was trying to do. It was hard.

IVY

That's kind of sad that Adult Autumn was so judgmental of Little Autumn's attempts at making art.

This one was not really a challenge for me. I think I am drawn to mixed media as a form of creative expression because I love visual forms of art, but I suck at all of them. And one of the - to me in my mind - one of the best things to do if you enjoy making art and you like visual forms of art and you're not good at drawing or painting or sculpting or any of those sorts of things is mixed media because it really is just chaos. It's taking a bunch of things that you like and throwing it together and see what comes of it. So I didn't really find this one challenging because both my inner child and my adult self were very excited about the prospect that I have this bunch of random things and it's like, Oh, what can we make with this? It's going to be weird, whatever it is, but it's going to look cool because it's going to be glittery and colorful and it's going to have natural things in it and it's going to be awesome. So both Adult M and Inner Child Me were very much on board with this challenge. This one was pretty easy for us both.

AUTUMN

That's super awesome, though. I'm glad that you guys are coinciding in that way.

I think for me, like I do like crafts. Though I will admit that I am so exhausted lately. I don't have time for creative avenues at all. But for me it was more Adult Me kept saying, But what was the plan? What's the plan here? What are you planning on doing? Like there had to be this end objective and Little Autumn Me - which I'm glad this was timed because if it wasn't I, it would have been a lot harder I think for me - Little Autumn was just like, But it's pretty. I'll figure something out. Like, why do I have to have a plan right now?

And so I don't know. It's just kind of interesting. And also again. A lot of these things I had, I have no idea why I'm holding on to them because I could never figure out what the fuck to do with them. The same way with all these clothes that Little Autumn thought was really cool that I never wear. Now I get why I have so many of these things that I'm like, Why do I have this? Why can't I just give it up? Because Little Autumn really wants it.

So I think I need to start allowing my inner child to do more than just hoard things in the dust of my closet corners and maybe start allowing her to express herself a little more without forcing her to have a plan about everything.

IVY

I do find it interesting the ways in which our inner children and I'm not just talking about Autumn and I, I'm talking about everybody, like the ways in which our inner children come out, both good and bad. And a lot of times we don't even notice it because same here in the sense of the things that I had. Why do I have a giant bag of feathers that I've been collecting for years? Because Little Ivy thinks they're pretty and it's cool to collect feathers. Because now I have - and I'm I'm saying like a big bag. It's like a gallon sized Ziploc bag that is packed to the brim with feathers. Little Ivy really loves feathers. That's why I have so many What I'm going to do with them, I don't know. But I keep them. Why do I have a bag full of doll eyes and tiny mirrors? That's a great question because Little Ivy thought they were cool looking. So that's why I have those things.

And I think all of us, if we actually pay attention to the sorts of things that we have, like the things that we're drawn to or the things that we decide to purchase, somewhere in there are some clues as to what it is that our inner child really values and really likes that maybe we don't allow room for them to express and maybe that we don't even understand. Like there's so many things, I think, that we find ourselves drawn to that we don't really understand why we're drawn to them. And I do think a lot of times it is our inner child trying to make a statement and trying to express themselves and trying to get attention and trying to still be an integral part of us. Because that’s what your inner child is. There is a part of you that never completely grows up.

There's a little bit of Peter Pan in all of us. And unfortunately, a lot of times we squash that part of us. And so we do just end up hoarding things in the back of our closet, like bags of doll eyes or bags of guitar picks, random stuff that we don't know why we have it, but we can't bring ourselves to get rid of it. I feel like that is actually a great way - I would say it's a great way to connect with our inner child because maybe you think you have no connection to your inner child, but your inner child has been talking to you for a really a long time and you're just not listening.

AUTUMN

They've been picking up all the random doll eyes at all the garage sales you go to, that's your inner child right there. You know, part of me, like, I think I'm going to actually try to make something out of this. I don't know if I can tune into my inner child and allow them to express this long, But at this point, I think I really want to try to make something out of this craft project to just do it, because that idea that I had to have a plan was so strong.

Like, I have to know what I'm doing before I can even begin was so strong. And I'm like, How long has it been since I haven't had a plan? And I can't even remember the last time I just did something impulsively or spontaneously or without planning it. So I think I'm going to try, if I can find the energy and emotional resources to make an art project. Well, we'll see if I can do it in time to get it up on the resources page or not.

IVY

I would argue that that part of you that needs a plan is not entirely just your adult self. Because a lot of times when people think of their inner child, they're thinking of extremely young. But our inner child, it can be anywhere in the age range of childhood. And I think different parts of that child's self at different stages of development express themselves. I don't think it's just one age that our inner child is and that it expresses as.

And I would say that that part of you that had that need for a plan, when I look back at our family home videos and stuff, when you were much younger, you were a lot more carefree and a little bit more chaotic and you didn't seem like you needed that. But then as we got older and you had more and more responsibilities put on your shoulders, then it became a safety thing to have a plan. And so I would argue that that need for a plan is not just your adult self. I think there's also a little bit of a battle of wills between the very young inner child and the older inner child. And both of them, I think, are equally valid. And maybe that's part of the reason why it was such a challenge as well, because maybe your adult brain was not as involved in the process as maybe you thought. Maybe I’m wrong? I don't know. That's just my take.

AUTUMN

You know, that brings up an interesting point, too, though, that when you do inner child work, sometimes you realize that in certain areas your inner child is actually controlling your life. And as you talked about that, I'm like, oh my God, you're right. I think it is Adolescent Autumn. It's 14-year-old, 15-year-old Autumn that needs to have a plan because if we don't have a plan, people die. Things fall apart. Sisters don't get fed. Animals, you know, die. This is what happens.

And so now I'm like, Well, holy shit. I think 15-year-old Autumn has been controlling my life since then. And I'm like, Mm. Do I want 15-year-old Autumn to be controlling everything? I mean plans are good and they are important, which is part of why they are an adult thing. And I assumed they were adult thing. But maybe I need to start learning to be more flexible about that.

I think that's a really good point though. And sometimes that happens when you do inner child work where you realize, Oh, I'm not just in touch with my inner child. My inner child has completely hijacked this one arena of my life.

IVY

Yeah. You know, the dead giveaway for me that your older inner child was involved in that process quite a bit was how judgmental and controlling that part of you was. It was like, No, we need a plan. What are you planning on doing with this? Like, it was just a bunch of random stuff. Where were you going to do with it? Because since I've been, you know, around you for a real long time now, that is something that is much more you from a long time ago.

Because adult you, while you still have a lot of rigid thinking and you worry a lot and you do want a plan, you are much less judgmental of others and much less controlling of others. And so I feel like if it was a battle of wills going on. Awar between your adult brain and your child brain, you would have not tried to clamp down quite so much on your inner child and the things that she was picking out. I think you would have been able to have a little bit more acceptance in like, okay, I don't know what we're doing this, but let's go with it.

But 15-year-old you absolutely would have been like, No, What are you planning on doing with that? No, there needs to be order. There needs to be a plan. You got to have a strategy. Like, what are you going to do with that? That was a dead giveaway to me, that it was actually an older version of your inner child that was trying to restrict your younger inner child.

AUTUMN

That's really good. And it does give you some ideas on how to kind of pick through your behavior once you start getting into this inner child stuff and deciding, okay, is this adult me? Is this three-year-old me? Is this 15-year-old me? Looking back at the kind of person you were during that time frame and figuring out if that's being reflected in your behavior right now.

All right. So let's go ahead and move on to the fourth challenge on our list. And this is writing your name with your non-dominant hand. And we're also going to put in to decorate your signature. Okay, so the idea behind this challenge is that if you write with your non-dominant hand, you're supposed to get in touch with feelings of intuition, gut instinct, inner wisdom, spirituality. Essentially, you're bypassing the adult brain and going for more of that unconscious and hopefully the inner child. So for our fourth challenge, you are going to write your name with your non-dominant hand and decorate that signature using your non-dominant hand. So go ahead and pause for this challenge.

[FUS MUSICAL PAUSE]

All right. So coming back from that challenge, number four, writing your name with your non-dominant hand and decorating the signature. All right, Ivy, how was this for you?

IVY

That's a really good question. Ever since we made the list of challenges that we were planning on doing for this episode, I really was dreading this because I don't like trying to do much of anything with my left hand. There's very few things that I do left handed, and I'm very meticulous about my handwriting. So the idea of writing with my left hand, I knew it was going to look like garbage. And so I was dreading it that entire time before once I actually got started.

First of all, I didn't look as bad as I was expecting, so I am pleased with that. What was interesting to me is that my inner child really did completely take over. I mean that in the sense that - so several years back I changed my last name to Turner. It was a Christmas gift to the man that I consider to be kind of like an adoptive father to me. I changed my last name legally to Turner. But our family name is Braack. And when I was writing my signature, the adult part of me was like, No, we are a Turner now. But Child Me, her attitude was very much no, I am a Braack. And to me I was like, well, that's so indicative of that being, you know, my inner child and being kind of like stuck in some ways at that age. Because for her she will forever be a Braack because she is forever at that age where she is a Braack That's how she identifies So adult me very much sees myself as a Turner, but Child Me sees herself very much as a Braack.

And she also was very insistent on writing our middle name because it's the entirety of a name that makes up who she is. That's how she felt about it. No, it has to be a full name. I have to write my full name and then drew a little a few little flowers around it that I used to draw when I was a kid.

But the process was different than I was expecting it to be. I was expecting to just hate doing it because I just don't like writing with my left hand. I was not expecting my inner child to be so insistent about using the last name that she is accustomed to going by and that she was so insistent on using my full name.

She was also insistent about writing everything in capital letters, which I thought was very interesting as well, because I would have thought that she would have wanted to write everything in lowercase because she sees herself as being very small. But I think it's kind of a statement for her like, No, this is who I am and I want you to know who I am. And in retrospect, that's pretty interesting to me because having a sense of identity and individualism actually has always been super important to me. So it's interesting to see the ways in which that came through that I did not expect.

AUTUMN

That's really awesome. It sounds like this particular activity really got you in touch with your inner child on that one. I feel like it did for me as well. Very much more the emotional than the thought process for me.

So when I was doing it, kind of the opposite of Ivy - apparently there's a lot of opposites today, I didn't have any other names, but my first name. It was like there was no concept that I had any other name but Autumn and that was it.

I really enjoyed writing with my left hand, honestly. And sadly, you cannot tell the difference, I don't think, between my writing with my left and my writing with my dominant. Which is super sad, but yeah, it actually turned out pretty good.

I did have to find markers though, because when I started out I went to grab a pen because that was what was near me and little me was like, No pens are stupid, I hate pens. And so I had to get markers because markers are fucking awesome. I don't know why, but Little Me is obsessed with markers and Adult Me too a little bit, honestly.

But then after that it was also frustration. Like I got my name written and that was fun and I like that. But then when I had to decorate, I was frustrated and it was because I couldn't do what I wanted with the medium I had. I guess I don't know if I wanted finger paint or something, but I wanted it to be bigger or bolder or something that I was not able to do. And so I ran into a lot of frustration around that once I started decorating and even now, like once I finished with it, it's okay. But Little Child Me is kind of like, It's stupid. I want to do it again.

IVY

I could hear Autumn's frustration because we both had our microphones unmuted and I just heard like a lot of scratching sounds from her side. I'm couldn’t see what she was doing. It was out of the out of my view. And also I was focused on my own stuff. I just kept hearing like these scratching sounds and I thought she sounded frustrated. So that's amusing that she actually was. Not amusing that you are frustrated. Like, that's unfortunate. I'm sorry Little You was frustrated. But amusing that you being frustrated translated into a sound.

Little Ivy got frustrated too, because there wasn't enough time for her to neatly draw as many flowers as she wanted. And I did cheat. I went over. Autumn, told me the time was up and I was like, No, I got to do one more flower because it was just looked imbalanced. And Little Ivy and Adult Ivy were very much on board that it could not look imbalanced.

AUTUMN

We're going to put pictures of our signatures up and I didn't like go over the limit. I stopped at the limit. But after the time that it was up, I was like, okay, so since Ivy was talking about Adolescent Autumn and that being part of my inner child work, I was like, lets her chime in as well. And I used my left hand to sign my name because that seemed more appropriate. And It looks almost spot on what my signature at 13 or 14 look like. I mean, honestly, my writing has not progressed. My writing is a shit. It's probably worse now than it was when I was 13 or 14. But I'm looking at it and I'm like, Wow, that is that is my 14-year-old signature right there. That's kind of creepy.

I don't know. I feel like this is one of my favorite activities thus far. I'm going to be thinking about this later. Like, what does it mean that I was frustrated? Why is it look exactly like I was 14? There's so many questions that this one brought up.

Okay. So let's go ahead and move on to challenge number five. And this is to find basically some form of entertainment that your child would love. So we're looking for a book, a movie or a video game that your inner child would love. All right. So go ahead and pause and take those two minutes to find it.

[FUN MUSICAL PAUSE]

Coming back from challenge number five: finding a book, movie or video game your inner child would love. So I will admit, for me this was like Ivy’s song: instantaneous. Like I automatically knew what I wanted and I wanted both a movie and a book because I think my inner child just wants everything sometimes. So I did get the movie and the book, but I automatically knew. It took longer to find them than it did to know what I wanted. How about you, Ivy?

IVY

I also ended up with two things, but they were two books. One of them I absolutely knew when I went over to my bookshelf that I wanted to grab because it was actually a book. It was one of my favorites when I was little. But what I did not expect is that when I could not immediately find it, for whatever reason, I just I was looking at the shelf I knew it was on and I did not see it and I couldn't find it. And my inner child started to panic a little bit, thinking that my book was gone. She thought the book was gone. And she was very upset because she's like, No, it has to be that book. I have to find the book. It was supposed to be on the shelf. We see this book on the shelf all the time. Why can I not find the book? She was having almost a full on panic attack when she could not find her book. Which I think probably says something. And then once she found that book, she was like, Oh, okay, we're good. And I also want to grab that one over there. Even though it's a book that I have as an adult that she is like, But I like that book too. So she is just like, grab the second one. But first she had a panic attack because she couldn't find the book she was looking for.

AUTUMN

You know, I relate to that, too, because I found my book right away. But the movie I was looking for, I couldn't find, and I started freaking out a little. It was very much like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? That's so weird that both of our inner children were like, Oh, but it's my thing! Where did it go? Like, freaking out. So I'm curious. What two books did you choose, Ivy?

IVY

Okay, but before I get into that, I just want to say really quick, I don't think that's weird at all. Because my experience with small children is that they get very attached to specific items and they will lose their fucking mind if they cannot find it. They'll collapse into tears, they'll scream, whatever. They'll be very upset they can’t find their thing. So I think in this situation, we are not all that different from the average small child that is very attached to an item, but for some reason it cannot find.

But my books - The first one is Juniper, which is actually a young adult book, and it's fantasy themed. Which I'm usually not really into fantasy all that much. But it was a book that I read when I was, I don't know, maybe like nine. And I picked it up from the book fair and I fell in love with it.

Unlike most stories that I really love, because I usually am really drawn to love stories, Juniper is not actually a love story. There's almost no love component in it at all. It's very much like a coming of age story about this young girl who's finding her inner power and going through adversity and seeing what she's made of and what she is capable of, and then utilizing those skills that she learns in a very life or death situation and realizing just how strong she actually is. That story always really called to me when I was younger, and it's been a favorite book of mine for a long time. I would say I read it about once a year because even now it's a book that really calls to me and both my inner child and my adult self really love it.

And then the other book that I grabbed is a manga and it's, you know, Inu X Boku SS. Which is - I watched the anime first a few years ago and absolutely fell in love with it. It's my favorite anime of all time. That one is definitely a love story, but it's a love story about two people who are misfits in the world, who fall in love with each other even though they hate themselves. Which that calls to me as well and always has. Because that idea of like, Oh, you have to love yourself before you can love anybody else, before anybody else can love you as always infuriated me. And so this the story in this manga and anime, it really appealed to both my adult self and my inner child self because it's this idea that it's like, you don't have to like yourself yet people will still like you. Other people will still love you even if you don't like yourself yet.

So those are the two books that I ended up with and I think both of them are just as relevant to me now as they were to a younger version of myself. What about you? What’d you end up with?

AUTUMN

I find it very interesting that I feel like you are more in touch with a wider range of your inner child. Because I feel like there is Four-year-old Autumn and there's 14-year-old Autumn and there's no other Autumn in here. And if given the druthers for inner child work, it's Four-year-old Autumn that screams loudly and gets her choice.

And so that is that is how I ended up with my two selections. So my book is Are You My Mother, which is an adorable, wonderful childhood book. And it's one of my favorite childhood memories being read to. But the idea is this little bird is born, but his mom is away getting food. And so he wanders all around trying to find where his mom is. And luckily at the end, it's okay. Don't worry. He does find his mom and everybody is very happy and loved.

And then the movie I chose was Milo and Otis. Which I laugh because I love this movie as an adult. I love this movie as a kid. I think this is the best movie of all time ever. And it is so corny and so hokey and nobody ever wants to watch it with me, which always makes me so sad. But yeah, little, little three-year-old, four-year-old Autumn screamed really loudly. And she chose those two items.

IVY

I don't know if I watched Milo and Otis with you. I feel like I have at least once. I'm also fairly certain that I watched Milo and Otis with Kelvin because he also likes that movie. It interesting choice because yeah, it is kind of like, I don't know, it is kind of cheesy and weird-ish, but it does have a certain charm to it. I don't think it's the best movie ever made, but I can see the appeal of it, especially to a very small child. I could definitely see the appeal of it.

If I'd had my box of childhood books in the apartment, which I have kept all of my childhood books that I could, the ones that hadn't completely fallen apart. If I had had those, I also would have grabbed a third book because Little Ivy cannot stop with the books. She's she is incapable of stopping with the books.

She would have grabbed her Amelia Bedelia book because the moral of those stories is that you can be a fuck up in every way except one. But if that one skill that you have is really valuable, people will still love you and want you around. Because Amelia Bedilia just goes around messing everything up. But she is an amazing cook and so they keep her on as their maid because she's an amazing cook, even though she's bad at everything else.

I feel like all of my stories are about like finding value in in oneself or finding people that find value in you when you can't find yourself. Trying to see like a pattern in in yours between the two books or between the book and the movie. I don't know that I see a pattern in those two things. I guess searching for something. They're searching for something in both, right?

AUTUMN

Yeah, They're searching for love and they're searching for home and they find it. And I think that's honestly probably a repetitive pattern in my life, too. Is that idea of searching for safety, searching for love. Not just love as in that idea of romantic love, but that idea of love as being cared for and cuddled and appreciated. You know? The idea of a nest or a burrow or a home. Like that's probably the theme in both of both of mine.

Which then I kind of wonder as well, because I was thinking, okay, try and again go to that more adolescent because there's only four-year-old and 13-year-old Autumn here. What would 13-year-old Autumn choose? And I'm like Jane Eyre. Like automatically Jane Eyre. And I feel like that's also the same theme of finding that love, finding that home. Usually in somebody else. I feel like I need to reflect on this. So I feel like I need to start taking notes on this episode of things that I have personally uncovered that I need to reflect on for my own personal growth. Yeah.

IVY

You know, I think that's part of the reason why inner child work is so important because there's a lot of things that we feel or that we experience as adults that maybe don't entirely make sense without context. And I feel like when you do inner child work, you get a lot of context. That's one of the biggest things that I've gained from doing so much inner child work over the last few years with my therapist. Is that because, like Autumn, I had a very limited range of what inner child meant? I was thinking maybe four-years-old, that was what inner child was. And it wasn't until I actually started doing the work consistently over a period of time that I started being able to tell the difference in the stages of development and started being able to interact with all of those different stages of my childhood and where I was at that time. And it does give you a lot of context to help you understand bigger themes in your life.

We tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over until we figure out why we're making that mistake, because that's usually what prompts us to change. We have some realization like now this pattern continues to repeat in my life, and it's not helpful. It's not getting me where I want to go. And that's what we ultimately decide to start making changes when we have that recognition of what that pattern is and how long that pattern is lasted. And inner child work really does help you to establish those patterns over a long period of time.

And I think the forms of media here the Autumn chose are very indicative of those patterns over time. Because for Autumn, all of the choices that she made were that concept of finding love and finding safety and finding a sense of home and a place of belonging. Which is something that's very much important to her as an adult just as much as it was for her as a child. And for me, everything is about finding my own value and finding people that see me, like actually see me and value me for who I am. My skills and my talents, as well as the ways in which I'm kind of an airhead or I'm kind of a fuck up or I'm kind of a mean girl.

Like everybody has so much complexity. And for me, I've always felt like - and I suspect that's true of a lot of other people - that sense that I have to hide certain parts of myself in order to be loved by others, and in order for me to love myself, I have to completely eradicate those parts. And I've spent so much of my life trying to do that. But throughout time, what I see in my choices today of like the books that I was interested in, there is always been that pattern of wanting to value myself and love myself as I am to find my own worth, to find my strengths, to develop my skill sets and my talents. And to find people who love me for those things as well.

So inner child work does really show you a lot and give you a lot of context for why adult you feel certain things so deeply are searching or longing for certain things so much. And why you continue to repeat patterns that really sabotage you. Your inner child has so many answers to those questions if we just actually listen to our inner children more.

AUTUMN

I would also say that we just repeat patterns in general as well. Because I feel like the pattern I have of seeking out, you know, that idea of a nest or a burrow or a home hasn't really sabotaged me. It's actually led to a lot of a lot of good choices for me and my mental health. Honestly, I would have to say it has. But I've also come to a crux in my life where I'm going to have to give up a huge chunk of something I've worked for to make my burrow, to make my nest, to make my home. And it's been really, really difficult for me.

So even though I feel like my patterns haven't necessarily sabotaged me, I do feel that having the understanding of these patterns and that drive that is probably coming from my inner child and my childhood trauma is, I think, going to help me be able to traverse this next obstacle and challenge in my life a little more easily. Because I understand better where some of this grief is coming from. And at least for me, more importantly, when some of this grief is coming from.

Because I found that that's been very important on my healing journey, like Ivy said, finding those different stages and learning to interact with them. Cause once I'm able to pinpoint where something is coming from, I can then react accordingly. Because how you would encourage a three-year-old is not how you would encourage a 15-year-old. And so when I try to provide solutions that are aimed towards that age, that is really driving me towards that trauma frozen piece that stuck at that age, it doesn't work. So once I discover the age, then I can discover ways to work with whatever challenges it is I have.

IVY

You know, that's actually a really good point that you made about just the patterns in general, which is something that that I'm trying to think about a little bit more. I tend to be a very negative, focused person. I know this about myself, but I often forget how negative focused I am. And so for me, when I do my inner child work, like I'm looking for patterns of void or lack or mistakes that I'm making. Instead of looking for ways in which those patterns show me just integral parts of who I am as a person and the things that I value and what I'm striving towards. Which would be useful for me at this stage in my life to look at those things because I'm at a place in my life where I feel kind of like a ship without a ruder.

Like I'm used to having a set idea in mind of what I want to do next. And it usually comes to me as just a whim. But I haven't had any whims in a long time and there's a whole lot of options. And only so much time to live and to do things that you value and that you want to do. And so maybe I need to start looking at the patterns throughout time of what it is that I have just wanted, the things that have consistently been something that mattered to me and I wanted to pursue and maybe I need to start looking at that in order to find direction for where I go from here.

And I know one of the things that I'll have to do is to release judgment of those things. Because I know I have always been somebody that really had all of this creativity inside, but I always shut it down because I'm like, Well, you can't make money doing that. Or it'd be really hard to make money doing that, or it's just not practical or other people would do it better than you. So there's no point in even trying. And that's one of the ways in which I sabotage myself because I'm not paying enough attention to the patterns of things that have always mattered so much to me that I feel a passion about them. I just cut those things off instead of paying attention to them and giving them any credit. So I think I need to actually start paying attention to patterns that I have that could benefit me if I actually gave them some weight.

AUTUMN

We're only halfway through our challenges today, and I don't know about you guys, but me and Ivy are doing a lot of serious work with just these fun little play challenges.

Okay. Ivy was talking about being very negative, focused. So let's go on to challenge number six, which is going to challenge her negative focus, and that is letting your inner child express joy. This is going to be a very open one and you're going to really have to get in touch with your inner child and figure out what that means. What joy looks like for them and how they would express it. So let's go ahead and pause right here and figure out how exactly would you let your inner child express joy?

[FUN MUSICAL PAUSE]

All right. So coming back from challenge number six, letting your inner child express joy. All right, Ivy, how did this go for you?

IVY

When you announced this challenge, I had a little moment of inner panic because I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, what's joy. I don't know how to express joy? How did my child self ever express joy? So I had a little moment of panic, but then pretty quickly I figured it out.

I feel like it's on brand for my inner child because it's something that's just like a simple pleasure that is very just like a solo thing. It doesn't involve other people. It doesn't involve like noise or much movement. What I came up with is actually something that is in the movie Amelie. And I never knew why it appealed to me so much until this challenge. There's a part in Amelie where they're talking about the simple pleasures that she enjoys, and one of them is sticking her hand down into a sack of grain and feeling it on her fingers. And I remember when I saw that movie, I was like, Oh, that sounds so cool. Why does that sound so cool to me?

And as we did this challenge, my inner child had this memory. There was the preschool that I went to. They had kind of like a sandbox there, but it was indoors and so they didn't want to sand. And so they filled it with rice instead. And I used to love that. Every time we got the opportunity to play, I was always sitting in that sandbox full of rice. And anytime I had access to a sandbox, I was in the sandbox. Any time there was like a big bowl of like dried beans or pasta noodles, I was always sticking my hands down in there because I just liked the way that it felt on my fingertips and on my palms.

And I feel like that's something that is, yeah, it's like very small. But like, to me that is joy and I'm not sure why. But just that tactile sensation, just like digging my hands down into something that feels cool. And adult me kind of does that to a certain degree. Like one of the things that Kelvin and I do as a hobby is we go out digging for agates and rocks and stuff. And I love that. I love getting my hands dirty. I like digging my hands down into sand or mud or clay or dirt. I love that.

And for me, that's, I guess some expression of joy that my inner child has that I was not really cognizant of until just now when we did this challenge. It's kind of weird. I don't really understand it, but it's what makes her happy. So I guess she's going to go digging her hands into the bag of rice that I have later. Just gonna go digging her hands down in there.

How about you?

AUTUMN

I was kind of the opposite of you, where I instantly knew how to express joy. But I - honestly, I wasn't able to meet this challenge. I was not able to openly express joy. Because, again, opposite of you, inner child joy for me is big and loud and rambunctious. It's roughhousing and running around with your hands in the air screaming. Like that's joy.

And I do that sometimes as an adult, but I couldn't right now for a couple of reasons. One, I don't have the amount of energy necessary to express the joy. I just I don't. And that's kind of sad to me. But I just don't have the level of energy necessary to be that happy right now.

And then the other piece of that, which is adult censoring to some degree. And I think this is also an adult censoring that happened when I was a child that's actually limited me quite a bit, is that I'm too big. Even as a kid, I was too big, my movements were too big, my voice was too loud, my movements were too fast and too much. I was I think they call it hyperkinetic.

And it's very hard to overcome those restrictions. Because they were put in place for a reason. And the reason being that I hurt people or I broke things. Not intentionally. But when I get super happy and my movements get big, I knock things over or I run into people or I rough house too hard. And that, of course, is only gotten more so as I've gotten bigger. You know, because if you want to see what like little 20-pound Autumn could do, just imagine what a 160-pound Autumn can do right now.

So yeah, I wasn't able to meet this challenge. I do still have joy sometimes in that kind of hyperkinetic big movement way, but I don't think I really do it to that much extent anymore. Because one, it does take so much energy for me and two, I'm going to break something or hurt someone, which is - I don't know how to feel about that.

IVY

Yeah, that is interesting. I could see that inner conflict there with that. What's interesting to me is that even though our responses to this challenge were very different on the surface, I think in some ways they're coming from the same base kind of. Or at least your conflict is coming from the same space. Because in our home growing up, big movements, loud noises, things like that were very much discouraged. And I could always see how that was much harder for you. I adapted to that very quickly. I don't know if that was just in my nature to be a little bit more on the quiet side and watching myself, or if that's something that I developed as a coping mechanism.

But I think that it's coming from the same space in the sense that you were not able to complete this challenge because you had that censoring, that fear that you were going to get in trouble or hurt somebody or whatever it whatever those messages are. And for me, I intentionally, I guess, maybe not intentionally, but I in response to the rules in our household to not make big movements or being noisy, I just kind of found myself drawn to very small, like personal private moments. And so for me, joy is something that I express very quiet and very privately and like almost I'm almost protective of it because if I do it quietly, you don't even know that I'm doing something exciting, then you can't take it away from me.

I don't know if maybe I saw how you were censored and I was like, okay, well, I can't do those things, so I have to learn to like something else. Or if that was just how I naturally would have been. But in some ways, I feel like we're being influenced by similar things. Like you want to be able to express your joy very fully and physically open and big, but you feel like you couldn't complete the challenge. Whereas for me, because I've never felt like it was acceptable to be open and big and exuberant, I've always found my joy in these personal little individual private moments that other people don't notice.

Because if I'm just digging my hands into a bag of rice, most people are going to look at that and just be like, Oh, she must be planning to cook. But for me, I'm like giddy. I'm like, No, this is this is like my little moment. Like, this is mine. I got like a little bit of a Gollum thing going on there. I guess. That my precious. This rice is my precious. You can't take it. Don't come near me. This is my joy.

AUTUMN

It does make me wonder, then, if we could encourage our inner child to express joy differently. Like, would you be able to encourage your inner child to be more big and moving? And if so, how would that make them feel and how would you process through that? And then on my end, could my inner child find tinier ways to have joy that weren't so loud and explosive? And if so, how would that feel for me? So I think that's another, you know, put down on my notes to kind of go through later. Is can at this point in my life, I guess, re-educate my inner child and finding a way to express emotions differently. You know what I mean? Does that make sense?

IVY

Yeah. I mean, I think both of us have something that we can take away from this and learn from it. Because in this particular challenge, I feel it ties in to our other episode that we did on how we express emotions. Because one of the things that I mentioned in that episode that my expression of happiness is very much a private thing. I don't feel safe being happy, I guess, around other people. And so I tend to withdraw when I feel any emotion but happiness. I withdraw because I'm very protective of it. And if there's other people or there's other environmental factors outside of myself, there's the chance that happiness could be taken away from me. And it's the same thing with joy.

So I feel like this is a continuation on a theme for me that I need to learn something from as well. You need to be able to find maybe smaller wish to express joy and I think also be able to start breaking down some of that censor - some of those censoring messages. I think you could express your joy bigger and not do damage. But I think maybe starting off with slightly smaller things and working your way up to that until you feel like you can fully trust yourself and you could stop censoring yourself would be helpful for you.

And for me, maybe I need to find somebody who's down to dig around in a bag of rice or do other simple pleasures. Which I guess to a certain degree I do have that in my relationship because a lot of those little things that I like doing, Kelvin and I do those together. Like going camping and digging for rocks and digging and doing all of that stuff. Like I do kind of have that in my current relationship. And maybe that's part of why my current relationship feels so safe is because I have a little bit more freedom. I feel like internally my inner child feels a little bit less inhibited with my current partner because he also enjoys some of those activities as well. And I need to probably be able to extend out from that and find other people that I can also express joy around and share happy, joyous moments with without feeling like it's going to be stolen away from me.

AUTUMN

Well, if ever you want to dig in some rice together, I am totally down for that and we can actually get together next time – next time we actually are together physically, we can even do the colored rice. I don't know if you've ever done that, but you get some vinegar and some dye and then you color the rice all different colors and then you mix it all together and then you get these pretty tie dye rice. And so then it's pretty and colorful and you get to stick your hands in it. It's pretty sweet.

IVY

I'm on board. I'm on board for this now.

AUTUMN

We'll go digging. Next time we're together, I'll learn to express joy tinily. And you can learn to express joy with somebody else, which will be me.

All right, so let's go ahead and go on to challenge number seven. And this is to come up with three positive affirmations for your inner child. So positive statements that will help your inner child feel happy and have good self-esteem. So I don't know. I feel like this one's going to be pretty challenging. So let's go ahead and pause and try to come up with three positive affirmations for your inner child.

[FUN MUSICAL PAUSE]

Okay. Coming back from challenge number seven, coming up with three positive affirmations for your inner child. This was really hard for me to do in two minutes, I'm going to be honest. Ivy, how did you do with it? Did you get all three? Was it easy? Was it hard?

IVY

I feel like regardless of the amount of time, I would have had a hard time with this. My inner child has so many deep-rooted insecurities and feelings of unworthiness that almost everything that I was thinking of that was really positive, she was like, Yeah, don't lie to me. And so I had to try to find compromises. I had to try to find messages that were more neutral because anything that was blatantly positive, she felt like was a lie. And if it was a lie, she didn't want to hear it. And so that's what made this one really challenging for me.

My inner child just even existing. It feels like it's not okay for her. Like she feels like it's not even okay for her to exist. And so to say anything positive about her or anything that would give her hope feels like a lie to her. And so it was really a challenge for me to find something, find messages that were neutral enough that she was willing to consider accepting them, if that makes sense.

AUTUMN

That totally makes sense. And it's also very super sad as well. This one was challenging for me too. I did okay with the younger portion of me, but I also wanted to throw in one for like the adolescent part. And that's where I really stumbled at that point was with the adolescent part. My younger childhood, like I would say probably from six-years and under, was not anywhere near as horrible as my childhood from six on. And so that younger self was more that idea of I am positive. I am good. And so I could tell her those positive messages.

When I tried to come up with something for the adolescent, though, there was a lot of pushback because positive affirmations are something you tell yourself to remind yourself that you're okay or that you're good, or to help you boost your self-esteem. And there was a lot of pushback from the adolescent self because she was tired of doing everything her damn self. And so the idea that now I also have to tell myself that I'm good and I also have to take care of my mental health and I also have to do this like, fuck this. I don't want to have to have this additional responsibility put on me. I'm already dealing with too much.

And so when it came to the adolescent self, it was very, very hard to come up with any sort of statement that she was okay with saying. Not because she wouldn't believe it, but just because it was too much of a burden to have to deal with that, to have to do that herself, to be the only one reminding her of those things. So that's where my difficulty came in. So did you come up with any phrases at all, Ivy?

IVY

Yeah, I did. I mean, I want to note really quick, for the sake of your adolescent inner child, like as an outsider, I want to say to that part of you that that is really sad that you were put in that position, that you had to feel that way, that you had to take care of everybody else so much that being able to even do seemingly simple self-care things for yourself, it was too overwhelming, was too much of an additional burden. What you feel there is valid and it is justified that you felt that. And it's also incredibly sad and bullshit that you were put in that position. And I want to say that from as an outsider to that adolescent inner child part of you, because I think she needs to hear that from somebody other than you and other than from herself.

AUTUMN

And I'm all teary eyed. I'm like, Oh, I appreciate that, though. Thank you.

IVY

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I just felt like that was important because it seemed like she based on what you said, she really needed to hear that from somebody else. Because, yes, that that situation that you were put in, that she was put in was really shitty and she should have never been put in that situation. And you should never have had to see caring for yourself as being an additional responsibility or a burden. You should have been allowed to have the room to grow and develop and to just focus on yourself because that is what childhood should be. And that was an opportunity that you were robbed of.

Anyway, yes, I did come up with a few messages. My inner child does not really believe them, but she is willing to accept that they are not fully lies. The first one that I came up with and like I struggled to come up with it, anything other than this, this one took me a little bit, but I finally got it. But then I had a really hard time coming up with anything other than this because she was so focused on it as being the only thing that mattered. The first one I got was, It's okay for you to exist.

Because she is always felt like a burden. All stages of my inner child, all of those years, I felt like I was a burden to everyone around me and I definitely got a lot of that messaging when I was growing up, both directly and also subliminally. That I was what ruined our family. That after Mom had me, her postpartum depression was so bad and things deteriorated after I was born, and so I ruined everything by even coming into existence. And that is something that's that I still struggle with as an adult.

The idea that it's even okay for me to exist, I have tremendous guilt still about even existing at all. So she's I am at a stage now, I'm at a place in my healing work and the inner child work that I've been doing with my therapist that my inner child is willing to accept the possibility that it might actually be okay for me to exist. She is unwilling to accept that any messages like you are loved, you are wanted, you are worthy. Those are things that she looks at and she's like, okay, those are lies. But she's willing to potentially accept that there is a possibility that it is okay for her to exist.

The next one that I came up with was you are allowed to feel. Which that one she did not really fight with a whole lot. That one was like a relief for her to hear because she never felt like she was allowed to feel because everybody else around her, their emotions were so much bigger. Everybody else mattered so much more than her, especially our parents. And so just being told that this stage in my healing that I am allowed to feel. And that my inner child is allowed to feel is kind of like a weight off of our shoulders. That like, okay, feeling is kind of painful, but this is this is good. Like I need to be able to do this.

And then the last one that I came up with was just, you can be pretty. Because I have never felt like I am attractive or that I am pretty. And that was always something that was very, very important to my inner child. She just wanted so much to be pretty. She wanted to be like a Disney princess or a heroine in a movie. Like she wanted to be really pretty because she associated being pretty with being loved. And while Adult Me understands that there doesn't need to be a correlation between being pretty and being loved, my inner child does not yet understand that. She also does not yet feel as though she is pretty, so telling her that she's pretty feels like a lie to her, but telling her that she can be pretty, that there's potential there. That one she is willing to accept the possibility of.

AUTUMN

I didn't think this one was going to be so like emotional. I thought it was going to be like positive and lifting. But this really - this hit some hard stuff. I don't know about the other listeners out there, like how it was for you, but for me and Ivy this really hit some hard stuff. And it makes it a little more, I don't know, compounding or challenging in some ways because Ivy and I are siblings and we did grow up together. So some of the messages we did receive as children did in part get perpetuated or, you know, told to us by one another to some degree, whether directly or not. And so it's it's really complicated, I feel.

And so I didn't - I was going to wait till after the podcast, but since, you know, we've already gone down the emotional rabbit hole and tears are out here, you know, maybe we'll edit it out. I don't know. I just - Ivy wanted to speak to that adolescent part of me and I wanted to - freaking tears - and I wanted to speak to that child, part of her. Especially that first message that it's okay to exist. And just say thank God that you do. Because I could not have - I could not have made it to this point in my life without you. You are the most important thing in my entire life.

It's not just okay that you exist, but at least this human is really, really fucking grateful that you do. And I say that not because of the good things or in spite of all your quirks and your symptoms and your issues and your annoying singing as a child. I say it because of all of those things. I love when we're talking and you go off on tangents. I love having the memories of you singing those Showboat tunes. I mean, all these things that you think are impossible to deal with that make it so difficult for us to work together are the things that ultimately make me smile, because they're you and I love you and I love having you in my life. And I'm really grateful for you. So I don't know if that's too emotional or too personal if we need to cut it out later, but I wanted to say that.

IVY

Thank you. I don't really know how to respond to that because it's just - it's not that I don't believe you. I do believe you. It's just a lot for me to take in because it's just been - it was just all of those years of just feeling like my existence was damaging. And you never said that to me directly. But I also knew, like, the burden that you had on your shoulders taking care of the entire household. And I was part of those responsibilities that you had. And so obviously I've always felt guilty about that, even though you never did anything to make me feel guilty about it. So to know that you felt like I was an integral part of you being able to survive that situation at all is really overwhelming in a positive way. Really overwhelming for me to hear.

It is interesting because when you were saying all of those things like my inner child, when I visualize her, she is very often completely off by herself. She keeps a distance from absolutely everybody. But when you were saying those things, I had this visual of her like kind of slowly approaching and she was kind of like standing behind me, kind of like peeking out around my leg the way that I used to do with our parents when I was little. I was like, I was so shy, painfully shy and would stay behind our parents and I would peek around them when people would talk to me. And I, during, while you were saying those things, my inner child was doing that.

She was kind of standing behind me like peeking around and looking at you while you were saying those things, which is a huge step for her. I'll probably actually bring up to my therapist the next time that I talk to her because she does not interact with anyone. She doesn't even interact much with the other internal parts of me. She stays very much to herself and keeps a lot of distance between her and everyone. So obviously that had some sort of impact on her for me to have actually felt her coming up and even being present and hearing that from you. Because normally she's just so disconnected from everything and everyone around her.

AUTUMN

That is so super awesome that she was able to respond to that, to feel that. All right, all right. All right. So we're going to recenter here. I'm going to recenter and finish this podcast out.

All right. So, okay, the phrases I did come up with for my younger child were I am good. Initially I said, you are good. And I'm like, no, these are for my inner child, so I need to rephrase that. I am good. And I don't know that that just felt better for a Little Kid Me and Adult Me. And I know that's so ridiculously simple, black and white, but that's what the little kid needed. Like, I'm not a bad girl. I am a good girl. I am good. And so that was very good for her.

The other one was, it's okay to make mistakes. And that - that's one I don't know if I believe yet. Little Kid Me, Teenage Me, Adult Me, I don't know yet, but I'm going to keep with that one. I think I'm actually going to add this to my positive affirmation list. It's okay to make mistakes.

And then again, like I said, for the adolescent one that I was trying to come up with, I couldn't come up with anything. So I just – hug. Like that was it. Like an external individual or myself as an adult to just provide that feeling of hug and love. And you don't have to do this alone. I know you did at the time, but you have resources here.

And even more than that, you know, like I was saying with Ivy, I didn't do it alone. Then it felt alone. But when I look back on it, I wasn't. I did have support and a lot of that support was from Ivy being there, even though she was six years younger. She was my world. And so there was a lot of support there. Even as much as I was taking care of her, she was equally taking care of me. And so being able to give that adolescent kind of that figurative metaphorical hug helped her to relax her shoulders enough to really then understand that she's not alone, nor has she ever truly been alone.

IVY

This one did get really emotional. I also did not expect this one to be so emotional because when we were putting together this lesson, we were like, This is all inner child play. So we should keep it light. I thought too. Like Autumn. I thought this one was going to be a pretty simple, light, fluffy, fun one. I was not prepared for the emotional onslaught, but I think in some ways that is also relevant to this sort of activity.

Because whether you're doing deep cathartic inner child work or you're just trying to connect with your inner child in a playful way, there are a lot of unexpected things do come up. You can think that something is going to be light and playful and it hits you like a ton of bricks. And then there's other things that you think will hit you like a ton of bricks. But then you find that they're not as scary as they used to be because you're in a different space in your life now and you've done some healing and it's not as hard as you thought it was going to be. It's not as scary as you thought it would be.

And I think that's one of the most important takeaways from any kind of inner child work or play, is that there's a lot of unexpected things that come up, especially unexpected emotional things. And some of those moments are triumphant and some of those moments are cathartic and some of those moments are kind of painful and scary. And it's all part of the process and it all is equally valid. And it's all equally important. The happy, fluffy good stuff is just as important as the deep, cathartic, painful things. And sometimes you get a little bit of both in one. And I feel like that's what Autumn and I got in this one, especially in our interaction with each other. We got a little bit of both.

Even though this ended up being much more emotional than we thought it was going to be. I think we both got something good from it, even though there was some pain in it too. And I hope that any of our listeners who are doing these activities, that they also have somebody that they can do this activity with as well. They have a close friend or family member that you can maybe do this set of challenges with that maybe you can play off of each other and give each other feedback. Because I do think that's also kind of an important part of inner child work as well, is being able to have somebody that can validate for you and to see you express things and to embrace you when you express those things. So I hope that our dear, wonderful listeners, I hope that you guys have somebody like that too, or that you can find somebody that you can do this with. Because it's pretty awesome when you can have that moment of connection not just with your inner child, but with another person's inner child as well, whether you're related to them or not.

AUTUMN

And I would say right along with that, the idea of not just validating the emotions and the experience that the other person has, but validating that inner child. Like you said, being able to see that other person's inner child and having that inner child know that they are seen. Because I do feel like a lot of inner child work, it is always done in this solo manner and so you don't get that external validation from the inner child. And so if you can pull that in, oh my God, so much the better.

All right. So let's go ahead and go on to the last challenge today. And this one will hopefully be a little lighter. You know, end the episode on a more positive happy note here. And so this challenge is allow your inner child to wish upon a star. And so for this, we're going to go ahead and pause the clock. And essentially you're going to give your inner child at least two minutes to wish for something to hope, to believe, to look for the future. So let's go ahead and pause and give your inner child a chance to wish upon a star.

[FUN MUSICAL PAUSE]

Okay. Coming back from our last challenge today, number eight, allowing your inner child to wish upon a star.

This one was actually pretty easy to me, and it actually ended up making me really, really happy because I'll admit, like when I started thinking about this, it took me a few seconds, you know, what does my inner child want? What are they hoping for? You know, all those age ranges. If it's trying to like, come up with something, one big thing that all of them could hopefully have a wish for. And it occurred to me, what I wish for is this. Which is my life. Having a close connection with my sister, having a safe place that I can live and be accepted, having a relationship with somebody that is loving and supportive and picks up the slack so I don't have to do everything. All of those things that are my life, that are the important core parts of my life. That's what my inner children wished for. And I was like, Fuck, yeah, nailed it.

IVY

That's awesome. I am glad this one has ended up being a lighter one for both of us then, because mine also made me happy. My first thought when I was getting ready to do this, it's like, okay, what did my inner child always wish for? And the primary thing I always wish for was to find my person. And I realized I didn't need to write that down and make that my wish because I thought I have found my person. So that made me happy because I do have that. The relationship that I'm in right now is one that is very loving. And he is not just my romantic partner, but also my best friend. And like he’s a huge part of my world and I'm so thankful that I found him because I feel like I've found my person that I really connect with. And so I was pretty stoked about that because I was like, Oh, that wish came true.

And okay, well now what is there that I still wish for? Because, I mean, I already have a close relationship with Autumn and I have some close relationships with some other friends of mine that mean a lot to me. So that takes care of all of those sorts of connections my inner child always wanted to. And the only thing that I didn't have is something that I hope that I will have in the future. And I, much like when I was a child, really enjoy daydreaming. And so I was trying to imagine what it is that I wanted. And I got all sorts of details and I could have gone on writing forever because my inner child got on a roll.

But what she wants - and I'm going to read verbatim what she wrote down as much as she could on this Post-it note. She says, I wish to live in a little house in the country with a garden and farm animals. I want some dogs and cats. I want warm summer breezes, a wraparound porch with a porch swing, wind chimes and hummingbird feeders. That's where she was about, which is what I am working toward, essentially. But that's the only thing that she really feels is lacking now from her life and from my life.

But I just thought it was like the little details were cute to me. She specifically was wind chimes and hummingbird feeders and a porch swing in the warm summer breezes.

AUTUMN

I like that. That's adorable. And I feel like my inner child is like, yes, that. That's what I want now. To do that. A little bit, you know, copycatting but also at the same time, hell yeah. Porch swing and hummingbird feeders all of me wants that. Adult and Inner Child now as well.

IVY

Yeah, I mean adult me wants that too. I've been working towards that for a while. It's just it's nice to see that my inner child is on board with it and that she has even more specific ideas about what things we need to have. I do - I mean, she had a whole list of farm animals she wanted too, but I was like, we don't have very much time and this Post-it note is not very big. So I'm just going have to throw a blanket over this and just be like farm animals. That’s what we're going to have to do. But now she's coming up with all sorts of little details. She's gone fully into day dream mode and is getting all sorts of visuals that she's built about this amazing thing she's going to live someday.

AUTUMN

That is absolutely awesome. And hopefully maybe you can find time to let your inner child daydream and play out all those things. Whether you end up journaling those things or you just end up thinking about them.

And hopefully after listening to today's episode, you've gotten a little bit more in touch with your inner child and will be able to figure out how to interact with them a little bit more frequently and give them a little bit more free rein so they can daydream or journal or come up with positive affirmations or just play and have a little bit of joy in life.

We definitely hope that you enjoyed listening and we definitely, definitely, definitely want to hear about your experiences. If you did this challenge with us, talk to us, write us, email us social media as anything, and let us know how it went for you. What was challenging? What wasn’t? What discoveries did you make? Whatever you're willing to share with us, we would love to hear it. Ivy, could you please tell them how they could contact us?

IVY

Yep. You can find us on our website www.differentfunctional.com. There's a contact form on there that you can reach out to us from. You can email us directly at differentfunctional@gmail.com. We are on Facebook and as different functional and we are on Instagram and TikTok as a different_functional. So you can reach us at any of those spots and we would love to hear from you about your experiences.

And if you - let us know too, if you ended up doing these activities with another person and how that part of it went as well, was it fun? Was it emotional? Did it draw you closer to the other person? Did you feel like you couldn't do it with another person? Was it too vulnerable and you just needed to do this on your own? We would really love to hear. Anything you want to tell us about your experiences with this ff you tried it out.

And we hope that you did because it is very hard for our adult brains to connect with our with our inner children. And it is a very important thing for us to be able to do. And sometimes you have to kind of poke and prod at it by doing activities that activate that more childlike part of you. So we do hope that you guys did some of these activities, even if you didn't do all of them. We hope that you enjoyed it and we really hope that you'll reach out and tell us all about it.

And if you're enjoying the podcast and you think other people would enjoy the podcast and that maybe other people would enjoy doing the activities in this episode, you could be so super awesome and tell people about us. Because word of mouth is still the fastest way for us to get exposure and to spread the word about our podcast. Podcasting is a pretty oversaturated field at this point, so if you guys are enjoying the podcast, please do tell others about us. Get our name out there. Share some of our posts on social media. Just anything and everything. If you think you know anybody who might be interested in the podcast, please let them know about us.

And if you could go out of your way just a tiny bit and leave us a rating and a review, that would be amazing. And we would be forever grateful to you. Not just adult us either, but like, you know, our child selves too would be super stoked if you guys would leave us a rating or review.

AUTUMN

And we do appreciate those of you out there that are. I've seen a lot more interaction lately with the likes or the hearts. Anything like that is really appreciated. Even if you just comment a thumbs up or you comment a heart, all of that helps us in the algorithms. And trust me, both me and Ivy know how hard it can be to come up with resources at the end of the day, even to do something as simple as fill out a contact form or leave a rating. And so even if you just give us a heart on TikTok or you comment same or anything, it's really appreciated.

So we do appreciate those of you that are listening and are interacting with us on social media. And we, of course, thank you for listening today. As always, remember, different does not mean defective.