The child that isn’t supposed to grow up
365-day self-honesty challenge day 20
I learned that there is a part of us that always stays a child-like essence. The one that can’t be reshaped and moulded away from the true nature. That is the free one who flies with the wind. The one whose innocence can’t be destroyed and her fire can’t be turned off, no matter how many times she gets hurt.
She can be locked away from the sight though and prevented from being accessed but even that doesn’t make her cease. She is the one full of life and passion. Her goal is to explore and experience. She wears glasses that pierce through everything, making her see what the heart sees. Beauty even in the darkest corners.
One could call her delusional, but she is simply extremely open to taking in all that comes her way. She is this way so that she can preserve the spark that she carries. Being wired like that not to lose sight of it. She is the one that can’t push away.
The key holder of connection. The antidote to separation.
However, there is a downside. She is not able to recognize limitations and dangers. As if she wouldn’t be from this world, can’t comprehend the cruelty, not prepared or made for harshness. She is too sensitive but shouldn’t be hardened as her sensitivity is the remedy that the world needs.
She thrives with softness and only then can she open up in her full beauty, bringing nourishing light to everything she comes in touch with. Being this way, she needs guidance and protection. There is no other way. She needs to be recognized for her strengths and limitations as only then she can be preserved. Only then she can blossom.
I believe there are two main ways to harm a child. One is to prevent them from being themselves. To be trained to do the ˝right˝ thing or pushed to reach impossible standards to be accepted. Being violated verbally or in any kind of physical way.
The second one is that they are not enabled to be a child. No direction or healthy boundaries. Not being guided or contained in a healthy way. Then one has to let go of their childlike curiosity and exploration to become an adult for themselves. Taking responsibility when they are not near ready or able to do so.
I was experiencing all of the above. My template for life was awful. A parentified and neglected child is able to make themselves survive but usually not in a healthy way. Their core concept is that life isn’t safe and that you need to be prepared for the worst. All of the time. There is not much space for creativity and playfulness.
An enmeshed and abused child internalizes self-hatred, worthlessness, powerlessness, self-punishment… They don’t even know anymore who they really are. They see threats, potential pain and disappointment everywhere.
We grow up physically but how can such ˝adult˝ give encouragement, support and a sense of safety to their inner child if they have no clue what that even means? How can they keep their spark alive if they are living in survival mode?
I wish we would become safety and encouragement to each other’s inner children. To show compassion when one is trapped in their fear and make vulnerability safe. To teach healthy boundaries by example and hold accountability.
I wish we would recognize how hard it is to do it all by ourselves but it becomes easier if we do it with each other.❤️
This felt like finding a letter I hadn’t written, but somehow left inside someone else’s body.
Like watching my own inner child crawl out of your words, covered in dust, but still carrying light.
I too was the one who couldn’t grow up — not because I refused, but because the world mistook my tenderness for something to be shaped, hardened, made useful.
They mistook the fire for disobedience.
The wonder for weakness.
I learned early how to parent the storm inside me, how to anticipate the blow, how to walk through life holding my own hand.
It made me strong — yes.
But it also left me hollow in places I didn’t have the language for.
Your words reached those places.
I wish we would become safety for each other too —
Not as a performance, but as a presence.
The kind that says:
I see the child in you.
She never needed to be fixed.
Just remembered.
Thank you for this. You wrote both of us.
And I’ll carry it now, like a thread in my pocket — the kind that always leads home.
The way you speak of the inner child, not as weakness, but as something vital and luminous. That's powerful. I wish more of us learned to protect that part in ourselves and in each other. Your words are a beautiful reminder that vulnerability isn’t weakness, but a form of strength and truth. Thank you for sharing this. ❤️ It was another lovely read 🙏😊