Zalman Nelson - Therapist
Inner Child Healing Exercise: Discomfort

It's hard to break out, to be uncomfortable, to be okay with the discomfort and stress of challenging old ways, and unstable feeling of letting go of old ways in order to find new ones.
Not only that, we live in a culture that promotes and pushes, and praises comfort in so many ways. It's like worshipping being comfortable at all costs; as if being uncomfortable – even for a moment – would mean the end of the world.
It doesn't.
In fact, it's the way to everything we want and dream and hope of achieving. So, we have to get ourselves more okay with being less than okay, with being a bit inconvenienced or challenged or uncomfortable. The nice part is we don't have to do it for hours at a time. Rather, a few moments here and there, and then build up to longer and longer amounts of time we can be okay with not being perfectly comfortable, locked in a box. After all, the discomfort is our Inner Child, being helped to confront long-held, yet untrue beliefs about herself and old defenses. Facing our feelings is the new, healthier, more effective way to manage emotions, making it less and less necessary to run from the discomfort and emotions when they come up. We need to do some Inner Child Healing exercises to help us heal and grow.
Two-Part Inner Child Healing Exercise
Here is a two-part exercise to make it easier to start. First, aim for small discomfort sessions here and there: 30 seconds or a few moments. Notice the discomfort, the feelings, the thoughts, the context. Just observe, take it in. Connect to that Inner Kid that's feeling the discomfort, that's experiencing all the feelings. And when it feels too much, take a breath and let it go. Pack it up, put it away, and come back to it later.
For the second part of the exercise, search "feelings chart" and download it to your phone. Now, the next time you're in a discomforting moment, try to notice where in the body you feel it. And while you focus there, look through the feelings chart, and pick out a few words that name the feelings you're feeling at that very moment.
You may find the discomfort fade on its own. But for sure, make the healing exercise a daily practice: 30 seconds of hanging out with discomfort per day and you'll get more comfortable and better at it. Just like you get stronger if you work out every day.
Moreover, try to see discomfort differently. Reassociate it. Until now it's meant that you should run, hide, suppress, ignore, or distract. Now, keep reminding yourself that means you're going in the right direction, and keep going.
Tried it? Message me and tell me how it went.
#innerchildhealing #innerchildwork #emotionaltriggers #emotionalvalidation #innerchildhealingexercise ---
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