bawling at the airport and talking to blueberries
Something we all need, whether you’re a parent or not, is more empathy—not just a cognitive understanding but an emotional, felt sense—of what it was/is actually like to be a kid.
I recently found myself at the airport with my 2-year-old cousin, who was bawling and screaming because we went on the moving walkway and she wanted to jump off at the end. In her little brain, that jumping meant play, a sense of control, and potential regulation to her nervous system. We didn’t have the time for that because adults know planes leave when they’re scheduled to leave. Imagine being her—barely awake, whisked into a new car, then plopped down in this busy, loud, mean morning chaos… and adults expect you to just go along with it.
Many of us may have shut down that empathy for our inner children because of how we were conditioned by our caregivers and the systems that helped raise us. Expressing sadness or frustration in a situation like that wouldn’t have been met with understanding. Instead, there’d likely be the “you should be grateful” speech—something like, “We’re going on vacation, sweetheart; most kids don’t get this opportunity!” Real talk—I just watched my 2-year-old cousin have a full-on conversation with blueberries, and she had a fucking blast. Adult ideas of fun can be lovely, but they’re usually overscheduled and exhausting for little ones. Why try to shame them into loving it or being grateful just to shut down their negative emotions?
This is where parts work comes in. Inner parts that remember what it was like to feel helpless as a child can still be triggered often. Your job, your boss, or some other adult responsibility you took on morph into a parent figure ordering you around, making demands you feel no control over. You become the kid being strapped into the car seat, dragged by the hand through the grocery store, told what they’re eating for dinner.
A lot of clients come to me with motivation issues, yet what’s actually happening is they’re already doing a lot. They’re striving for perfection, pushing themselves beyond exhaustion, all while feeling disconnected from purpose, play, and joy. Instead of tuning in to these tired parts, they’ve been conditioned to scold them—to wonder why they “just can’t” summon the willpower to keep pushing through. As someone with ADHD, I don’t claim to be a willpower expert, but I know it’s no limitless resource. It fades, sputters, and cycles back, often leaving us right where we started: tired, unmotivated, and asking too much of a human body with human limits.
This emotional felt sense I mentioned earlier can be summoned in different ways for everyone and is key to flow and balance with responsibilities. For me, reconnecting with my child self isn’t just a quick visit to the past to understand what I felt back then; it’s about actively applying that awareness to what I’m feeling today. Since I shut down feelings of grief, exhaustion, and lack of control so early on, this takes time—a slow, steady process of letting my true feelings finally have airtime. Cognitive empathy can open the door, sure, but real trust only comes when these parts of me are allowed to surface, breathe and be heard, both in past reflections and in my present life.
