While our inner child - the happy child mode - can take action in a spontaneous and authentic way to have fun, a critical, punitive or demanding voice is heard:
“What have you been able to do so far?” “You are useless.” “You don't deserve anything.” “Who would do what to you?” “You are not worth loving.” “Don't be selfish, you should think about other people first.” “You should always be moral.”
We call this voice our inner voice, but we need to understand it first; Do these sentences sound familiar? Afterwards, it is necessary to separate; Is this critical, punitive and demanding voice our voice or our parent's voice?
Introduction
From the perspective of Gestalt theory ; Intake occurs when messages coming from the environment are accepted as they are, without being assimilated or digested. The child, who accepts everything presented to him from the family and the environment as true, begins to make sense of himself and his relationships with the messages he absorbs (Daş, 2014). The messages given by parents can be instructive and make our lives easier, but they can also be damaging and disruptive. For example; person: "The person who upsets the other person is a bad person." If he has internalized a message like this, he will do his best not to upset other people, but if the other person gets offended by the slightest thing, he will be left with feelings of guilt and shame. Due to internalized messages, the person cannot meet his needs, he suppresses his desires, and these needs and desires remain as unfinished work (Daş, 2014). Perls and his colleagues (1951; cited in Daş, 2014) mentioned that introspections that prevent the completion of a task reduce a person's life energy and excitement. A person hears that voice in every attempt he makes to realize his own wishes: "The person who upsets the other person is a bad person." and his freedom is restricted, his spontaneity disappears.
Adaptive Parental Modes
According to the mode approach of schema therapy; Messages given to the child at an early age that he is not lovable or smart enough, causing the child to feel oppressed and rejected, create maladaptive parenting modes. r. “If the individual puts himself under unreasonable and heavy pressure, does not allow his own needs, finds his own feelings ridiculous, or devalues himself because of situations that disapprove of these needs and feelings, what is actually in question is maladaptive parenting modes” (Jacob et al., 2014) .
Demanding parent mode may be related to feelings of failure and guilt. The demanding parent mode, which includes feelings of failure, is related to making excessive demands on oneself; perfectionist parents may be the basis of this mode. Demands regarding work and school success, appearance and weight can be given as examples. The demanding parent mode, which includes feelings of guilt, is about how the person should feel. People with this mode believe that they must be a good person and think that they are responsible for other people's happiness.
Punitive parent mode; It is about devaluing oneself. Children who were punished, ridiculed or abused in the early period may see the smallest mistakes they made in later periods as unacceptable and think that they deserve to be punished (Jacob et al., 2014).
Healthy Adult Mode and Happy Child Mode
Healthy adult mode is; It can be defined as being able to evaluate situations, conflicts, and relationships realistically, regulating emotions, maintaining a balance between one's own wishes and the wishes of others, fulfilling duties and responsibilities, seeking constructive solutions to problems, curiosity, discovery, and interest in entertainment (Jacobs et al., 2014). . A healthy adult does not exaggerate small negativities because he knows that this is not the end of the world. He can give up and let go of something when necessary, which is definitely not a submissive attitude. Healthy adult; He is happy, free and at peace with himself.
Happy child mode; It includes fun, joy, spontaneity, spontaneity, liveliness, and authenticity (Jacobs et al., 2014). Happy child mode can be briefly described as a child playing. A child who feels loved and approved, who feels joyful, peaceful, safe and alive is a happy child.
Happy child mode and healthy adult mode. du are similar in many ways, and a person with one of these modes usually has a strong presence of the other mode. Muting the punishing and demanding parent modes is possible by strengthening the healthy adult and happy child mode. Healthy adult mode; While it consoles the hurt side of the child, it sets limits on the spoiled side and strengthens the happy, fun and spontaneous side. On the other hand, it negotiates rationally with maladaptive parental modes because it can easily be mistaken that they are right because the parental modes have dominated the person for so long. The healthy adult finds evidence that the parental modes are unfair and opposes them and replaces the rejecting, critical, demanding and punitive messages that are not good for him/her with healthier messages (Jacobs et al., 2014).
Let Them Be Sad
Özge Samancı talks about the silence of her parents' voice at the end of her autobiographical graphic novel "Let Them Be Sad", about growing up in Turkey. mentions. When he graduated from university, two of his friends told him that he could become an artist, and he said, “I studied mathematics. The streets are filled with millions of talented fine arts graduates. Why would anyone look at my cheesy drawings? she replies. His friend explains that this voice belongs to his father, not him, and that he can turn down his father's pessimistic voice. Muting her father's voice seems unacceptable to Özge, "No, I can't silence him. I love my father!". Muting the parent's critical, punitive and pessimistic voice does not mean that we ignore or dislike the parent. Our relationship with our parents is not all good or all bad; there are aspects that are good for us as well as aspects that are not good for us. We can turn up the parental voice that supports us, while turning down the voice that criticizes or punishes us. The voice that supports us strengthens our healthy adult mood. Sometimes, making a healthy voice for ourselves allows us to act towards our need to support ourselves and be a parent to ourselves. When we turn down the critical, punitive and demanding parent voice and start using the healthy adult voice, the happy child within us takes action and begins to have fun spontaneously and authentically. Thus, free, happy and at peace We will be in business.
“I was going to do what I loved, even if it didn't meet the expectations of the people I loved.
Come on, let's swim against the tide!
Let them be sad.”
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