Ep 90 - How to journey with real, healing 'inner child' work (rather than the phantasy of 'quick fixes') to realise our magic

WITH William Apple

On the Secret Witch Show today our guest is William Apple. William is Founder of Aion Psychodynamic Coaching and with a passion for understanding the depths of the human psyche, and a commitment to personal growth and transformation, William offers a unique approach to coaching and mentoring that transcends traditional "Life Coaching" paradigms. William's most influential Teacher, and Mentor by proxy - within the realms of Psychology - would be Carl Jung. Like Jung, William has found a devotion within himself to explore and cultivate an intimacy with Psyche, and Her Mother, The Unconscious, and this Intimacy is driven by a likewise strict devotion to the Child of Logos, Analysis. All of which likewise led William naturally towards Traditional Western Alchemy and Mysticism; making Carl Jung William's most naturally aligned "professor".

In this deep and brilliant episode we explore how to journey with ‘inner child’ work and ‘shadow work’ (rather than the phantasy of ‘quick fixes’) for deep healing. We dived into the psychological reasons we tend to favour ‘quick fix’ approaches to healing, what we mean by ‘real’ inner-child work - and how curiosity, intimacy and self-illumination are key to healing and realising our magic. Listen to the end - William shares truthfully at the end that becoming a healer is one of the most challenging callings we can have, sharing why healing ourselves is important along the way.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

Our biggest wounding comes from the ‘unlived life of our parents’ which leaves us with unmet needs that become our wounds - and this can be healed with ‘true’ inner child work.
The challenge is, much ‘inner child work’ is often related to from a place of ‘quick fix’ projection and phantasy by modern coaching and self-help industries - ideas of ‘go play with your little girl’ embodiment practices - which are helpful in some ways, but often lack the depth of healing
Caveating that ‘real’ is our own projection, William explores that how he sees the ‘real’ journey of healing is grounded in a lifelong journey of understanding our biases, projections and conditionings - and ‘phantasies’ - with loving, curious self-illumination - which some could call the ‘deep work’
Projection is not a ‘bad thing’ - we have projected onto ‘projection’ if we think it is! It is a great thing to get curious about - we are even projecting things that we deem to feel ‘good’ (because that reveals where we have met an unmet need)
As aspiring healer witches, we have been called to no easy task - the work of healing ourselves isn’t easy (and is ongoing) *and* as healers, we also have a responsibility for accountability, self-awareness and avoiding projecting of our unmet needs
Common fears of becoming a healer - including fear of failure, self-doubt and fear of being judged and abandoned are rooted in shame, and can be healed through deep, loving self-illumination
Inner child work, parts work, shadow work and ancestral healing are all serving to help us reclaim our magic - ultimately all offering us a way of deepening intimacy with ourselves

Resources and things that we spoke about: