Thinking of my inner child a lot lately

Nowadays, when I can't be kind to myself and I am worrying, I sometimes think about my inner child. You know, how I look in pictures from years ago. That super short hair and that adorably stupid not-know-anything expression. It's hard to be mad at her. 

I think I recognize the feeling of being scared and lost in her, from long past. That's why now I think it's super hard to be mean to her, to want to protect her at all costs. It's not her fault. I think we become adults but maybe our emotions are still felt at that original primal level. We learn how to deal better as adults. I see her then, trying her best to impress me, work through all this messiness and confusion. Sometimes even hunger, frustration and so so much fear. She's trying to throw up some answers to help me solve my problems and she's struggling with that burden. I feel her scared and upset by disappointing me. But like me, even she just doesn't know. Both are on hamster wheels.

I think I haven't given her any positive reinforcement or validation in so long. As an adult, I feel stupid validating my little wins - like it is a consolation prize. When I'm with her though, I want to celebrate her every fucking tiny step. Because she just doesn't know.

It's easier to tell her that's she doing well and I appreciate her trying so hard. That, my friends, makes me cry. It's lonely and hard to build any kind of self confidence and validation mechanism from scratch, from below negative. Especially when I suddenly feel the need to develop this fast and I see things around me that I value more than I value myself. Unlearning your life long ways are.. harder than they look.

Thank God I wrote down things that help though. May I just somehow be able to clear the noise and go back to find my inner navigation system. It's kind of dead and buried but I'm yearning for it to resurface. Living without is.. feels unsustainable. It's important for me to remember what my university coach said too, when I told her I don't know how I through 28 years of my life without knowing/developing all of this. She said I realized it now, some do 20 years later and that everyone works on their timelines. 

What would I have said if someone 20 years older than me decided to change as a person? I would have empathised and said I know it's horrible and I know life must have been so hard for you but at least we are here now. I would have said maybe we can't have control over everything but there is some value to who you've been and what you've done in the past 20 years. Life is happening even when you're not self-actualized, when you're happy and when you're sad and learning everything in between. Life is happening and you're participating and living so might as well be curious.