Who is Pollychrome?

What's an inner child you say? It's a way of looking at yourself, by dividing your personality into three: Parent (or Critic); Adult; and Child. These divisions come from a system of reference known as Transactional Analysis.

The inner Parent represents all that you've learned from your parents and society in general about what is "right" and "wrong". It is very critical and quick to make value judgments on other people and yourself. I have an over-critical inner parent.

The inner Adult is that part of you that relates and transacts with other people on a rational or logical basis. It responds in a manner that is appropriate to the situation (sometimes). This is where you use your wits an intelligence instead of emotions or assumptions.

The inner Child is that part of you that emotes, where you can still feel 10 years old or so. It's not rational at all, and seeks reassurance and comfort where possible.

In some ways I grieve and mourn for a lost childhood. I'm sure my parents were as loving and supportive as they could be, but somehow childhood seemed one long nightmare for me. Maybe I didn't understand a lot of things, maybe my epilepsy warped my viewpoint and self worth, maybe a million things. I'll never know for sure. In the last few years though, I've been facing this issue of lost childhood with surprising results.

Pollychrome is the name of my inner child, and she's a girl. Why pick this name for her? Well it came to me in a dream, and later I used it for a character in a play I wrote (see below). I'm also pagan, and when I was initiated I made my spirit/magic name "Pollychrome, daughter of two rainbows". I figured that magic came from the heart, so this name was recognition of that.

Later, I found that the name came from an Oz character. When I read about her, I realised that as a child I'd probably read or heard those stories, and she'd left a lasting impression on me. So you see, that's what makes me a woman. Forget about chromosomes, forget about hormones. These things don't make one a woman, they just make you feminine. What makes a person a woman is how they feel inside about themselves inside. I feel this way about me, and my body image is that of a woman.

My core identity had finally surfaced with my transition. Over time, the initial guilt I'd felt (of "letting others down" by no longer being who I thought they wanted me to be) went, to be replaced by an inner knowledge that what I was doing, and where I was headed was the right path for me. And yet emotionally I just didn't feel adult, I felt like a 14 year old. That inner person had remained safe buried within my core, but had not grown in maturity. I felt a desperate need to connect, to be whole in this way.

My first taste of this came about 14 months into my transition. I was away from work on sick leave (after discovering that my job was going to be phased out, and receiving a death threat), and had just decided to go to Sydney to see if this would help resolve my problems (it did). I went to a massage clinic where I knew the owner. One of the people there, Rowena, suggested that I try a Reiki massage. This style of massage relies on a "laying on" of hands, rather than more vigorous techniques. It is a stillness and firmness that does the work.

So here I was, lying on the table experiencing all this, when suddenly deep feelings of remorse, anger and sorrow welled up inside of me. They were stronger than anything I'd experienced for years. Rowena talked me through it, encouraging me to connect with my feelings. It was my inner children talking to me. I had more than one, there was a boy and a girl. The boy was all full sorrow and pain. The girl was full of anger and hurt. I just lay there and cried, allowing myself to feel fully these emotions in relation to my childhood. Afterwards I felt much better, and bought myself (and the kids) an ice cream.

And there the story would have ended if not for follow up work done after moving to Newcastle.

After another Reiki massage at a "new age" fair (with similar results) I decided to do an "Inner Child" workshop run by the same person. I didn't know what to expect. The workshop was in two parts -- contacting the hurt child, and contacting the angry child -- and I was told to bring a clipboard (with pens & paper) and a pillow. Both sessions followed the same format.

First we (there were about six at the workshop) would relax, and put our feelings back to childhood. Then we would have a dialogue with ourselves on paper! This meant writing and drawing with the less dominant hand to represent our inner child, and with the dominant hand to represent our current selves. Frankly, I hadn't expected it to work, or maybe to work too well. What if I got the boy (it was an all women group)? Well, it worked with a vengeance!

In the first session I drew myself (with the non-dominant left hand) as a schoolgirl of 8 running away from home. This was the hurt child, unable to take criticism and abuse from her teachers, parents, and "friends". In the dialogue with her, it was obvious that all she wanted was support and to be cuddled. I gave her my promise that I'd defend her from criticism and attack, and I mean to keep my promise.

In the second session I drew myself as a teen age Supergirl, with blood on her hands and heat vision coming from her eyes. I'd always followed the Supergirl comic, so I guess this was a natural choice. This one was the angry child of 13, and was she angry! She wanted to live, to be the person she knew she was, regardless of whatever anybody else thought. And she was angry with me, because I hadn't the strength in the past to make my inner feelings known. There was just so much anger. To help disperse it, I went into the next room (in the company of the facilitator) and proceeded to throttle, bash, stab, club, throw and generally pulverize the pillow that I'd brought with me. After 5 minutes of maniacal rage, it went.

At the end of each session we tried a meditation where we visualized ourselves going back in time and joining with the inner child contacted in the session.

In the first session, I imagined the pillow to be my hurt child, and hugged it with all my might. I visualized taking her within myself and integrating her fully as me. In the second session I imagined going to the back yard of my parents to meet the angry child. She was there alright, as was the boy. He didn't say much when I suggested he come back with me, but she exploded and went for my throat.

I guess I have a lot of anger at myself for not transitioning earlier. But what's done is done. And now that I have started down the right path, there's no going back .

Now it may be that you've read the above and thought "Just what is this rubbish that Laura's going on about!?" It does seem an odd and unexpected idea, doesn't it, to have an inner child within oneself? And yet, whether the inner child exists as a real or imagined quality, is not the point. It allows me to get a handle on deep and buried emotions, to resolve them and heal and grow emotionally.

And all this is for Pollychrome, my inner core of being. The hardest lesson that I've had to learn is that it's ok to feel bad, to feel down, that these emotions are not bad, but part of the spectrum of who I am and how I feel. And to have a full rainbow, I need the dark and intense colours as well as the light and pastel ones. Take one colour (or emotion) away, and it's not a rainbow anymore.

And like Iris, that spectrum of emotion is important to me. Life goes on, and I learn more about myself and living everyday. I'm nurturing myself more these days. I still have a long way to go, but the adventure has only just begun. And it's not the destination that's important (we all will die after all), but the journey that counts.

Inner Child Links

Inner Child Work

...a place for inner kids. This has lots of links to other pages, including book reviews and codependency pages.

When your Inner Child is an Outer Brat

General introduction to the topic.

Inner Child - Take the Journey

General discussion on the process.

Meeting and Healing your Inner Child

Personal account of Inner child work with a link to a really good meditation.

Conversations with Imaginary Characters