INTRODUCING: YOUR OUTER CHILD Susan Anderson © 2000, 2006 (May 2006) You've met your inner child - now meet your outer child, the self-sabotaging nemesis of your personality - the part that breaks your diet and gets attracted to all the wrong people. Whereas Inner child is all about feelings, Outer child is all about behavior. Your outer child acts out your inner child's feelings - especially your abandonment feelings - without giving you, the adult, a chance to intervene. When outer gets hurt, angry, or insecure it uses these feelings to sabotage your relationships. Outer child is a revolutionary self-awareness tool. In discovering your outer child, you learn to overcome your self-defeating patterns, improve your relationships, and become the self-possessed adult you always wanted to be. Those of you who've read Susan's books Journey from Abandonment to Healing or Journey from Heartbreak to Connection, or taken one of her intensive abandonment recovery workshops have already begun to wrestle with your outer child. Outer is the impulsive, obstinate, self-centered nine-year old within all of us. Outer wants what Outer wants now, and will overrule you, the adult, in getting it - and that includes when it wants to binge on candy when you are steadfastly sticking to a diet (or so you thought). Outer child is born of unresolved abandonment. It wreaks havoc in our relationships when it acts out our inner child's fear of abandonment. For example, it aims its emotional suction cups at our prospective partners and scares them away. In deconstructing your own outer child, you undertake the first in-depth personal inventory of your lifetime. Taking the "Outer Child Inventory" (Pages ________ Journey from Abandonment and pages_____________ in the workbook: Journey from Heartbreak__________________) helps you own up to character defects most people prefer to deny. You identify (and truly begin to change) traits that until now formed an invisible infrastructure of self-sabotage deep within your personality. Outer fights change - especially change initiated by you, the adult. Outer balks at doing the right thing and only wants things that are bad for your health, figure, or bank account. By bringing Outer out of the bunkers and into the daylight, you get to subvert its mission, rather than letting it subvert yours. Outer is fueled by emotion. Take anger. Outer either overreacts or under-reacts when you feel angry. For example, abandonment survivors tend to be too insecure to risk getting angry at someone because they fear it might break the connection. Outer takes advantage of this fear and lack of assertiveness and gets you to take your anger out on yourself, damaging your self-esteem. If you let it, Outer will tie your life up in knots. Outer child likes to play games, especially in relationships. It wears many disguises including "hard to get" and "Florence Nightingale." It poses as your ally, but is really your gatekeeper. Its covert agenda is to maintain your patterns - especially your self-defeating patterns. By deconstructing your child defenses, your adult self has the opportunity to guide your behavior, rather than this internal amygdale-driven nemesis. Susan is collecting data on Outer Child, so please contact us or email us with your comments, thoughts, outer child characteristics. Thanks for your help. Susan's proposed new book on Outer Child: CHAPTER OUTLINE Part I: Becoming Aware Chapter 1: Introducing your outer child Chapter 2: How Outer child awareness changes your life Chapter 3: How Outer child got started Part II: Taking Your Outer Child Inventory Chapter 4: Outer child and unresolved abandonment Chapter 5: Outer child and patterns of self-sabotage Chapter 6: Outer child and relationships Chapter 7: Outer child and your addictions Chapter 8: Outer child and depression Chapter 9: Zeroing in on your own outer child- a 200 item check-list Part II: Deconstructing Your Outer Child Defenses Chapter 10: How to include Outer child in your inner child work Chapter 11: Creating a life-changing Outer/Adult dialogue Chapter 12: Stand up, Adult, and take the reigns!