Why The F*ck Is Your Inner Child Still In Charge?

Long before you had the language to understand relationships, you were already paying very close attention to what it took to stay connected to the people around you.

Maybe being easygoing made life smoother, so you learned not to make a fuss. Being useful got a warmer response than needing something, so you became exceptionally good at helping. If conflict felt unpredictable, you figured out how to read the room before anyone said a word. Somewhere along the way, you collected a whole set of emotional rules without realizing you were doing it.

You probably never sat down at 8 years old and thought, “Great, from now on I’ll earn belonging through chronic over-functioning.” Kids are constantly noticing what earns warmth, what creates distance, and which version of themselves feels safest to bring into the room.

Those observations eventually become instructions: do not upset anyone, do not need too much, make yourself useful, figure it out alone, fix the tension quickly, and if someone pulls away, work harder to get them back.

The frustrating part is that many of those rules actually worked. They helped you navigate relationships and environments you had very little power to change, which is exactly why they can be difficult to question later. Something that once protected you does not politely send a resignation letter when its job is finished. It can stick around for another twenty years pretending to be your personality.

The Rule May Be Old, but the Cost Is Happening Now

Adulthood can look completely different from the life you grew up in while some of those old instructions continue running quietly underneath it. You say no and immediately feel guilty, even though the person on the receiving end is perfectly capable of surviving disappointment. Someone you care about becomes distant, and before you have any actual information, your brain has opened seventeen tabs trying to figure out what you did wrong. Another person is upset with you, and suddenly fixing their emotional state feels more urgent than asking yourself whether you did anything that needs fixing.

That is where I believe curiosity becomes much more useful than criticism. Instead of asking yourself why you keep doing something you already know is not serving you, try asking what the behavior once helped you avoid.

Overgiving may have helped secure closeness. Hyper-independence could have protected you from the disappointment of relying on someone who was not dependable. Being the peacemaker might have reduced conflict in a home where conflict felt much bigger than disagreement.

Understanding that history can soften the way you see yourself without turning the explanation into a lifetime permission slip. You can appreciate why you became fiercely independent and still learn how to let trustworthy people help you. The ability to read everyone else's emotional temperature may have kept you safe once, but you do not need to spend adulthood working as an unpaid meteorologist for every room you enter.

You Are Allowed to Change the Damn Rules

I’ve always joked with my kids: “Rules were made to be broken, but don’t break the law.”

And having my kids changed the way I looked at my own experience growing up. Parenthood has a very efficient way of holding up a mirror when you were simply trying to make somebody a snack and get out the door on time.

Watching my children grow made me think seriously about what I wanted them to learn about love, conflict, safety, and their own worth. I wanted them to know that having needs would never make them a burden. Disagreement should be something people can move through and repair. Most importantly, their value should never depend on how useful, agreeable, successful, or emotionally convenient they can make themselves for someone else.

Eventually I had to confront the obvious contradiction: if I would never hand those old rules to my children, why was I still expecting myself to live by them?

That question changed the work for me because healing stopped being only about understanding why I became a certain way. I had to decide whether the rules I inherited still deserved authority over the life I was building.

This kind of change rarely arrives through one giant revelation where you suddenly become emotionally evolved and float through conflict like a monk with excellent boundaries.

You notice the old rule, feel the familiar pull, and practice choosing something different. Then you do it again and again. Eventually the response that once felt unnatural begins to feel more like you.

🎙️Why the F*ck Is Your Inner Child Still in Charge?

This week, I’m getting into why some of your strongest adult reactions can still be shaped by things you learned years ago, and what it looks like to stop letting an old survival strategy make decisions for the life you have now.

Give it a listen 🎧

The goal isn’t to become someone who never gets scared, jealous, needy, defensive, insecure, or activated again. Instead, the deeper work is becoming someone who can hear those parts of yourself without automatically putting them in charge.

You spent years becoming the person who knew how to survive under rules you never consciously chose. Growing up gives you the chance to finally look at them and decide which ones still belong in your life.

So maybe the question is not why your inner child keeps showing up. It is which rule about love, safety, or belonging that younger version of you wrote a long time ago that you are finally ready to stop obeying?

See you next Saturday ❤️

Suttida

P.S. When you're ready to do this work, my 4-week digital workbook will walk you through it. Grab your copy here