Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

One night, after leading a “True Self / Inner Child / Inner Parent” group, I was looking at the stars—realizing, a variation on a theme—“Twinkle, twinkle, little star / How I wonder “who” you are”—was to be the opening song.

Twenty years before, artist and poet, Margaret Robison, had told me that her job of tutoring Bethany, a teenager, was to help her discover who she was. I was struck by this difference from teaching, where the effort is to give information to the learner. Bethany was being empowered to know her real self.

Parents teach you what they think is best. When your life doesn’t work well, you might react in the guise of what others want you to be and not as you—the you that you don’t even know. Emotionally immature into my fifties, on my own, I parented myself while facilitating True Self groups in my Emotional Health counseling practice. 

Your true self is your inner divine child, who is loving and appreciative of you. This inner child is naturally joyful, creative, expressive, and always in touch with you. She or he is your inner presence of God, whom you seek, and at last discover in your effort of uncovering your real self.

For the groups, my creativity produced a seventy-page notebook for self-discovery, with poems, songs, relevant information, and readings from Lucia Capacchione’s Recovery of Your Inner Child. Considering a cover, I remembered a drawing my daughter, now twenty-six, had done in second grade; it was a perfect illustration of how I wanted to present the relationship between the inner child and its inner parent.

My realization is, “Your parents and the participants of your early growth years are responsible, but are not to blame for your views and your behavior, as they did their best. Where you feel let down, it is your own responsibility to help yourself grow up.”