We Are All Just Children

Inner bonding is a psychological concept pioneered by Margaret Paul where we all have an inner child that requires parenting from our inner adult. It is one of the many theories that illustrate that in our essence, we are all still children.

The human brain has evolved to require predictive environments to provide it with comfort and security. The brain's primary objective is survival and it ensures its survival by utilizing the mechanism called prediction loops.

Although the infinite potential we all have is tapped into by utilizing the brain's amazing ability to actually strive in unpredictable environments, this article is about what keeps us operating as children, our prediction loops.

We form our prediction loops the moment we are embryo’s. We start to 'learn' our environments during this time, wire ourselves to our environments and our prediction loop formation does not stop until we are about seven or eight years old at which point we start to transition into perpetuating the prediction loops we were conditioned to. It is in this sense we are all stuck in our lives and are still children. Although life experiences will influence trajectories in our lives, our prediction loops are the foundational elements that determine our well, loops.

The scope of all of our fears, insecurities, and our subjective issues are all the same. We all have similar fears of abandonment, worthiness, rejection, inadequacy, etc. We are all just modulated differently but ultimately we have the same issues. We are all children. Fear manages us all, we all have insecurities, we all have our own issues to manage. And most of the time, we are not aware we are operating this way.

Inner bonding exercises empower us to be a loving parent to our inner child. The inner adult's job is to satisfy the emotional needs of self-esteem, autonomy, connection, and security of the inner child. The inner child is always present and always in need. If these needs are not intrinsically met by the inner adult, then the inner child will seek to have its needs met by outsourcing them extrinsically just like they did while their prediction loops were forming. We all still do this, again at varying degrees of modulation. It's what it means to be human.

When we can internalize this concept, we can be more compassionate, loving, patient and understanding of ourselves and others. This greatly enhances the relationships we have with ourselves and with others.

We are all flawed and we are all imperfect. This is reflected in our relationships with one another as well. Our relationships are flawed and imperfect. But when we can grasp the fact that we are still all children, we understand and embrace our flaws and imperfections for what they are, normal.

Reference: Inner Bonding by Margaret Paul