Your inner child is adorable, precious and always putting things in its mouth that it shouldn't. These are simply the things kids do. But did you really mean to sign over your bank accounts, wallet and earning power to the little munchkin?
Probably not.
So what do you do when your inner child has run off with your money?
Here's how to identify that the youngest part of your psyche might be playing grown-up instead of actually growing up...
4 Signs Your Inner Child is Playing Hide-and-Go-Seek With Your Money
1.
Somebody's Playing Peek a Boo!
Yep, children love that game... they close their eyes and all of a sudden you're not there anymore. Peek a Boo!
Yes, kids can be so cute and easily misdirected, right? Well not so much. An informal survey of some really sharp little tykes I know demonstrated that they're not misdirected ~ they're practicing imagination.
Such a powerful imagination can come to haunt us however when we put that same little tyke in charge of our money. For example, a friend of mine, Jessica, recently confided some disturbing news:
"I owe more than $35,000 to the IRS. And now they're saying I didn't pay or file a past return and want me to pay double - and I already really did pay!"
I felt for Jessica, and I was also a bit surprised. She's a pretty well-put-together gal. But it wasn't even the debt that was so fascinating. It was how she dealt with it...
"I don't know what's wrong with me. I know I can just call them and set up a payment plan. It's so easy. Yet I can't bring myself to do it. I don't want to have to face them - to face this."
Jessica isn't afraid of the Big Bad IRS - her inner child is. It's the part of her that says, "I can't deal with all this grown up stuff. I don't want all this responsibility. Just give me an allowance and I'll be on my way."
Without meaning to, she's playing that same old game hoping that if she closes her eyes to the financial mess then it will miraculously disappear. She's fully aware that won't actually happen. But the power of her imagination lets her pretend it will for the time being.
2.
You keep living out the poverty oath ~ on accident.
One of the wonderful yet complex results of our struggling economy is that more and more people are becoming consultants and starting businesses because they can no longer find traditional 9-to-5 work (or don't want it). Striking out on the path of the entrepreneur or the person of service to others can be daunting though.
At some point you come up against the fear that a career and financial success may somehow oppose the heart-centered service you've chosen... or your closer relationship to God or the Divine. One of the reasons for this is that your Inner Child wants your relationship to Source to be innocent and pure, and so this part of you will often believe that to be of true spiritual service you can't sully that service with money or abundance.
Logically we know this isn't true.
Yet time and again, our energy and emotions when money and service come together, show us that at a deeper level we actually do believe it. Caroline Myss said it best: "It's not your conscious mind that's co-creating your financial situation. Your conscious mind picks up the pieces of what your unconscious mind is doing."
So if you find yourself often agreeing to barter your services, or to always give them at a discount ~ or on the flip side, you find people never want to pay what you're worth or they don't pay you for services rendered ~ this is often a signal that your Inner Child has taken charge.
The Child is the part of you that gets uncomfortable when large amounts of money are up for grabs. It says, "I can't accept that. I still have to live off an allowance {read: barely make ends meet}, I have no right to a salary."
Bartering can be healthy and even profitable. Yet for most people, it makes them feel cheated. In the end it didn't help them pay their rent or put food on the table. It just made them feel victimized and betrayed.
Know that you are worth what you want to charge. Any discomfort is your Inner Child preferring to play small so no responsibility is thrust onto him or her. Remember: your Inner Child includes the Wounded Child, which is the part of you that connects responsibility with suffering, because of all the ways it was forced to grow up too fast and suffer pain. It also witnessed all the suffering or anger the grown ups expressed ~ again, due to their responsibilities.
3.
You Approach Money as a Piece of Paper That Rules the World
Since you're here reading this, it's safe to assume that you do not abuse money to rule or harm others. Rather, most conscious people have the opposite problem: we fear money's ability to rule or harm others.
And so a funny thing happens for those of us who choose to work in the consciousness field or pursue our spiritual journey: one of the first things we do to show how dedicated we are is to try and sever our relationship to money.
But this is a child's way of seeing money. We've just made it Monopoly Money ~ a piece of paper with no value outside of the game... and our fear of that piece of paper can in turn monopolize our ability to serve.
Money isn't just a piece of paper. It's a conscious energy with which you have a relationship. It can be one of the most intimate companions you will ever have in life, and as with any intimate companion, you put that relationship in jeopardy when you refuse to look at and truly understand that relationship.
Know that money holds the energy of abundance and trust yourself to do the right thing with it. Acknowledge that you deserve to have and harness it, just as you deserve to harness powerful emotions, energy and the power of your own physical body. It's all made of the same cosmic stuff. 😉
4.
You're waiting for permission from someone else that it's okay and you can do it.
I'm no stranger to this one! My own Inner Child is deeply rooted in the Magical Child (ask any of my schoolmates how they used to make fun of me for going to "Unicorn Camp" as a child!) and so the way the Child ran my finances was largely hidden. Due to rich usage of my imagination and a sense that anything was possible, I got really good at making money, such as six figures in a single month.
But as we said earlier, kids love a game of 'Hide-and-Go-Seek,' right? So as soon as I would find money, my Inner Child would run off and hide it again! And in this way, no true wealth ever accumulated.
The whole operation remained quite hidden to me until I launched my first spiritual company, O! Lila. I felt such a calling to express from a source greater than myself that all my fears, doubts and questions about my worth reared their ugly head. It was hard to get the company off the ground.
Then one day my mom said, "Honey, you're not a kid anymore. You're a seasoned professional and you've got this! I believe in you and I know it'll be wonderful."
It was exactly what I needed to hear. In that instance I snapped out of the child of my psyche and realized that the little girl in me just needed encouragement and permission to be my own authority.
If you too have been resisting the path your soul most yearns for, because of all the financial fears, doubts of your ability or worth... sure you have plenty of logical reasons to be concerned... but most likely your inner child is asking the adult if s(he) is allowed to grow up. To be the adult. To make the decisions. To be the sovereign authority.
Turn to your sweet Inner Child and tell them, "It's okay. You can do it. I believe in you."
And then do it. 🙂
How Your Inner Child Can Support You & Restore Your Abundance
The Child is the part of you that carries hope and new beginnings. The Child will always believe in the basic goodness in you and others and in its innocence, it will think that what's best for you is to find someone to take care of you, because a child should never have to handle things themselves.
So how can you shift your relationship to money without denying or harming this wonderful, innocent and vulnerable part of you?
Give your Inner Child room to imagine, create, scribble all over the walls of your being and dream up grand visions of your new life. Give the child in you permission to be magical and then harness that child-like vision of your new beginning, project or career.
Because here's the crux of the whole money problem: You already know that there's a new avenue in life you want to pursue. But you probably tell yourself you can't do it because of money. Then maybe you kinda give it a try and when it doesn't work, you say, "Aha! See, I knew it. I can't do it."
How many times have you so dearly wanted your life to change but the reason you don't pursue that dream is for financial reasons?
Remember how we said the Inner Child can't manage money? The up-side of this is that your child within doesn't want to manage money. This means you can start to identify, using the tips above, when you're falling back into your Inner Child in relation to money.
Figure out what your Inner Child really needs: reassurance, to play, or to feel safe.
Find a way to address that part of you and then use your intention and mindfulness to bring your conscious mind out of your Inner Child and into the whole of your psyche.
Then, when you want the magical, creative, innocent brilliance of the Child, you can step into this part of your psyche for the creative process. Put it in charge of creation, mad magnificent ideas, and harness that glittering imagination to install the belief that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
So go ahead: find some crayons, gargantuan poster board and finger paints. Give your Inner Child permission to roam free and imagine whatever he or she can think of. Promise that you won't judge, criticize or even strategize any of the ideas that present themselves. You can do that later when you put your Adult hat back on. Right now, give the Child within free reign. Give him or her a voice ~ and tools to create.
And don't you dare color inside the lines this time. 😉
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