Inner Child Work and Depression

Tapping into our inner child when navigating depression. This is a skill that I learned a few years ago when I was moving through my divorce. And I was actually navigating through a lot of grief, which in a lot of ways, felt like depression just a little bit different. So one thing that I noticed when I started to move through my grief for my divorce is I started to identify with my grief, and I did the same thing and do the same thing. When I'm depressed, I become a depressed person. I identify with my depression, and something that really has helped me is learning how to separate myself from my depression.

So rather than seeing it as who I am or my identity, it's something that I'm struggling with. And something that really helps me to do this and create the separation is I think about myself when I'm a little girl. I think about four year old Rachel, and I think about the kind of person she is and the kind of person that I imagined she would have become without any depression. And when I think about that person, that person is bubbly, joyful, curious, delighted in the world, and really just wants to be someone that creates a better life for those around her and for herself.

And she still gets sad sometimes. If things happen, she feels sad. And when I can think about that little girl experiencing something sad, she's not a depressed little girl. She's a little girl who feels something sad. And in that way, I can witness who I really am, and I can witness what I've gone through or what I'm going through and allow myself to still honor what I'm feeling and say, yes, this is something that I feel sad about. And, yes, I get to feel those feelings, and it's not who I am.

So I can put it aside for a little while, be my true self, and know that when I need to visit it and care for it, it's here. So I think allowing myself to separate things in that way has been incredibly helpful for my depression and for a lot of things that I move through in life, I'm really doing a lot of parts work. So if you're interested in internal family systems, this idea of having parts of self has been really helpful for me with my depression and also with my eating disorder and a lot of other things in my life.

So, again, that's internal family systems, and I highly recommend it. I think I have some other videos about that on my page as well. If you were struggling with your depression, please know you're not alone. I see you. And we will move through this gently, slowly, and kindly together sending all my love.