Befriending Your Traumatised and ADHD Inner Children

The Feel Better Every Day Podcast

You were NEVER too much.

In episode 73 of Feel Better Every Day Podcast, trauma therapist, author, producer and host Eve Menezes Cunningham shares some of her decades-long journey of Inner Child work.

You’ll learn:

• Why children with ADHD internalise significantly more criticism and shame

• How to identify different Inner Child parts / subpersonalities (playful, creative, curious, wounded)

• Eve's recent breakthrough with crisps about feeling "too much" from babyhood and how childhood coping mechanisms shaped her adult patterns

• Gentle approaches to Inner Child work that won't overwhelm you

• The Feel...Love...Heal framework for Inner Child work

You were never "too much". You were, like all babies, children and adults across this wondrous world we live in, a miraculous child deserving of love and understanding.

Whether you're new to Inner Child work or revisiting it with fresh perspective, this episode offers trauma-informed, ADHD-friendly guidance for healing those tender parts of yourself.

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel... connect with and honour your lifeforce (charge, prana, chi etc), regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from

• Love... accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing and

• Heal... collective care to turn what hurts your heart into action to help heal yourself, your family, organisations, communities and the world at large

Thanks for watching. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode. Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each week.

RESOURCES

• Episode 65 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast

• 365 Ways to Feel Better book

• the Sole to Soul Circle for deeper exploration

Connect with Eve:

🌐 thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com

📧 selfcarecoaching.net

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• Find out more about my private practice for one to one work.

If you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision).

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say "Hi" and share your questions or comments: YouTube @evemenezescunningham Substack @evemc Bluesky @eveimc TikTok @evemenezescunningham Insta @evemenezescunningham @rescuecattitude @thefeelbettereverydaypodcast Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

CHAPTERS

(0:00 - 0:19) Opening: Responsibility for keeping your Inner Child safe

(0:20 - 2:15) Introduction to the podcast and resources

(2:15 - 4:08) Episode focus: working with Inner Children

(4:08 - 6:30) ADHD, trauma, and the impact on Inner Children

(6:30 - 8:45) Using photos to represent different Inner Children

(8:45 - 11:10) Different types of Inner Children: playful, curious, wounded, needy

(11:10 - 12:47) Gentle approach and sharing experiences with Inner Child work

(12:48 - 15:50) Personal story: childhood photos and self-loathing v healing

(15:50 - 19:30) Reflections on childhood eating, parental limitations and self-compassion

(19:30 - 23:10) Accepting joyful and wounded parts of yourself

(23:10 - 26:00) Love phase of Feel… Love… Heal…: connecting with Inner Children through journalling and objects

(26:00 - 29:10) Heal phase: noticing and supporting Inner Children in yourself and others

(29:10 - 32:47) Closing reflections: revisiting Inner Children, self-compassion, and encouragement for continued work

FULL TRANSCRIPT

You're taking responsibility for keeping your Inner Child safe. You as the adult have survived and this can be transformational and a lot can come up.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

Every Tuesday I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S for that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself.

To help you create a life you don't need to retreat from and feel better every day. You can find out more at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com and you can also access information about the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and all the free resources at selfcarecoaching.net as well as ways in which, if you're interested, each Wednesday the Sole to Soul Circle members get an email and exclusive content which goes into a deeper dive around that week's podcast theme.

Today's episode, episode 73, is about working with our Inner Children. Especially with trauma and ADHD, Inner Child work can be painful. I know I've been going through a bunch of old photos and I ended up going with this as my main one to work with.

A child of the ‘70s, early ‘80s, in the Circle I'll be going into more depth and sharing some of the ways in which I'm working with photos myself and ways in which members can. It's powerful transformational work. You may well have already done some.

This podcast episode is to help you recognise that again with trauma, with ADHD, I can't remember the exact number (ADHD brain) but children growing up with ADHD, because we get things wrong, because we're called careless and told we should be trying harder, it's an enormous amount more criticism that we've internalised than our counterparts who are more neurotypical.

And that has an impact on our Inner Children. We grow up with a lot of shame.

With trauma recovery there's an enormous amount of shame where we were too little to save ourselves, but we still internalise it.

Inner Child work and be transformative and joyful and also really painful. That picture I chose, I hadn't remembered it but I was actually looking for a different picture which I remembered from when I started my Inner Child work more consciously coming up two decades ago and finding a picture of myself at age five or six on a bike in the 1970s/1980s on the cul-de-sac I lived on at the time.

When I saw it the other day it was like, “Oh what a sweet little kid!” Because I've done so much Inner Child work.

Whereas back then, I was filled with loathing and disgust for her! Like why hadn't she done more to like save herself?

If, when I'm saying to you, “You might want to find a photo to represent these different Inner Children for yourself” I'm talking to you not as a one-to-one trauma therapist but through a podcast.

I don't know who you are, I don't know where in the world you are and I am trusting you to look after yourself and your Inner Children rather than going too deep and finding it more painful than anything needs to be.

Again with trauma, with ADHD, we're used to pain, we're used to things being hard.

Inner Child work can be delightful. It can be gentle. It can be so healing but in that not overwhelming cathartic way.

Thinking about your different Inner Children, maybe find a picture to represent your Playful Inner Child. (See episode 65, too)

Your Creative Inner Child (before you, like for all of us, creating for the pure joy of it, whether it's painting or drawing or singing or playing music or whatever, games, like whatever it might have been before it suddenly became about being good at whatever you were doing).

That Curious Inner Child. You might still have that curiosity or it might have been conditioned out of you at an early age if your parents were fearful about you getting into trouble and hurting yourself.

That Wounded Inner Child. That Needy Inner Child. That Inner Child that feels Too Much, that feels not worthy, that feels unlovable.

There are going to be joyful elements, Joyful Inner Child subpersonalities, joyful Inner Children.

And also ones that you can't currently sit with.

For the Feel… part of the Feel… Love… Heal… framework, notice how you felt as I've said this so far.

Make a note of some of your Inner Children (or one, like I'm saying “some of”. ADHD brain. I generally have a list of about 60 of anything) and be open to finding a photo to represent that (or those) Inner Child(ren).

Feel free to share them with me!

I'd love to see them, tag me on my social media, the links are in the show notes. If photos feel too much. Like I mentioned, I had a terrible experience the first time I tried doing this with mine, I was just overcome with self-loathing. I used a ragdoll, I was encouraged to get a ragdoll to represent Little Me and I did some healing with that using some crystals. Some energy work around it.

Again I'll be going into more of this in the Circle tomorrow, but just take that step, just think about that Inner Child. Know that even if you grew up believing that you were too much, you weren't.

I had a real epiphany a few weeks ago and this is, I'm nearly 50, I've been working on my Inner Children for DECADES and there's always new levels of healing to come up. I was in a situation where I was on an island. An island off Ireland. And I was worried about not having food. My basic need for food not being met.

I was feeling really frustrated both with the restaurants that I'd been in touch with in advance (and then being told I couldn't even have peas with my chips, because yes the peas were vegan, but they were only available with the fish and obviously that's not vegan).

With the pepper allergy as well, that feeling. I was very much feeling unsafe. And like I was too much. I made the connection that when I went vegetarian when I was like 11, 12 my mum was working, my dad was working, I was (I didn't know it, I had) ADHD and I was very particular about what I would eat.

I didn't like vegetables and my parents kind of threw up their hands and gave up on me and I would basically have a packet of bourbons for lunch or a Feast ice cream or an iced bun. I just ate terribly for years and years and years. And then when I went back to eating meat for a few months when I was 17, 18, I had a massive growth spurt.

A few weeks ago, I made this connection when I was kind of thinking, “Oh, I don't even have any crisps to eat” and it was like, “Oh my God/dess! Yeah! Crisps were safe!!!!!”

So all these years where I've eaten more crisps, not so much recently but I'd often have like six packets of crisps for dinner. I’d think, “I'm not hungry enough to eat a meal, I'll just have a packet of crisps” and then that would become another and another and another and realising, Wow my parents did their best, I adore them and also they didn't know it was a different time, it was the ‘90s, they didn't know how to accommodate my eating and being vegetarian when not many people were. I don't know if anyone remembers Beanfeast, hideous, but recognising.

Wow, so from pre-verbal, I had internalised the idea, as a baby, that in certain situations when I was needy or when I was wounded I was too much. But where I was happy, where I was like enthusiastic and joyful and that was welcomed. That was like celebrated.

So I have a very enthusiastic nearly 50 year old that has been conditioned. And it's about me now befriending that more wounded, those more wounded parts of myself, the more needy parts of myself, the parts that still sometimes believe that I'm too much, not enough, unlovable, not worthy.

I'm telling you this because I want you to be honest with yourself about the messiness of your own Inner Children.

For the Love… part of the Feel… Love… Heal… framework, if it feels okay for you, if it's within your “window of tolerance”, sit with an Inner Child or your Inner Children.

Journal, give them a mental or physical hug, maybe choose a soft toy to connect with, maybe a fabric from a blanket, whatever it might be.

Again, you're taking responsibility for keeping your Inner Child safe. You, as the adult, have survived. And this can be transformational. And a lot can come up. So go really gently with yourself.

And for the Heal… part, think about the kids and adults in your life today. Think about what you notice, what you hypothesise about their Inner Children. Notice the times where perhaps the adults in their lives are human and snap. They don't light up with joy when they see the marvels before them, that every child being miraculous, every human being miraculous.

See if there are ways in which you can help their Inner Children and kids, appropriately obviously.

How can you help? How can you light up for other people? How can you see them in their wholeness, in their full, playful, creative, curious and wounded, needy, too muchness?

Begin to notice those opportunities. As I said there'll be more tomorrow for the deeper dive for the Sole to Soul Circle members and you can find out more at selfcarecoaching.net

And I'd love for you to just let me know how you're getting on.

Have you done Inner Child work before? How does it feel now to be revisiting it? Or potentially exploring different Inner Children, ones that you may have neglected in the past or that it's been a while since you acknowledged?

Are you excited? Are you thinking this could be really helpful but like there's a bit of dread?

Honour how you feel, thank you for listening, I'll be sharing more next week and this episode, like all of them so far, has been produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham.

I really hope that you give yourself some grace and time and patience and care and tenderness and kindness and lots and lots of love for yourself now and your earlier selves. All of them, but particularly whichever Inner Child or Inner Children have sprung up for you as you've been listening to this or pondering this. Have a delightful week and I'll see you next time.