Dr Claire Mayers

01/09/2025

Now this is the sort of meditative practice i could actually do!

3193 likes, 24 comments. “Bubbles work the same ”

01/09/2025

When we grow up in childhood trauma, we get through it via magical thinking, hope, and not thinking about a perpetrator's behavior. ⁠
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This crucial survival strategy keeps a child going through the impossible, such as having a narcissistic parent. ⁠
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That strategy was a dream that the abusive person would change and see us, and thinking that things getting safer was just around the corner. ⁠
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As adults, we are often still stuck in similar hopeful thinking, which was a setup from childhood. ⁠
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It takes a lot of re-parenting work for our inner adult to take over and make decisions on behalf of the inner child, who survived by thinking of the potential versus the reality. So it's a battle. ⁠
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But it is very healing for our inner child to see the inner adult take a big risk and get out of something for their benefit.

01/09/2025

When a child is growing up in childhood trauma, they will quickly learn to hide things. Young children are already conditioned to know that talking about things going on in their world will make them worse. This is especially true at home, which is where we learn to hide. ⁠
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When we are being bullied by another child, bringing it up with a parent usually brings indifference, criticism and a big reaction. It's better to hide it. (problems)⁠
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When we have an abusive adult at home, we don't bring it up at school for not wanting to bring on more trouble. We are often specifically told to not talk about what happens at home, or an outside perpetrator will make the same threat. It's better to hide it. (abusers)⁠
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When we don't have our homework done because of domestic violence in our home the night before, we try to hide or lie about why we don't have it completed. We're too preoccupied to know to ask for help around homework, so we do our best and present we don't need it. (needing help) ⁠
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As adults, we can find ourselves still hiding. ⁠
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Some examples:⁠
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*not telling a close friend about our abusive partner⁠
*not asking for help from HR about a stalking coworker⁠
*not wanting people to find out about our coping strategies ⁠
*not wanting to have partners meet our family, so we make excuses⁠
*not asking for needs with roommates or work, so we pretend they ⁠
are not issues for us when they are⁠
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Our inner adult can recognize that we have some power in our adulthood that we never had growing up. Sometimes that power is just telling the truth⁠
about what's going on for us to fight through the urge to not make waves and create more trouble for ourselves. ⁠
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You're not in trouble like you used to be.

31/08/2025

If you know, you know.

The range in the relationship with the narcissist is minimal. It is either on or off. You give attention and praise, or you're the enemy. This was my experience with my father. ⁠
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But what causes our enemy status as children is a setup. An adult couldn't handle that impossible tightrope walking with a narcissist. It's exhausting for a healthy adult. For a child, it is a nightmare and overwhelming. ⁠
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But as children, who developmentally think in black and white, they have to buy into the "we're ok, we're not ok" cycle with the narcissistic parent. We don't have the abstract thought skills to recognize the patterns of never being good enough. ⁠
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We needed help to see that the pattern is a game being played by someone who is mentally unwell. As adults now, reality isn't about our childlike optimistic view that the parent will be happy if we finally get it together and stop making mistakes.⁠
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As we heal, we excuse ourselves from that dumb game with narcissistic people. As we mature, we get disgusted with a narcissistic parent’s audacity and oppression. This disgust is a good thing. It means you have some power now.⁠
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The work though involves healing our tendency to live in a switch-like relationship with people in our present. We might project onto our partner that they are secretly mad and the blow-up will come soon. That's the thing to heal. Remove the game player parent from our present and not chase ok while being vigilant about when not ok is coming.

29/08/2025

28/08/2025

My mentor Amanda Curtin would often say this phase in our group work.⁠
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What I like about the inner child concept is that we can personify our subconscious from a heart space and start to make actionable steps in⁠
change.⁠
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We can do this by:⁠
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*Dialoguing with our inner child and helping them with situations in our present.⁠
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*Creating a healthier space in our lives, from choosing better partners to changing our environment for their benefit.⁠
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*Create healthy boundaries for the first time by teaching them the goodness in saying no to not bringing a bazooka to a toothpick fight when we are in conflict with someone or speaking up appropriately.⁠
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Inner child work only works with actionable steps in change. We can't just have brief heart-connecting moments with them and then tune out or not show up.⁠
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What is challenging is that we often parent ourselves how we were parented. So we all start reparenting from an inconsistent place and working towards more consistency and little victories.⁠
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But if we leave it to a once in a while thinking of them while still having our childhood trauma run us, we might remain stuck.

27/08/2025