Rediscovering Childhood Through Your Adult Eyes

When you were growing up, you may have been told over and over, in a variety of ways, that you weren’t good enough, smart enough fast enough, thin enough, or just plain not enough of anything to please your parents.  In order to numb this crushing sense of failure and the guilt that inspired, you began to control your anger by controlling your own body–how it was maturing and what you weighed. By concentrating on food, you learned how to temporarily drive out all painful thoughts.  

Anger, fear, guilt, and shame may now be the only emotions you allow yourself to feel.  These may be the only ones you’re comfortable with because you don’t feel worthy of the others.  You don’t permit yourself joy because you have too much to feel guilty about. You don’t laugh because there isn’t any room in your heart for delight.  

The roots of your dysfunctional relationship with food go deep into your past.  You need to allow that past to come to the surface so that you can look back at the experiences of your childhood, now that you are an adult, and begin to put your life into perspective.  As a child, you couldn’t understand what was happening to you. As an adult, you must. Only then can your healing go forward.  

As you look to rediscover your childhood through adult eyes, below are questions and statements for you to answer. 

1. In my family, the thing I feared the most growing up was ______. 
2. My parents disapproved of me when I ______. 
3. These are the things that my parents put the most emphasis on when I was growing up: ______.
4. My mother’s definition of success is ______.
5. My father’s definition of success is ______.
6. To be successful for me means to be ______.
7. I turned to my physical appearance as a way to gain acceptance because I couldn’t ______.
8. I feel guilty over being abandoned for the following reasons:  ______.
9. When I was growing up, I thought the following things were wrong with me:  ______.
10. Even today my parents still want to talk about the following things: ______. 

It’s important that who you now go back and connect with the child you were, to help that child understand what happened.  You must give that child the comfort you never received and provide that child with a sense of your protection. That child still remains inside of you.  Until you can give it what it needs, your inner child will thwart the journey toward healing. The child inside is pleading with you not to abandon it on your way to health.  

If you have a doll or stuffed animal, especially one from your childhood, get it.  If you don’t, you might want to consider buying one that you’ve seen as an adult and wished you could have had as a child.  

Hold that doll or stuffed animal.  Hug it close. Give it all the comfort and love you never received.  Tell your doll all the words of affirmation and acceptance you so desperately wanted to hear while you were growing up.  Hold your doll and tell yourself (as if it were you as a child) that it wasn’t your fault. Remind your doll that you’re here now, and you’re not going to leave.  

Keep your doll near to remind you of the child within.  For right now, funnel your feelings through the doll. Later, you’ll be able to see it for what it is — a doll — and learn to give those feelings of love and comfort directly to yourself.  

Dr. Gregory Jantz is the founder of The Center • A Place of HOPE in Edmonds, Washington, voted a top ten facility for the treatment of depression in the United States. Dr. Jantz pioneered Whole Person Care in the 1980’s and is a world-renowned expert on eating disorders, depression, anxiety, technology addiction, and abuse. He is a leading voice and innovator in Mental Health utilizing a variety of therapies including nutrition, sleep therapy, spiritual counseling, and advanced DBT techniques. Dr. Jantz is a best-selling author of 37 books and has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, and CNN.