Saturn Returns with Caggie - 4.3 Inner Child Work with Stefanie Stahl

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

One of Germany’s leading clinical psychologists and author of The Child In You, Stefanie Stahl, joins Caggie today. Stefanie’s work focuses around the principle that our early imprints from childhood shape our behaviour and belief systems, which impact our relationships, friendships and generally how we show up in the world in adult life. She differentiates between the Shadow Child (our negative beliefs), and the Sun Child (our more positive beliefs) and advocates making friends with the Shadow Child in order to understand ourselves better. Inner child work can be heavy, especially when unearthing trauma, so a professional therapist can be really helpful in this process. But during our Saturn Return we often have a strong desire to begin this work, as we become more willing to let go of the past that might be holding us back from initiating into adulthood. --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. If you speak up and you say what you want and what you don't want, you cannot expect in the same time that everybody agrees with you. My guest today is Stephanie Stahl, a clinical psychologist from Germany and the author of more than 10 books, including The Child in You, The Breakthrough Method for Bringing Out Your Authentic Self, which came out in the UK in early 2021. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with shadow or inner child work, it is a psychological term that centres around your learnt behaviour,

triggers and traumas from childhood. The negative imprints, if you will, which we often internalise and they can hold us back in adulthood, unconsciously shaping and determining who we become. For instance, if a person's need for connection was denied as a child, this can result in the belief that I'm alone. They may grow up to be clingy in relationships or protect themselves by avoiding close relationships altogether. These coping mechanisms or self-preservation strategies we pick up in childhood serve a

purpose and it's important as a caveat to say that. But as we become adults they can become counterproductive or counterintuitive and like I said often hold us back. But we often lack the awareness to know when the child is actually at play, when the child is the one that's grabbed the steering wheel. So to help us understand the inner child, Stephanie uses the concepts of the shadow child, which is our negative beliefs and emotions, and our sun child, our more positive beliefs. Stephanie's work really helps you acquire useful new techniques on how we can differentiate between the child within and our adult selves. I wanted to speak to Stephanie because inner child work and shadow work has been the most profound and transformational in my own journey of self-development.

I'm a massive advocate for it and I truly believe that during our Saturn return, it is such powerful work because it's when we initiate into adulthood. So we have that separation, we have that awareness over who we're becoming and who we used to be. We jump straight in discussing why our emotions can be so powerful and hard to deal with. Something I have found personally rather challenging. So before we get into this wonderful episode with Stephanie, let's check in with our astrological guide, Nora. Saturn return isn't challenging just because Saturn returns. It's challenging because the nature of Saturn is quietly confronting and we may not always be as

ready to realize just how much wounding we need to soothe and heal before we're able to reparent a child within saturn deals justly and very firmly and it keeps us very focused on the material world as we're navigating saturn return it reminds us of our mortality and of our fear, whereas the moon in astrology reminds us of our vulnerability and unfulfilled emotional needs dating all the way back to childhood. The moon is connected to our progressed lunar return. This is the astrological phenomenon that precedes Saturn return at the age of 27. So it's this progressed lunar return that really launches us into our Saturn return by creating emotional space for the roller coaster ride that is, well, Saturn return. So connecting to the moon plays an important role in healing our inner child or

understanding our inner child's needs. By understanding how the moon works in our birth chart, for example, it can reflect back to us what kind of mothering we need, what kind of nurturing we need in our most vulnerable states. And by connecting to the moon's cycles, we can do deep shadow work. We can tap into our inner shadow, into our inner light, mirroring the moon's dark and bright phases. We can then listen to the silent whispers, to the overwhelmingly loud cries we have buried deep down in our psyche. This in itself is the heavy groundwork for healing that the progressed lunar return offers and that Saturn's return grows up on, and materializes. Any strong emotions, whether they are negative or positive,

block our rational thinking. Any. Also, being in love or being very, very enthusiastic about anything, it blocks our rational thinking. That is by nature because in case that we have to save our lives it's much more important to react very very very quickly yes by because you have the emotion of fear to run away in front of a snake then to overthink is it really a snake or maybe it's something else,

you know, pondering whether it's a snake or not, that can cost your life. So the nature wants that we take our emotions very, very seriously. But in our modern life, that often doesn't make any sense life that often doesn't make any sense because then the strong anxiety or if you're already desparated or panicky or whatever it's just a burden and doesn't lead to any clever solution and therefore it's very important that you detect your emotions in an early state. So the earlier you detect that you're going to get into the state, the better the chances are that you can regulate your emotions. When your emotions are already too strong, you don't have a chance anymore to regulate them. And the more aware you are of your own patterns, of your own triggers,

the easier you will detect yourself the issue for lack of better word that i have with the um being able to notice very quickly when we are responding from that place is often i think especially in the western world that we live in we are very disconnected from our bodies we're very up in our head i i find myself often struggling to regulate my nervous system when I am when something has triggered me and then it's hijacked by an emotion and to to be able to pinpoint before that's happened or to stop that happening sometimes feels almost impossible is that just because I'm so used to that being the pathway and to rechannel it just takes practice first of all you're right many people have hard times to

get connected to their emotions and that is due to the circumstance that many people are over adapted and that is a strategy from childhood because if the parents are for whatever reasons not capable or not able to meet their children's need for love and attachment and autonomy on the other hand side then the child takes responsibility to get along with his parents that means the child tries to meet the expectation of his parents or his mother or whatever its mother and then this behavior pattern you take it into your adulthood and then you're used to look what other people do need. What do they expect from you? And you try to meet the expectation of others. And as long as you do this, you lose yourself a little bit because at the same time, you can't be connected with your own feelings.

Either you are in the position of empathy, that means I try to feel with you and try to see what do you need now, what do you expect from me, or you're in the position to be identified with your own feelings. So many people have hard times to feel their feelings under the condition they are among other people because they are over adapted. And only when they are alone, they can feel again what they want and what their feelings are and for this reason they often figure out quite late that a certain thing somebody else said to him hurt themselves you know

later three three hours later under the condition they are alone again then they suddenly feel oh that was not really nice what he said three hours ago what you're describing to me sounds a lot like something that i'm going to be quite gender specific that i would feel like women most women i speak to are the people that experience this is that they are people pleasers to the extent where they will constantly self-abandon in order to create harmony around them at the cost of their own health, happiness, whatever. Yeah, these peacekeepers, perfectionists, if you develop an inner belief like I'm not enough, which is very, very common, very common, I'm not enough, I'm not important, I'm not worth and so on, then that shifts you into bad feelings.

And these bad feelings you don't want to feel all the time. And you don't have any interest that anybody else could figure out how not enough you are, how not important you are. So the most people start within their childhood to develop certain self-protection strategies. And this peacekeeping and meeting everybody's expectations or striving for perfectionism are typical self-protection strategies to compensate these feelings of inferiority. But it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy because that affirmation that we are seeking outside of ourselves externally, we may get it. And then it momentarily makes us feel, oh, maybe I am worthy. And let's apply it to the context of a relationship.

Like if you're at the early stages of dating someone, but you have a deep feeling of unworthiness within yourself. you know, a deep feeling of unworthiness within yourself. But that person, when they, you know, message you or respond to you, you feel okay, but your deep fear is that they will also deem you as unworthy. So then consequently, when they move away, or the relationship ends, or it doesn't work out, we are left with that overwhelming wound that was already there to begin with, and is actually very little to do with the other person. But we just put it all on them and make it seem like that situation is responsible for how we we feel. Whereas, you know, what you're explaining is it's a lot deeper than that and it's a lot more of an original wound. That is one very, very important aspect you just mentioned.

That is one very, very important aspect you just mentioned. But there's another very interesting aspect that is not so known by many people long as you stick to the idea, it's my fault, I'm guilty that the other person behaves so badly towards me, then it has two advantages for you. The first one is you can still stick to the person because you are guilty if you were better the other person would behave otherwise so you have a yeah pretext not to separate because your fear your fear of loss and your separation anxiety is much much higher than a bad feeling to keep on going with the same person so if you blame yourself you have a pretext to stay with the other person and apart from that it gives you a feeling of control because under the condition that you become better in any way, you could save this relationship and lead it towards a happy end. But if you would admit to yourself that you have no control at all and the other person is really the wrongdoer,

who is not reliable, who is's lying who's cheating and whatever then you would have to suffer your full helplessness yeah your helplessness and your lack of power and you would have to come to the conclusion that you have to separate yeah but if your separation anxiety is so high you do everything to somehow to idealize the other person and to downgrade yourself yeah and also i i think as well there's a liberation in in the separation in the act that you're talking about but to get to that, we have to relinquish control, which so many of us don't want to do, whether it's on a conscious level or not. But even deeper than that,

it means dismantling belief systems that we've had our entire lives. Absolutely. And therefore, in my approach, I added the sun child to it because it's so hard to let go of something if you don't have anything else to replace it if you identify to your shadow child because that is your construction of reality and you want to

change that it's easier it's much easier if you have a clear vision of your new and authentic self of your real self and that is embodied in my approach in the sun child i definitely connect to this thing of if i speak my truth and it's uncomfortable for someone they might run and therefore you know i'll try and maintain that things are good and be a certain version of myself to protect that connection yeah but at the end you don't protect it no I know because if you keep it with yourself you get more and more angry with the other person the other person becomes more and more in your eyes an enemy and not a fellow human being and then you withdraw without saying a bad word you know or at the very very end of the

relationship you tell him well this and this and this happened you know because you have a very very good memory you can trace it back to 20 years ago me and my brother always say this that it's so yeah you are you are holding on to the ammunition and you're building it up over time. And then they drop a plate and it's like... And you did this five years ago and you did that last week. And they're like, whoa, where did this come from? Exactly, exactly. And the question is whether this is really fair no so fairness as a higher

value can help you tremendously to overcome your fear of yourself you know this egocentric fear of being rejected because actually you don't protect the other person because you don't want to hurt him or her but you protect yourself so this self-protection strategy is in the end it's quite egocentric because you want to protect yourself of being rejected but what you do in the end and that happens so often in psychology and with self-protection strategies, you are the one who is rejecting the other person. Because in the end of this relationship, you store so much passive aggression within yourself, you know, this cold anger,

that all your feelings for the other person are really extinguished. There's no more feeling. And the only way to get out is then to break up. And if the other person is lucky, at the end he gets a long, long, you know, invoice. Long invoice. Of all the wrongdoings. Of all your crimes, you know. A scripture, should we say.

Then the other one says, why didn't you say earlier any word? Why didn't you tell it to me? I could have changed it so easily. Why didn't you say, never spoke up? And then the peacekeeper says, well, I told you sometimes something. And what the peacekeeper means by that is that sometimes he said then the peacekeeper withdraws again and starts shouting because he thinks what he always knew oh nobody's listened to me my wishes are not important what i say is not important because they're not able to assert themselves in a certain way you know

if you speak up and you say what you want and what you don't want you cannot expect in the same time that everybody agrees with you okay well this this this brings me on to something quite naturally, which is, I think, one, we're not often taught how to navigate or handle conflict. And also what I wanted to discuss with you a little bit that applies to this conversation is boundaries. How do you advise people to navigate conflict and to set boundaries? advise people to navigate conflict and to set boundaries first of all the fantasy about conflict is way way too high in people's mind they think it would be a conflict and often there is no conflict at all you know if you just say in a friendly way and i always say no information gets lost if you say it in a friendly manner you know because conflict shy people often wait so long until their anger is stronger than their fear and then they really have an outburst you know outburst of anger or something like that, which is also not very fair.

But the sooner you say something, the easier you can say it in a friendly way. Very, very often, that's what all my clients tell me, they are really surprised that the other person just says, yeah, okay, no problem. And there's no conflict. And the other person often is not hurt yeah just relieved and happy because the clearer you are the easier you are to grasp you know people can see where you stand for example i also have more than one time suffered from the situation that somebody withdrew from me.

And until today, I don't know what did I do wrong. And I don't think that's very fair. And I do think that we, you know, consciously or otherwise use that as a punishment. We withdraw, we go silent, we sulk. I mean, I'm definitely guilty of all of the above. silent we sulk I mean I'm definitely guilty of all of the above and it's not really fair because you're not giving the relationship a chance to heal okay the more aware you are of your shadow child feeling the earlier in the earlier state you can catch yourself so that the emotion is not so strong already the first step was you have to know your shadow chart. And then I invented a

little intervention that I call catch yourself and switch. That is the only magic or the only, how you say, the only secret about it. Just catch yourself in an early state. Don't wait so long until you're completely desperate or in a panic attack or, you know, completely out of your head. So the more aware you are in your daily life of your shadow child, the earlier you can catch yourself in the earlier state. And then you switch to your adult eye, you know, switch the position go into observer position and from there you can regulate yourself and this little exercise is really really well validated because millions of readers have been exercising it and so many people tell me only with this exercise they could change so many things in

their lives because the more often you catch yourself and switch the less often your shadow child shows off you know because you train your brain you make new neural pathways of course I have many more exercises in my book, but this is a core exercise. Diagnose your own shadow child and be aware in your daily life. And as soon as the shadow child shows up, you catch yourself and switch. So, for example, you're in a meeting with your colleagues and a team and you want to say something. But then suddenly you think, oh, am I smart enough? Is this important what I have to say? Oh, my you know things again i'm not important i'm not smart enough so you catch

yourself immediately then switch to the adult i come on and then you can of course you can comfort your shadow child comfort it in a loving way oh little shadow child I know it wasn't that easy with mommy daddy back then but today we are adult and of course you are smart you achieved so many things in life and of course your ideas are important come on I adults Steffi Starr I speak up for us both and then you know you have the courage and you tell your idea and what you think your ideas in this team meet. You know, that is the beauty of catch yourself and switch. In fact, it's very easy, but it's very, very powerful. Yeah, I think it is incredibly powerful and it's very liberating and empowering to be able to have that awareness of both.

And I think it's important just to add as a caveat here that it's not that we aren't acknowledging or that we're suppressing the emotions that are coming up or that we are experiencing or trying to like bottle them because it's the child version of us. It's like fully acknowledging that, but having the awareness and the space and separation to know that that is not coming from your adult self. And I think the more that we get into that rhythm, the more of a sense we have for our own autonomy as well absolutely because the more authentic you are and that is all about that you connect to your feelings and that you allow yourself your feelings but you're still able to regulate them you know that is very very important that's able to regulate your feelings and the more you can stand up for yourself the more authentic you are and the more autonomous you are absolutely okay so can you tell me what the sun child represents yes the sun child is the clear target vision you know, the vision of your authentic self.

So in the sunshine, we turn our negative core beliefs into positive beliefs. They have to be realistic. They have to be positive. So I'm able to set boundaries or I'm allowed to set boundaries is a very healthy counter belief to I'm guilty. And the third thing the new belief should be, your inner adult should agree to your new belief. At least the inner adult, not already the feeling, that is the question of training, you know, that with time you also feel your new belief but at least you're in our dark that means your rational thinking should agree

to the new belief so if a new belief like I'm enough sounds too much even for your inner adult you could shape it like I'm enough for my children or I'm enough for my friends so yeah you have to agree to the new belief I think this is really important especially in in this space because there is a lot of spiritual bypassing and this sort of look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're a queen and you're beautiful which is wonderful if you believe that but if you don't it's redundant that will never work and I'm really not a fan of this toxic positivity. No, neither am I. But the sunshine doesn't finish with the new beliefs.

There are also the strengths and, most importantly, you draw it again. You make a most beautiful picture of your sunshine. That's the beauty of this approach. You have it really on paper and that is so much different than just thinking about it or just feeling about it, you know. So you draw a beautiful picture, you know, fancy, colorful, and then you create your new beliefs. And in the arm of your sunshine, of your happy little sunshine, you put down your strength, know your personal strength and then you gather and put them around the sunshine your personal resources resources are for example i have a beautiful home or music or my religion or my friends or i have enough money and so on so your personal resources and then very important you look for your self

reflection strategies so we come from self-protection strategies to self-reflection strategies to which healthy behavior with which you unburden yourself and you unburden your relationships. So instead of withdrawing and talking, your self-reflection strategy could be, I connect to my feelings because that is the important first step. If you want to say what you want, in the first step, you have to know what you want. You have to know what you want. And over- step, you have to know what you want. You have to know what you want. And over-adapted people already struggle with this. They often say about themselves, I even often don't know what I want. So I connect to my feelings.

I pay more attention to them. I'm being aware of my feelings as a self-reflection strategy. And the next self-reflection strategy would be and I speak out in friendly words what I want, what I feel and what I don't want. Yes, I open up in a friendly way, in a respectful way to the other person. That could be another self-reflection strategy. Another one could be for this peacekeeping issue i'm training myself in arguments by arguments i mean not arguing not fighting but having reasonable arguments because people who are trying to keep the peace have a lack of training in argumentation and you can train this you just

imagine a situation that you encountered and where you kept quiet and then you try to think while maybe driving a car or doing your housework or whatever or you just sit down and think, what good arguments could I have presented to the other person? So you're trying really to strengthen your rational thinking by using arguments because arguments are the bridge to assertiveness. You need some arguments to have a stable ground under your feet. to have a stable ground under your feet. What about in terms of setting a boundary or when our boundaries are being crossed? It would be easier to explain this issue maybe had a simple concrete situation.

Okay, I'm going to give you one that I'm actually, that I'm experiencing at the moment, which is someone that's messaging me at sort of like 5.30 in the morning and sending voice notes and like offloading a lot more than I think is healthy or, and it's deeply affecting me. And yet I find myself in a position of constantly wanting to like mediate because that was always my dynamic in the home I think I had quite like a fiery family and I was always quite a quiet one so it was always like okay keep the peace keep the peace keep the peace okay now you are identified now you're in the first position of perception you're identified with your shadow child as you are talking with me about the situation yes so now you catch yourself and you switch into your adult eye so you switch now to your seat of reason you

get into the observer position and imagine you would be a judge what advice would you give to yourself well i think i'd probably give the advice that we've just talked which is handle it amicably but i guess the thing is being able to how you communicate the boundaries within that you know keep to your role from the outside from the observer position you're a neutral coach you can even imagine this woman would be a different one not yourself but any woman who has this problem what would you what what advice would you give to her well i would say if it wasn't me that the person i'd be like you're within your rights to say do you mind not messaging me from 5 30 in the morning morning? But because it's me, I'm like, don't do it.

Now you're identified again. Now you switched again, you know. Now stay in the observer position. I can't. Yeah, that's it. And that's where there's what I just said about arguments. Where there's what I just said about arguments. It could straighten your backbone immensely if you started thinking arguments.

What rights are on your side or what rights are on his side to message you all the time? So now this strategy of train yourself and arguments come into the play to strengthen your adult eye so to just give you a little help from the observer position you could send him a friendly text message that you're not an early bird and that you would love to work it out with them in a friendly way and if you just can't make an appointment for a call or for a meeting or for whatever you have just one one appointment and then we can work it out all together that's pretty healthy solution yeah and i think i'm really sure but we don't have the time here if you have a little bit longer time you would have come to this solution by yourself i don't know thanks for the vote of confidence and the more and the longer you train yourself within argumentation the sooner and the easier you will come to these solutions by yourself.

Which is essentially operating from a more pragmatic perspective, right? Because I think I am someone historically, let's say it's going to be something that I'm going to work on. I operate from a very feeling place, you know, from emotions. And I actually remember my mom said to me not that long ago, like, you can't always decide based off your emotions I was like what other way would there be so it's kind of a new practice for me to be the observer in these things and in a in a weird way it sort of feels less less romantic less exciting less exhilarating that comes to the next issue and that is a question i often ask my clients what advantage do you have to keep to your old pattern and that's your answer oh it's so dramatic it's more exciting i love to be so emotional yeah the um thing you need to learn is to regulate your emotion before it gets too strong and with

these exercises that are concerning more your your reason your rational thinking, you can handle better, much better your anxieties. I am aware that I've taken up quite a lot of your time, but quickly before we go, what about autonomy from our parents? Because what I notice, and it's, I always have this kind of idea of someone that's super successful that like has loads of friends that's very you know doing well in their career and they are confident and all the things and then they go and have Christmas with their family and their father or their mother says something that sets them off and suddenly bam they're right back in that space and I don't think people realize it but so

often we're constantly seeking that validation from our parents a lot of what we actually do in our careers and our relationships and the things that we acquire are because we want mom or dad's approval that we are good enough so I wanted to touch on with you before we go is is how to have the awareness and separation from that part of us that's being overly activated so it's not the driving force for our life yeah some I don't know who said this was some monk he said if you think you're enlightened just go back and live one week again with your family it's so true or as I like to think get get in a relationship whenever I think I've done so much work on myself and then I start dating again I'm like and I've the key word here is the mirrored self-esteem. Mirrored. The mirrored self-esteem.

That means we learn our self-esteem by our parents. They mirror us, whether we are welcome, whether they are happy that we are there. You know when mommy takes her little baby, oh, mommy, mommy, do-do-do-do-do, and she smiles, and then the baby feels with the old body, oh, she loves me, and she loves to care for me, and she's so happy that I'm here.

That's the way we learn our self-esteem, by the mirror of our parents and by the mirror of other people. So this is such a deep-rooted imprint, and since our parents are such an important bond to us, so important to everybody because they are our first and deepest love, of course, we care lifelong about what they're thinking about us. I think if you have parents who, for whatever reasons, have difficulties to acknowledge you, for whatever reason, because maybe they are suffering from narcissism or they have attachment problems for themselves or whatever, just be aware and go out consciously, with your full consciousness,

out of this conditioning of the mirrored self-esteem. Make yourself absolutely clear that they are not able to recognize or acknowledge what you're doing in life or acknowledge your person. It doesn't say anything, nothing about you and your worth, but only about the lack of ability on the side of your parents. So put it on the side to your parents. It belongs to them. And don't take it to your side because that's what we always do.

We take things on our side which actually don't belong to us. And I think the whole thing of this enmeshment in relationships is that you have to distinguish what is my share where do i have to take responsibility what is my share that this relationship is difficult and what share belongs to the other person and then just sort it out take your share that you're responsible for and give the share for the other person give it to him back in your mind you know so give your parents back their at least partial at least partial inability to acknowledge you yeah i think that's really powerful.

I found this conversation so fascinating, this idea that we have these internal belief systems that we pick up from a young age about our self-worth that then end up informing and determining how we show up as adults, even if our reality is vastly different. You know, our patterns of behavior are hard to undo, but they are patterns. So just as much as

they were created, they can be uncreated. It just takes awareness, self-reflection and discipline. I think some of the takeaways, and there were many, is to be able to have the perception and to catch and switch. So when we find ourselves spiralling or being triggered, to just create enough space and to breathe and to be able to do something differently. And by doing this, we create a new neural pathway, a new pattern, if you will, of behaviour. And create a new neural pathway a new pattern if you will of

behavior and also a new belief system i also found what she spoke about the fear of rejection being egocentric interesting you know the idea that we can become more fair more aware of other people's feelings and making them as important as our own because I do think we can all be guilty of being a little bit egocentric from time to time. I hope you found this episode interesting and informative I absolutely loved it and you can find more about Stephanie and her work on her website, stephaniestyle.com. That's Stephanie with an F and style spelt S-T-A-H-L. You can follow our astrological guide, Noor, on Instagram at Stars Incline.

And you can also follow me at Kagi's World. And you can follow the podcast at Saturn Returns Co. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you could share it with a friend who you think might find it useful or follow the show and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Saturn Returns is a Feast Collective production. The producer is Hannah Varrell and the executive producer is Kate Taylor. Thank you so very much for listening and remember you are not alone. Goodbye.