Robert Jackman

“Many people don’t realize that they have a lost inner child who makes a lot of decisions in their adult life that the responsible adult self later has to clean up. They go about their lives on auto-pilot, impulsively reacting, yelling at the top of their lungs, withdrawing and sulking, or keeping others at arm’s length because they are scared of emotional connection. They feel hurt, confused, abused, shamed, or neglected, just like they did as a child, but now they look and sound like an adult. They are unaware that a part of them is lost and emotionally stuck in place. Many people are scared to look within because they know at some level that something powerful is lurking in the shadows, carrying all of those feelings they want to avoid. The lost inner child is a part of you that is emotionally frozen in time. It is “lost” in the sense that you may be oblivious to what will later be obvious signs of communication from this part. Even though this is a part of you, it is lost because it didn’t mature emotionally with the rest of you.”
― Robert Jackman, Healing Your Lost Inner Child: How to Stop Impulsive Reactions, Set Healthy Boundaries and Embrace an Authentic Life

“interested in a subject like ornithology. Such scenarios sound innocent enough, but when we hear these comments over and over, the messages go in. This is where negative self-talk, such as I’m a bad person, I’m so stupid, Why can’t I do this better? Why are they mean to me? and What did I do wrong? comes from. We began to replay other people’s words in our heads and started believing them. This can create a lifetime habit of thought and feeling, of doubting oneself, questioning things, and being fearful of what others may say. People who struggle with such self-doubt are still attuned with themselves, but they have lost the connection to their sense of who they really are, their authenticity. They close down to their authentic self because they have given so much power to other people. They have come to believe this cloudy and incorrect perception of themselves. There is dissonance between the illusion of themselves they adopted along the way and their authentic self.”
― Robert Jackman, Healing Your Lost Inner Child: How to Stop Impulsive Reactions, Set Healthy Boundaries and Embrace an Authentic Life