Why Primal, and how it changed my life

1. You have a passion for Inner Child work. What is it that touches / inspires you about this work?

What really touches me about inner child work is how deeply it speaks to the world we’re living in right now. We live in a time of technology, speed, and individualism, and at the same time there is so much loneliness, disconnection, division. Disconnection from ourselves, from each other, and from nature.

For me, this work is about coming back to the essence of relationships - to self, to one another, and to our environment. Reconnecting with our hearts, our bodies, our emotions, especially the vulnerable parts that we learn to ignore and replace with efficiency and performance.

I feel that part of my work’s purpose is to help remember what our hearts truly long for. And that longing is love. Connection. Belonging. Presence.

We are deeply relational beings. The idea that we’re meant to be fully independent is a myth. So much of what we struggle with in life has roots in our early relationships, in childhood, when our nervous systems, our sense of self, and our way of relating to the world were formed. Wherever we weren’t seen, supported, protected, or where pain happened without repair, a part of us got stuck there. And that part is often still living inside us today. That’s our inner child still hurting, or inner teenager rebelling.

In Primal inner child work, when we reconnect with that child inside who still feels alone, hurt, or abandoned, something profound happens. In this work we don’t “let go” of the past, but we change how we relate to it. We can finally bring completion to emotions and situations of the past. And that creates real freedom. The freedom to finally grow up, to own our lives, and to respond to life from choice rather than repeating the same patterns that have been passed down for generations and that do not work today anymore, nor bring true fulfillment.

2. What was it that had you decide to jump into the Primal inner child healing process? Where were you at that particular point in your life?

I was at a real turning point in my life. I had just ended a six-year relationship and realised that I had recreated my parents’ relationship almost copy-paste, especially the issues, the conflicts, the dynamics. I didn’t want to be like my mother, and yet in the relationship I saw myself falling into victimhood and depression just like I witnessed in her. Growing up I was afraid of my father’s temper, and yet there I was getting very loud and out-of-control with my emotions during times of conflict or stress in my relationship. When I finally saw the parallels, it was terrifying, but also very eye opening.

At the same time, already for several years I wasn’t in contact with my mother. That was a big pain in my heart. Whenever we tried to reconnect, it ended in fighting and more hurt. I carried a lot of resentment, blame and anger toward her, and I didn’t know how to move through that.

Another “strange” thing was that on the one hand I had a longing to have children one day, but on the other hand I used to feel so annoyed with any children around me. When imagining becoming a mother I would immediately think “but what if I become like my mother. No no, I will never be like her.” Little did I know, it was reactivity of the inner child part in me that felt so abandoned and neglected, actually nothing to do with my actual mother….

And in general, at the time on the outside, my life looked good. I was working in a corporate job, earning good money, very well functional, busy, traveling, partying. But on the inside, I felt lost. I didn’t really know who I was or what I was capable of. I experienced so much anxiety and shame on a daily basis. I still felt like a little girl, unconsciously looking for someone to save me. Even though there were joyful moments, there was this constant feeling inside of me — is this really it? Is this how my life is going to be? And I just couldn’t accept that. I longed to feel free of the past and live from joy and trust, not from fear and resentment.

So I started searching for something different. For answers. For a way of living that felt like mine, not just the model I had inherited from my parents or the society I grew up in. And in that sense, joining Primal was a continuation of something I’d always had in me - this rebellious part that left my country at 19 and refused to settle for a life that didn’t feel true to me. Not that moving countries was the answer, but it was part of my journey of stepping out of the widely accepted norms that inside of me didn’t feel true.

3. After doing the program, what changed, what did you learn? How has it practically impacted you in your life?

One of the biggest changes for me was how I started seeing my parents. I began to see them as humans, and I noticed I no longer felt the need to change them or prove something to them.

During Primal, I was able to finally express and move a lot of built-up emotions toward my parents. Anger, even rage, grief, pain. And that brought a deep sense of liberation, a completion, like dropping a huge weight off my shoulders. A huge burden I carried around for years. Those emotions still get triggered at times, but there’s much more space around them now. I don’t get lost in them the way I used to, they’re no longer running the show.

Today, I have loving relationships with both of my parents. When I do get activated, I can see the activation for what it is and step out of it rather quickly. I can come back to the present moment, meet myself with compassion, and feel that compassion for them as well. It no longer consumes me the way it used to.

I also learned something very important: insight without action doesn’t change much. Once I understood how my childhood shaped my personality - the masks I was wearing, the ways I was forcing myself to be someone I wasn’t, I knew I was going to have to make different choices, many of which were tough choices but much needed. So I left jobs that looked “safe” from the outside, and which would have made my mother proud and relaxed, but in reality were only draining me, felt dull and were actually not in line with my values and integrity. I chose to do things that truly inspire me, give me energy, and bring fulfilment. Scary at the time, but so worth it.

I left or changed relationships and friendships where I felt I had to shrink, or where I felt not nourished or even hurt. I stopped drinking alcohol, I took up activities that allow me to express myself (dancing, for one!) and started living much more intentionally. Now I can be the loving caring adult to myself that I often longed for from my parents or wished for in my partners. When I could feel love for myself and for my body, and connect to others from a place of self-compassion, my relationships started transforming.

None of this happened overnight. Nor is it complete. But since Primal, it’s been a deep, ongoing process of transformation. One that brought me closer to myself and my true gifts.