From Childhood Dreams to a Dreamy Reality: The Power of Inner Child Work

Hey Mamas! In this episode, I'm taking a break from our usual topics to share a more personal journey with you. Lately, I've been diving deep into the concept of inner child work—reflecting, releasing, and reconnecting with who I’ve always been at my core. I’m excited to share how embracing my inner child is helping me align with my true self and core values... and now leading us into an exciting new adventure! ❤️‍🔥

We'll explore how recognizing the dreams and traits that have always been a part of YOU can shape who you are today. Whether you’re looking to reignite old passions or just want to feel more grounded, I hope this episode offers you some insights and inspiration.

Together, we’ll talk about:

• Identifying the core attributes that have defined you since childhood.
• Releasing what no longer serves you to make space for growth.
• Reconnecting with your inner child to live a more authentic and fulfilled life.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Use the link in this description to send me a direct message. Your feedback and stories mean so much to me as we continue to grow together. 💫

Transcript

Katie Kurpanek: 0:00

What has always been true about you at your core, like, who were you in your youngest self? Who were you as a kid? What did you enjoy? What were you passionate about? What did you dream about? Hello, mamas, welcome back to the show. Today's episode, we are just we're gonna go off script here we are going to talk in a way that is kind of completely unrelated to the topics that I usually cover, but I hope that you will find something valuable in it. Today, I am just in a season where I have been really taking some time to do, like a deep dive, do some inner work. Do a whole lot of reflecting and releasing and then receiving and just it's a constant, ever evolving process. Over here, we are all an ever evolving work of art, and there is iteration after iteration of yourself throughout life. That's okay. I am telling myself, that is okay. If we're staying stagnant, if we're the same all the time, then something's off. We're not growing, right? So even just this year alone, when I'm recording this, it's 2024 and I recently, you know, like beginning of the year, rebranded, right? Even this podcast, it was under a different name, my my business that connects along with it was under a business, a different name, and now everything is just honed in and focused on the Eco minded mama, right? That's you. That's me. We are eco minded mamas. And I thought at the beginning of the year that if I just rebrand and I do all this work with my business coach that, you know, all of a sudden, it would just like, click, and I would just be like, Oh, I know exactly what to talk about now, and I know exactly who I'm talking to, and I do, in a sense, I know who I'm talking to, and I'm so glad you're here with me, but I've, I've been still kind of like not floundering, but just feeling out like, what exactly do I talk about? So all that to say, I took the month of July off so there hasn't been, you know, an episode released in a little bit just doing some of this deep work. One of the central themes that has continued to come up for me over and over and for so many of the close people in my life that I've been talking to, is this idea of inner child work, right and finding you know, doing some digging what has always been true about you at your core, like, who were you in your youngest self? Who were you as a kid? What did you enjoy? What were you passionate about? What did you dream about? And how has that partly stayed the same with you and grown with you throughout time? So much of it, I think, unfortunately, gets stifled, or just we stuff it down, because I don't know. We go through experiences in life that that dim that light, or teach us that it's, you know, actually too scary or too risky to, you know, continue on with these dreams that we had or something like that. I don't know there's, there's so much you could go through trauma like whatever it is that can change or just make some of those parts of you go dormant, but I don't think they're ever fully gone. And at the core of who you are, you know, there's this inner child, that youngest version of yourself, that's always been there, that's always been true. And so that's been like a central theme that that has been coming up in my life over and over and over with myself and conversations with friends and coaching. And so I've done a little digging into this, and I am excited by what I'm finding, and I just figured I would come on here and share with you this little update, just letting you know why I've been taking a little bit of a break, but also I'm coming back now, and everything that we're going to be talking about here, I'm just believing it's going to be better than ever. It's going to be more, even more grounded than than it was before. So okay, some of these things that I have found to be true about myself, consistently, the youngest version of myself, the inner child that's at my core. Now I'll list some of these things off. I have always been, and I am a lover, a connector and a helper, if you know anything about the Enneagram, and if you've been listening to this for a while, you know, I talk about the Enneagram so much. I love that tool. It's so much more than just like a Personality Typing system, you know, like you always growing up, took those different personality quizzes or whatever. But the Enneagram goes so much deeper than that. That's a whole other thing we could talk about sometime, but look into it if you haven't already. And out of the nine types, I am a type two, like fully deeply to my core, I am a type two. So the type two is the lover, or the. Helper. And that's truly, like, who I've always been, even as a child, I was like, just that kind of funny, awkward kid who would go up to somebody, you know, in a classroom like that I never met first day, and just like, hey, let's be best friends and tell me everything about your life. And like, just, let's get to the deep stuff right away, and I've I've always been that way. I want to make connections between other people too, like I want other people to feel included. I want them to feel safe and seen and and to have friendships and communities. So that's always been super important to me. I want the people in my life to feel, oh yeah, I said this safe, seen and deeply cared. For another thing that's been always true about myself, I love words, whether it's writing or reading or speaking, the written word words in general, are so powerful. There's so much transformative power there. And I've always, always connected to words and my voice in that way, I am an organized and systems based person. If my life feels disorganized or I don't have a system for something new, some new routine that's become part of it. Oh, I am out of whack. I feel so disoriented when that comes up, and it just like disperses into the rest of my life and feels kind of chaotic and my emotions are all over the place. So I'm a very organized systems based person. I want to do things efficiently. I don't want to waste time just as much as I don't want to waste anything literally here on this earth, like we talk about a lot on this podcast. Okay, another thing that's always been true, I have big dreams. I have always had big dreams, and I know that I have the power to achieve them. I think ultimately, at my core, I know that when I was a kid, I much more so felt that way. Just truly believed in myself. Like, if I have this dream, all right, I'm going to go after it, and I'm going to get it, I'm going to achieve it, and then you grow up, and then, you know that kind of changes, and that confidence gets rocked a bit. And I think that that's still true about me today, but I often will stop and freeze now as an adult, if I feel like, wait a second, actually achieving that dream feels a little bit too scary or a little bit too risky. Like, it's not even so much the fear of what if I can't make that happen. It's more so the fear of what happens if it does happen, like, what if I am actually successful? Then what? Like, it can feel so scary if I get caught up in the worry of letting other people down. That's a big one for me, especially because I am such a lover and connector and people oriented person, I don't want to let others down, and so often that will cause me to stop and freeze in the midst of going after those dreams. Okay? Ultimately, I feel connected. I have always felt connected to something greater than myself and wanting to make an impact on this world that is everlasting, for lack of a better word, but that's the word that comes to my mind, something that is greater than myself and will leave a legacy, like legacy, or have a ripple effect on next generations. That's always been true, and it's just looked a little bit different throughout my life as I've grown and then the final thing that I wrote down here, I want to see people thrive. I want to see them succeed, and I want them to feel valued and empowered as the best versions of themselves that looked a little bit different when I was a kid, trying to support people in doing that, but it's still, ultimately always been the same now. So okay, why am I sharing all this with you? Probably, in some way, it's a little bit of just like outward processing and reflecting that is helping me in this process. But also, I think that there's just so much power in doing this kind of digging for yourself and finding these things that are true about you and have always been true. And what is it at your core, inner child that you have maybe disconnected from and need to reconnect with, or it's just dimmed and you need to bring that back to life in the past month, month and a half or so of doing this kind of reflecting, I've been very on purpose about releasing things that no longer feel aligned with that like maybe I said yes to it at some point in my life, or I brought it into my life at some point, whether it's a physical, tangible thing, or it's like An experience or a work opportunity, or relationship, or whatever, that that no longer feels aligned. Or maybe I said yes to it for some reason, under some pressure, but it just actually never felt aligned. It can be so hard, especially for like people oriented beings. Yes, to let those things go when you feel like you've committed to them. And then so I've been, I've been doing work on releasing that so I'm reflecting, I'm releasing. And then the third thing is receiving. So very consciously, trying to open myself up, to receive what is meant for me, what is aligned fully with who I am at my core and what I've been put on this earth to do. And so something interesting that has come out of all of this work in the past month and a half is like a reignited dream to write a book. And I just put that out on social media, like a little, just a little teaser, of like, Hey, this is something that's coming, and I'm very excited about it. This is something that I have always dreamed of doing when I was a kid. It was, like, one of the first things that I ever thought when someone would ask me, what do you do? What do you want to do when you grow up? Like, I'm going to be an author, I'm going to write a book. And then, you know, life happens and time goes on and it doesn't actually feel like feasible, or it didn't feel like a financially they like, what's that word like, a financially well off thing that I should be pursuing with my adult life and and so for whatever reasons, this has been put off, and I've opted for safer choices, what felt safer for me. This podcast is going to continue, but it's going to become even better, because I'm finally going to be connecting it to something that is also aligned with my core self, which is going to be this book, and whatever comes after that. Maybe there will be several books, I don't know, but I feel like just opting for the podcast, or, you know, a few years ago, it was a blog. I've done video courses. There's been several iterations of my voice throughout the years, and they've all kind of felt like a safer choice than writing a book, because I think ultimately, sitting down, putting my head down, focusing on writing a book like I've dreamed of doing, has felt too scary, and it's felt a lot more intimate and vulnerable than the other ways that I've chosen to share my voice over the years. And I don't know, maybe for some of you, it's like, oh my gosh, I would never like, I would so much rather write a book or something than have a podcast, because, you know, you're putting your audible voice out into the world, and that feels too scary. But for whatever reason, for me, writing a book just has felt like such a big feat and very intimate and vulnerable and permanent, I think it just, I don't know. I don't know. So I'm still kind of processing this, obviously, but it's something that I've committed to now, because it kept coming up over and over and over, and I just know that that is my next step, that's something that I need to do. And the great thing, like something that I feel great about over this past year or more, of like several iterations of my voice, is that I've already done so much of the foundational work to bring this book to life, like so much of the content that we've covered here on the podcast or in the video courses that I've created the Eco minded mama collective, that's also not going away, by the way, but it's just going to become even more connected, like the content in the book, I think is going to provide such a more solid foundation for what we'll talk about inside the Eco minded mama collective, the online membership program. So it just is all, I don't know. It feels like pieces are coming together, and so I'm just putting this out in the world to update you and to basically hold myself accountable to going after this dream and not giving up on it just because I feel afraid or it feels too risky. Man, imposter syndrome is a beast. Like, I'm sure that you have experienced this. Like, let me know. Send me a message if you've experienced this in your own life and chasing after your own dreams, or feeling disconnected from your inner child, like imposter syndrome, and feeling like you don't actually have what it takes, or you don't actually have anything to offer this world, or who's gonna listen to you anyway, like all the awful, awful things that play in your head when you're actually committing to something that's so important, I feel like it just gets heightened. So that's definitely going on, but I feel like that's what people mean when they say to do it afraid. You know, being brave isn't necessarily like you have no fear anymore. You're just a brave person without fear. You're brave because you have fear. You're courageous because fear is present. So fear and feeling nervous and anxious, even like all these things, are definitely present for me. But I'm just choosing to do this afraid. I'm choosing to to go after it and to make it happen. So there's my update. I i Like I said, I went off script. I tend to ramble a bit when I do that, but I hope that something was helpful for you, um, encouraging, even just by listening to my own outward processing. And I would just highly, highly recommend for you right now, whatever season of life you're in to do some of that internal reflection and digging into your own inner child whenever you can, like, create a designated space from it. Maybe you need to take a break from something that you've committed to, and you know, really prioritize your yeses and your your nos. Like, tune into your body and feel out what feels like a strong yes for you right now, and what is feeling more of a no, like you're hesitant to actually go through with something, or you're just you keep trying to work towards it. Or if it's a relationship, you keep trying to, like, work on that relationship, and you just keep coming up against a wall, whatever it is like pay attention to those signs. Maybe that is something that you should not be focusing your time and energy on right now, and instead, you could disconnect from that in order to reconnect with the internal work that you need to be doing. So journaling has been something that's been super helpful for me. Again, I'm a words person, but find what's helpful for you, if you have some sort of creative outlet and and ask yourself those questions, like, what has always been true about you, your younger self and your inner child at your core, start listing those things out. Maybe they're different attributes, or maybe they're different, like beliefs that you've held on to start to list that out, you know, and find ways to reconnect with your inner child in the life that you're living right now. And it may look really slow going or just kind of unsteady and unsure of how to even do this at the beginning, but the more that you get into that habit and the more that you are tuning into that part of yourself, the bigger that she will grow, or the easier it will become to hear her voice speaking into you internally. So I don't know if any of this is making sense, but I am trusting that by putting this out into the world, anybody who is actually choosing to listen to this podcast is going to get something from it, like this podcast is meant for you if you're here, if you're listening to it. So there you go. There's my little, like, completely unrelated eco minded mama topic for you today. And thank you for being here and for listening. And, oh, there is a new feature that I want to tell you about. I just added this on to my podcast, like hosting platform, so if you click on the episode description, the show notes. One of the first things that you should be able to see is something that says, like, send Katie a message. It's a link. I want you to click that link. If you have a minute, it's like, I'm getting a text message. It's not actually going to my phone number. We are not actually exchanging phone numbers or any kind of personal information, but it's just a link that allows you to send me a direct message. Unfortunately, this podcast platform doesn't have a way for me to respond to you in that same link, but I love receiving these messages and hearing from you, and I can always give you a shout out on social media or in the next podcast episode. I would definitely love to hear your thoughts around all of this. So if you have something that you want to share about your own journey with your own inner child, work and healing, or dreams that you have, or just any way that this podcast resonated with you, maybe it's something that you want to hear about in my book, as I'm focusing on eco minded mamas and living sustainably, all the things that we normally talk about that's going to be the focus of this book. So if there's something in particular that you want to hear more about, that you want to learn more about, let me know. Click the link in the show notes. Send me a message. It's a really great way to just directly contact me. And yeah, I can't wait to hear from you and to talk with you next time, there will be a little bit of a gap in between episodes for a couple months, maybe even just one month, while I ease back into this. So instead of every week, it may be every other week for a little while, but we are getting back into regular rhythms. Like I said, this content is going to become better than ever, and so thank you for being here. I'm so glad to be with you, and I'll talk to you next time.