Inner Child, Inner Brat

In a comment left after my first post, there was a mention of nurturing your inner child. And there is a lot of truth in that. And though I'm not going to make this entire blog about art and creativity, I'll mention that in this book 'The Artist Way' I started working on [with an online group], the author says early in the book that we all have an inner artist within us and she compares it to some extant, to our inner child.

I haven't really done much reading about this topic of the inner child but I certainly have heard about it. Reading the comment after my post, I recalled hearing something about our 'Inner Brat'. So I did a quick google search and came across this book:
"Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide for Transforming Self-Defeating Behavior" by Pauline Wallin, PhD. Here's a part of what the blurb said:
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"Why did I say that?" "I can't believe I ate all that!" "What was I thinking?" We've all asked these questions of ourselves at one time or another. Every one of us has said or done something that we later regret, even though we know better. And we're likely to do it over and over again.

There are specific reasons why we repeat such patterns. The reasons are embodied in a concept called the "inner brat." Not a psychiatric diagnosis, this inner brat is nevertheless responsible for getting us into trouble with ourselves and others. People with a strong inner brat lash out at others; they fall into addictive patterns of eating, drinking, or smoking; they get involved in affairs or end up in self-defeating cycles. They don't acknowledge blame or responsibility for what goes wrong in their lives. And despite how they may appear to others, they are usually unhappy with themselves.

If you have any of the following problems, you may be suffering from an overactive inner brat:

Self-defeating tendencies: procrastination, overeating, shopping, extra-marital affairs

Addictive behaviors: smoking, drinking, gambling, drug use

Interpersonal behavior: temper tantrums, sulking, sarcasm

Personal feelings: self-pity, injustice, petty jealousy, envy, chronic anger or resentment

Antisocial behavior: shoplifting, road rage
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It goes on, but you get the general idea. I think this is something that I may look into a bit deeper; I know I do have a lot of these issues...