Ep. 28 | Healing the Inner Child: Vulnerability, Boundaries, and Joy

Sometimes the weight of our emotions can push us to the brink, but what happens when we embrace that vulnerability and allow ourselves to unravel? In a raw and authentic narrative, our host Aliya Cheyanne unfolds her own experiences with the delicate art of staying true to oneself amidst life's tumultuous seas.

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Theme Music:
She No Dull Beat by Nana Kwabena
Festivities in Belize by RAGE Productions

Chapters

• 0:00 Reflecting on Inner Child Healing
• 13:31 Processing Emotions and Self-Reflection
• 30:47 Finding Joy and Healing Through Play
• 34:25 Divine Timing and Self-Worth

Transcript

Aliya Cheyanne: 1:30

Welcome back to the Prolific Hub podcast. I'm your host, aliyah Cheyenne, and I'm excited to be back and jump into a solo episode this week. I am so grateful for all of the guests that we've had thus far Dapi, jen Roberts, brittany Demestine and I'm excited about some guests that we have upcoming. Those are going to be great conversations that I'm really going to be thrilled to share with all of you very soon, but in the meantime, I thought I would drop in with a quick solo episode just to catch up a little bit. So how have you all been? What have you been up to? Podcasting is a little bit of an echo chamber. It's easy for me to jump on and talk about whatever I want to talk about, but it's hard for me to know what's working for you all who are listening. So if you haven't had a chance to just yet, please, please, please, head on down to the reviews and write a positive message. Let me know what you think about the show, how it's serving you, what you'd like to hear, what you wanna hear more about, yeah, and what you think has been working this far and what you think hasn't been working this far. But, yeah, let me know what you think about the conversations we've been having so far. I also wanna just acknowledge just some feedback that I've gotten personally from friends and family that's been really really just affirming and exciting, so that I know that the show is providing value and inspiration and insight to people who want to tune in, who listen and who want to hear it. So I wanted to share two pieces of feedback. So one of them is from my sister, tasia, one of the original hosts of the podcast After our Dream Rest Play episode featuring Jen Robert. Tasia wrote me and said that the episode was dope and hella inspiring and that it was a good interview. So thank you, tasia, and yeah, that felt really good to hear. Yeah, I was a little self-conscious about pickups that happened behind the scenes and also during the interview, but I think it came out pretty smoothly and I'm just so thrilled about the conversation that I had with Jen, who is inspiring in so many ways, and I'm just so excited to have had that conversation with Jen.

Aliya Cheyanne: 4:00

And my next friend, mo, just wanted to read what Mo shared. So Mo said I just started listening to your most recent episode with Brittany Demestine. You did a wonderful job at really explaining what your guest was saying and adding your own thoughts and experiences to it. It was a very new lesson for me, trying to figure out my next steps and what I want to do for myself. It's a long game and everything takes time, and I thought it was really special and really nice. So thank you so much, mo, for your feedback.

Aliya Cheyanne: 4:31

And, yeah, I really want this to be a space of inspiration for people to really think about creatives and the work they're doing to really shape and transform our world, and entrepreneurs who are, like I say in the intro, charting their own paths and inspire others to do the same. I'm on my own personal journey. I know so many people around me are exploring what it looks like to dive into their own personal projects and ventures, and I just wanted to create a space that's more of like a digital archive of all of the cool people doing really cool things that inspire me to be inspirational to others and valuable to others. So, yeah, it's really good and really affirming to get feedback like that. So I yeah I had to sit with those for a little bit and just kind of let them sink in, because if I can get inspiration from one person like that would make everything like all of this, feel so worthwhile and feel really good. So thank y'all. Please keep feedback coming, whether we know each other personally, share your thoughts or if maybe you found the show. We don't know each other personally, but you want to be connected and share a view of what you think about it. So far, I appreciate everyone sharing the show with your network, sharing the show with your friends and family and putting other people on.

Aliya Cheyanne: 6:01

I've had to come out of my own comfort zone and promoting the show and like talking about it with people in my life. You know, a lot of people have podcasts talking about a lot of different things, and even though this one is centered around creativity and entrepreneurship, like many others, podcasting can still get a little bit of a bad rap sometimes because of certain things that go viral, and I don't ever want to be ashamed of anything that I create or produce, and I'm really trying to stand in an era of being proud of all the things that I'm doing, including this podcast and, you know, being more vocal about that with other people and promoting, because what good is it to just do it and keep it to myself, you know? So there's that. So this solo episode is more of a life episode because child life be lifin and it is national stress awareness month. There's so many things going on in my personal life and just so many themes that are coming up. And you know, I'm realizing for a lot of people not just me, not just maybe some family members, not just friends but, like, the start of 2024 has been a little rough for a lot of folks and I've been reflecting on the first quarter of 2024 and just some of the things that came up for me and that are still coming up. So Chavis episode is about when your inner child shows up. Okay, your inner child, your inner teenager, your inner young adult, whatever version, you better pay attention, you better go within and figure out what the heck is going on.

Aliya Cheyanne: 7:57

Life changes that kicked off the start of this year, that brought up stuff for me that I wasn't expecting or anticipating and I got to a point that I didn't even know how to process, which is not like considering all of the tools that I know at my disposal to self-soothe and de-stress myself when I need to. The fact that I was at a point where I couldn't even lean on those tools, like I felt stuck, that required some really deep, just reflection and soul searching, and not my feelings intellectually which I do a lot, unfortunately but actually sinking into my body and allowing myself to really feel things, because some events in life at the start of this year they trigger just their deep-seated things living in my body and having just been out or suppressed them for a long period of time was not a solution was not a solution. So I've been exploring some really hard themes lately. Some things that kicked off this 2024 really just triggered some major abandonment wounds that I thought I had resolved. So just to backtrack a little bit, I started therapy years ago and I've gone on and off for the last oh gosh, I'll say over a decade.

Aliya Cheyanne: 9:23

My first exposure to therapy was like family therapy in junior high school. My mom try that and at the time I remember him acknowledging my feelings and saying, if it take matters into my own hands to look into therapy, I did that by free counseling with my undergraduate college and then graduated from that to actually researching a therapist. I thought would be a good fit for me and using insurance to cover that, and I had that therapist for a really long time and then got to a point where I didn't feel like we were the right fit anymore and went through many others until I kind of landed on someone that I feel really now and even with her we are on and off again for various reasons, but primarily because I don't. I'm not in a place where I feel like I need it constantly all the time. I'm in a place now where I feel like I can have boost sessions when I need them, or even prior to the boost sessions, like we were on a bi-weekly schedule for a while because I just didn't need it as much. But I say all that to say that one of the primary things that catapulted me into therapy was wanting to work on some unresolved feelings and emotions that I had around some other wound stuff. That's what really catapulted me into therapy and I thought over the last several years, like over a decade, that I had really kind of come to terms with some of those things that I started working on and I'm realizing right now, at this current point in my life, I might have intellectualized a lot of my just grief and feelings around, actually processing them fully and feeling them fully.

Aliya Cheyanne: 11:47

Fast forward to the first quarter of this year. There are some things that happened just in my life, in my home, in my family dynamic, and a bunch of things that just kind of triggered just some old wounding that I thought I had resolved and I really didn't. And these things trigger just old abandonment, stuff that had been present and been living in my body, that I hadn't acknowledged, that I just kind of suppressed for a really long time. Feelings of not being wanted or not being chosen or not. Old stuff around that that came up. It felt like it was happening all over again, just some feelings of just unworthiness, feeling, you know, taken for granted, used, rejected like. Feeling like there's something wrong with all. This was coming up because of all of the chaos of the first quarter of this year, all kinds of stuff. And at the time I feel like a lot of this I've mentioned on this podcast I absolutely follow and listen to astrology-related things, things but I feel like a lot of the things that were coming up directly were, unfortunately, at the time, only being amplified by the energy of eclipse season. At the time it was Mercury retrograde. All these things were happening and I feel like they were just kind of amplifying things that I was already struggling with and working through. And yeah, so much so that, after not being in therapy for like a couple of months, it catapulted me to obsession.

Aliya Cheyanne: 13:31

Because, feeling dark energy or heavy or struggling in any capacity, I can lean on tools that help. I can lean on my journal. I can lean on meditation. I can lean on breath work. I can lean on meditation. I can lean on breathwork. I can lean on prayer. I can lean on you know I don't have the best voice in the world, but I can lean on singing. I can lean on my vitamins, my supplements. I can lean on sunshine. I can lean on spending time with family. I can lean on snuggling with my doggie Sorry, girl. I can lean on sunshine. I can lean on spending time with family. I can lean on snuggling with my doggie Sorry, girl. I can do so many things that usually soothe me and relax me and help me to keep grounded. I can move my body.

Aliya Cheyanne: 14:16

I can do all these things, but those things were not helping me to process what's going on with me at the time and I was just like this is so strange. I'm more capable than this. I'm not someone who my emotions really render me incapable of functioning. That's not really who I am as a person and I've been in a position where that what I know to be true about myself was not true, because I was feeling really incapable of functioning. So I had to boost sessions of me and also looking into just some other like some movement, physical based practices to help me process. I had to work through a lot of stuff that coming up, um, and why it was so hard for me to lean on my soothing and self-care practices that I've always leaned on and I think the thing that came up for me that helped me to kind of move was allowing myself to feel it.

Aliya Cheyanne: 15:15

So having a couple of really just ugly, nasty cry sessions. It's not like everywhere, like just deep wailing and listen, this might be my ego talking, but I say all the time that women, femmes, we are such powerful beings and I say all the time that if we felt the depth of our grief and the weight of our rage, if we really unleashed that energy on this earth, we would shatter the world. I say all the time and, ironically, the first really deep, coincidentally the first really deep, nasty cry session I had was the day that earthquake hit New Jersey and the aftershock, like I was bawling and crying and falling apart. While it was happening bawling and crying and falling apart while it was happening, like through my tears, saw a text message from my dad, like you know, asking did you feel the earthquake? And I didn't feel nothing because I was too busy feeling the quake of my own grief, baby, like that is how intense and disgusting that session was and not disgusting. But I just let myself fall apart.

Aliya Cheyanne: 16:45

And shortly after that I had to record an interview and I was like, maybe 20 minutes before, like should I reschedule this? Should I cancel this? Should I just sit with myself right now? I completely masked my emotions and put my grief and sadness and everything else and do what I needed to do. But it was hard and I've had some sessions after that were equally chaotic and you know a lot. But I feel better about actually doing these things in my body because my default is not always to allow myself to feel it, go through the motions and do what I need to do.

Aliya Cheyanne: 17:25

On the other side of that, I started thinking about lessons and the lessons that came up for me through all of those feelings, through all of those uncertainty and just you know all those feelings that I was feeling underneath the rage and underneath the anger because rage and anger are often, you know, predecessors of emotions, usually grief, sadness and other things. I allowed myself to sink below those surface level feelings to get to the root of what was going on with me and to allow myself to actually go deeper and connect with things that were coming up for me. I realized that a lot of what I was feeling and experiencing obviously had a lot to do with what was happening and transpiring in my life at the time, but also they were reopening a wound that I thought already healed, that had less to do with adult Aaliyah and were to do with baby girl Aaliyah and little Aaliyah and process the things that were coming up for me. And all of that just kind of brought me to realizing that there are certain things that I cannot change. I can accept them for what they are. I can acknowledge the harm that happened. I can acknowledge the hurt that might still exist, but at the end of the day, there are certain things that I cannot change. All I can change is how I proceed, and one of the things that I was talking to my therapist about I proceed and one of the things I was talking to my therapist about in my sessions were that I don't want the things that were coming up for me to make me hard or bitter or to put me in a position where I don't want to be helpful, because that feels counterproductive to or counterintuitive to my actual nature.

Aliya Cheyanne: 19:22

And the other thing that was coming up with all of this is that really what I'm most upset about is I feel like I betrayed myself. There was definitely some self-abandonment going on with all of the events that had transpired, because a lot of this could have been avoided. So what I was really struggling with underneath a lot of those other themes was just self-abandonment and self-betrayal and not honoring my own boundaries and being firm on the things that I need. I often struggle with putting other people's needs on my own and self-abandoning in that moment because I am the strong one. I can handle whatever you know, and I realized that that's not fair to me and that's also not fair to anyone around me. I also realized that I personally have some toxic traits around control and that I am truly in a season of releasing control, because I'm not fighting or arguing with anyone about anything anymore.

Aliya Cheyanne: 20:26

What else I've never thought of or deemed myself as a people pleaser, because a lot of the things that I see around people pleasing I don't feel I completely resonate with. But after a lot of deep reflection I realized that I do have some people pleasing tendencies and I saw something the other day that was just like people pleasers resonate with. But after a lot of deep reflection I realized that I do have some people-pleasing tendencies and I saw something the other day that was just like people-pleasers, at the end of the day can't be trusted because not only are they self-abandoning to people, to other people, but they are dishonoring themselves by not holding and maintaining their own boundaries and focusing on their own self-preservation and what works for them. And that's me in the gut because I'm just like not to be trusted, like that's not who I want to be either. So just so many things and themes were coming up and think through all of this.

Aliya Cheyanne: 21:25

What I've realized and I'm still working through some of this as I'm sitting here and talking about this like one thing I do personally but I'm in therapy is to like feel where energy is in my body. And I'm talking this and I'm feeling the energy just kind of pulling in my heart center area, like my chest like it's. I'm still working through certain things, but I feel like I'm in a better space than I was some time ago. But through all of these themes be feeling taken for granted, like feeling like something's wrong with me, self-abandoning, all these things that were coming up for me I learned some valuable things that I'm trying to make sure that I keep in mind and apply going forward. You know, sometimes what feels like a lost trail or grief is just the universe's way of telling us to surrender, like surrender earthly attachments.

Aliya Cheyanne: 22:22

I strive to be someone who can surrender my attachments to things. Astrology moment I am an Aquarius sun and a lot of things say that we are the masters of detachment. You know that's like a 50-50 thing. I feel like we're the masters of's attachment in certain regards, in certain respects. We don't always take on other people's stuff as our own, but I think some of that is forced attachment, because we are actually really stiff people and to feel the weight of that sensitivity all the time is debilitating. So it's very important for us to be detached from things in order to function. I think it's important to surrender earthly attachments because that's the only way to be free and perhaps things change, as clearing the way and clearing the path for what is aligned, for something greater and something better.

Aliya Cheyanne: 23:20

You know, it may also be the universe, whatever you believe in reminding us me not to take everything personally, because everyone has their own path to walk in this life, and I think what was coming up for me earlier this quarter was just taking things way personally. Yeah, that doesn't serve me or anyone else. Yeah, that doesn't serve me or anyone else. So I think another lesson that all of the stuff that was coming is just not to take on other people's stuff as my own. Like I can help to whatever degree that I can help with practical solutions, with being sympathetic, empathetic, but I cannot adopt certain problems as my own. My grandmother tells me all the time that I can't save everybody and that I have to live my own life, and I think up until recently I wouldn't want to hear that. I wouldn't want to hear it, but I think I'm just realizing now that that is absolutely true. That is absolutely true. So I do want to focus on living my own life, but not to the extent that it makes me selfish or devoid of connection or hard, or to the point that I just don't feel when I can be. So that's something that's coming up for me. You know she been right and I get it now.

Aliya Cheyanne: 25:43

Some other thoughts and feelings that were coming up for me are just not having the kind of family I desired. My parents, as far as I know, broke up before I was even born. You know, like I the closest I've come to actually seeing a child in my life is my paternal grandparents, and so a short period of time where my mom and my former stepdad were together, you know that's the closest it's been for me. So I've always kind of dealt with split, always wanted to try to kind of bridge the gap between, like, my dad's side and my mom's side and have more like just connection and togetherness with my immediate family. Yeah, I've always kind of had this split household dynamic that I've, you know, struggled with in many ways and I've always tried to just bridge the gap and I'm realizing that that's just probably not going to be a thing and I have to accept that when I was younger and I was a kid, it was picking, and still is picking, where I want to spend holidays and I've tried in other ways to just kind of like bring everyone together and sometimes that's worked in the past, like I remember a Thanksgiving where, you know, both sides were my immediate family, were together and that was nice, but it just has felt impossible in a lot of ways since I thought I might have a shot at making that more possible again, you know now, only to realize that that's not a thing and I am the middle child for my mom and I am the only child for my dad, so I have the unique experience of knowing what it's like to be both of them and, yeah, I've always wanted more closeness with both sides and I've felt a lot of guilt around.

Aliya Cheyanne: 27:52

You know just how different life is or could have been or was, you know, spending time on either side. And yeah, I'm just realizing that now I'm in a place where it's not a weight or a guilt that I want to carry anymore, like I accept the dynamic and the situation for what it is and I'm not forcing myself to change that or create overlap, like it just is what it is. So, yeah, I mean navigating all of this with these feelings. I've had to lean on tools more now, in a way that I felt stuck and couldn't do before, and I had to resume therapy and work through a couple of boost sessions to just kind of talk through what was going on with me and help me to kind of process things. You know, not independently but with the support of someone.

Aliya Cheyanne: 28:52

And I feel like my inner child, like my inner teen and my younger self all came through Like they were all showing up in various capacities in this first quarter of 2024. And they were fucking me up. We're not showing up in love, at least it didn't feel like love. It was showing up like I was getting beat, the fuck up and it's been interesting to move through that. But I guess it's on track and it makes sense because I'm definitely a tough love kind of person. So it would make sense that younger versions of me come through with tough love energy. But I'm also just realizing that I want more softness and I want more ease and I need to start talking to myself differently now because I don't want to be 40 or 50 or 60 or whatever age and still have like rough ass, little Aaliyah, or even like 30 year old Aaliyah, like talking to me crazy when I'm going through something. So that's another too, like I need to give myself more grace, show myself more self-compassion. That will also allow me to move through certain feelings and emotions and pull through things when I need to. So I feel like another important aspect of this that's not just heaviness is also allowing your inner child to find play and joy when possible, especially when certain things are coming up that you thought you've already dealt with or that you feel stuck with and you don't know how to process. And I find that allowing that version of me to seek joy and find joy and play is also self-soothing and also healing. And one of the ways that I find joy and play is through this podcast. I was just reflecting on it the other day.

Aliya Cheyanne: 30:47

When I was younger, I wanted to be a teacher in some capacity. That's what I thought I wanted to do, and I remember I used to line my Barbie dolls up and my stuffed animals, my teddy bears and everything. Everybody had a seating assignment and whatever I learned in school that day is what I would come home and teach my dolls and my stuffed animals and they were the students and I would reenact that dynamic. And I think part of that was processing school, but also because I was convinced that I wanted to teach, and even though that's not a space that I'm in professionally, like there was even a period of my life where I was like, oh, I want to be a college professor. I'm not in that space anymore, but I do think that this podcast is a form of play. I do think that this podcast is a form of play. I do think that this podcast is a form of teaching and, yeah, I feel like even that is self soothing and even that is supportive of my inner child. So I do think that's been fun.

Aliya Cheyanne: 31:51

But also to allow myself like space to just have some joy, like the other day when I really needed it because I was just feeling so down. It was really nice out. So I went outside with Storm in the late evening and I just grounded like I laid in the grass, I pressed my bare feet to the grass and the soil and I just grounded myself and I just imagined all of those heavy emotions leaving my body and sinking into the earth. And I stared at the trees and I stared at the sky and I watched the birds fly by, stared at the trees and I stared at the sky and I watched the birds fly by and I let the sun hit my skin and my face and I felt the warmth on the back of my neck and that brought me joy. That was the vitamin D I needed, literally and physically, but physiologically, but that was also something that I needed for myself spiritually.

Aliya Cheyanne: 32:48

A lot of this is rambling, but if you're still listening, shout out to you. I hope you found something valuable from this conversation and something that you can take away and apply to your own personal life when heavy things are coming up and old wounds are coming up, and how to move through them. And yeah, I want to end this one with a final thought, which is a quote that CCB shared in a recent newsletter. And CCB has the Instagram page, the Crimson Kiss and Sketch your Itch Together, which is also a podcast, and I really like her work and I've taken a couple of her classes in the past.

Aliya Cheyanne: 33:33

And yeah, the quote that she shared in the newsletter, which I don't know where she got it from, but it said on your journey, there will be in-between times of transition. You may feel lost, confused, angry, unseen or even empty. Don't confuse these times of transition as a forever state of being or for being broken. Instead, recognize that you are simply breaking away from what was and creating space to welcome what will be. And yeah, that quote came to me right on time, after probably the heaviest and darkest period of all of this.

Aliya Cheyanne: 34:09

And yeah, I am someone who is constantly searching for the silver lining and someone who is constantly trying to find solutions to things and the good, even in the sad times or the hard times or the difficult times.

Aliya Cheyanne: 34:25

So that quote was right on time and it came to me toward the end of a harder period and I felt like that was divine timing.

Aliya Cheyanne: 34:37

So I hope that, if you are going through anything, you're taking the time and the space to process what you're feeling, to help you self-soothe, to feel grounded. I hope that you're reminded that you are worthy and that you deserve good things, and that this, too, shall pass. Whatever the hard thing is, it's not forever. That doesn't invalidate what you're feeling or going through right now. What you're feeling or going through right now, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's not the end. Like this, too, shall pass, and I hope that you always remember that you are enough, you are valuable, you are worthy, you're deserving of good things and, yeah, I hope you always held that close. So thank you for tuning in to this episode, this solo life episode, and, yeah, if it resonated with you, please feel free to leave a review and let me know and I will catch you all on the next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. Talk to you soon.