Most of what we are afraid of are: Feelings.

If we wouldn't be afraid of big, uncomfortable, new or unfamiliar feelings, we wouldn't be afraid at all.

First of all, this conversation is beyond the paradigm of good or bad. Fear is not a "bad guy". It's human, it's information, it's part of our experience here. It has also been necessary for survival in many ways for many generations.

As little children, the developmental stage that comes before self-regulation is: co-regulation.

A little baby or child needs the calm nervous system of an adult to send messages to its system that it's safe and okay to feel what it's feeling. The baby needs something bigger than them, from the outside to help soothe them.

This is natural.

As we grow out of that stage, IF we received the proper care, then we learn to regulate on our own. This is really powerful because if we learn to self-regulate we also learn: distress tolerance skills, how to stay present in discomfort (and in general) and how to navigate challenges in life.

For many individuals (maybe even you reading this post), this was not the case. Many children were raised by parents enmeshed with their own inner children, so they never got to graduate from this need for outside affirmation, regulation and calm in order to be okay on the inside.

In order to graduate from a need developmentally, a little child needs that need to be met.

If a child was never co-regulated with, progressing to the self-regulation stage can become a struggle because the foundation isn't there.

This creates an adult who may have difficulty in: making decisions, staying in more intense emotions, regulating themselves, facing conflict, communication, tolerating stress, being relational, holding themselves in fear or discomfort, and stepping into personal power. Because this adult is enmeshed with their own inner child who needs the outside’s okayness in order to be okay on the inside.

There is nothing to be ashamed of, this is just a sign of generations of people with unmet needs, raising more people with unmet needs. We are lucky to be in an age of awareness. When we recognize this in ourselves, we can do the work to un-enmesh with our own inner child, and be the "outside thing" that co-regulates with the younger parts for ourselves. This whole process can become an inside job.

This is very exciting because it gives us back our power and finally allows us to give our inner little one what it actually always needed. (This all doesn't mean we don't need support from others, on the contrary - receiving support from others is that much more powerful when it's an empowered adult receiving the support as opposed to an enmeshed child.)

Here's to awareness that leads to power and to our inner little children being given the gift of progressing developmentally because we were aware enough to become conscious to their needs, and kind enough to ourselves to meet them.