A Note to My Adult Self: I’ve Got the Backpack Now
I am going to assume that I am not the only one for whom walking into a school that can make us feel that age again. Or maybe, like me, you have that recurring nightmare of forgetting your locker combination or showing up to the wrong school or the wrong class. Walking into a school can activate all my senses and take me back to that time of my youth: the smell of pencils being sharpened or dry erasers on the board, the sound of lockers and the roar of the hallway chatter, kind (and sometimes not so nurturing) teacher voices directing students, the feel of a tiny chair. I can quickly experience that time deep inside me of a child who remembers exactly what school felt like to me.
For some of us, school brings memories of friendship, discovery, favorite teachers, and the excitement of learning something new.
Sometimes we walk through the front doors of our child’s school carrying far more than a backpack as we remember
Waiting hopefully to be picked and sometimes being picked last.
Trying desperately to get the right answer.
Being afraid to raise your hand.
Getting in trouble and feeling humiliated.
Trying to fit in.
Being bullied.
Feeling invisible.
Wondering if your parents would remember to pick you up.
Being told you were “too much,” “too sensitive,” “too slow,” “too loud,” or “not living up to your potential.”
Trying to figure out what the adults wanted
We may be carrying our own childhood right along with us. Our responses – whether we speak up for ourselves, share with excitement a new idea, communicate our discontent – may not be informed by what is actually happening in the present. Sometimes we are responding as the child who once felt powerless
Whether you are a parent taking a child to school, an adult at work, or in different situations, our inner child can show up. Our inner child is not simply a sentimental idea about childhood. Our early experiences help shape what we expect from relationships, authority, conflict, belonging, mistakes, achievement, and even ourselves. These are expectations that quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) follow us into adulthood.
Long before we had words for concepts like self-esteem, boundaries, emotional regulation, or personal responsibility, we were gathering information.
We learned things like:
What happens when I make a mistake?
Is it safe to ask questions?
What happens when I disagree with someone (especially a caregiver or someone in authority)?
Do I have to perform well to be valued?
Am I allowed to need help?
Is it safe to be different?
Do my feelings matter?
Am I responsible for keeping everyone happy?
Those childhood lessons do not necessarily disappear when we graduate or grow up. The classroom of our life changes and those experiences can show up in the most unexpected places and ways. You might experience that teacher in your supervisor, that group project you are working on is now a staff meeting, your report card is now a performance evaluation.
All the questions of childhood start to surface:
What if I am wrong?
What if they are upset with me?
What if I embarrass myself?
What if I disappoint someone?
What if everyone else knows what they are doing and I don’t?
Think for a minute about who is showing up for you in your daily life. At the Green Shoe Foundation, we work to reconnect and discover your authentic self – your functioning adult. Consider what happens when you have an idea, or you know something is working. What stirs in you when you disagree with a decision or need to set a boundary? In these situations, do you ask for help? Do you use your voice and speak? Do you overexplain or talk over the others in the room? Do you start with an apology, rehearse before sharing, and then decide not to share at all? Does disagreement feel like rejection to you?
Those responses may make perfect sense when we understand where they came from.
But what protected us as children does not always serve us as adults.
A child may survive an unpredictable environment by becoming extraordinarily good at reading everyone else in the room. A functional adult needs to be able to notice other people without becoming responsible for them.
A child may learn that perfection keeps criticism away. A functional adult needs enough self-esteem to make mistakes, learn, repair, and keep going.
A child may learn that saying “no” creates conflict. A functional adult needs boundaries.
A child may learn that feelings are dangerous or overwhelming. A functional adult needs to experience feelings without allowing every feeling to become a fact or command.
This is one of the gifts of examining our childhood experiences: not so we can live in the past, but so the past does not unknowingly keep running the present.
So as children head back to school with new shoes, sharpened pencils, folders, notebooks, and backpacks, perhaps the rest of us could use a few supplies of our own. Consider this the grown-up version of what to pack in your backpack as you head out to tackle a new day: a reality checker, a boundary backpack, an emotional thermometer, a responsibility folder, a self-esteem notebook, a compassionate inner voice, and a pause button.
THE FUNCTIONAL ADULT BACKPACK:
A Reality Checker
Ask: “What is actually happening right now?”
Not what I fear.
Not what happened before.
Not what I imagine someone is thinking.
What do I actually know to be true in this moment?
A Boundary Compass or GPS
Boundaries give us information about where you end, and another person begins. A boundary GPS helps ensure you are still traveling on your route rather than getting pulled onto someone else’s and can help you notice whether you are staying true to yourself. Carry a few useful sentences everywhere you go:
Yes.
No.
Not now.
That doesn’t work for me.
I need to think about it.
An Emotional Thermometer
What is your body telling you? What do you need to name (and maybe tame) today? Feelings are important information. They deserve our attention. They do not have to make every decision. We can feel anxious and still speak. We can feel disappointed and still remain connected. We can feel angry and still choose how we respond.
A Responsibility Folder
Two pockets would be helpful: MINE and NOT MINE.
MINE: My feelings. My choices. My behavior. My needs. My boundaries.
NOT MINE: Managing everyone else’s feelings. Controlling their choices. Preventing their disappointment. Making sure everyone approves of me.
A Self-Esteem Notebook
Healthy self-esteem gives us the freedom to learn because we no longer have to prove our worth every time we try something. Think about starting a journal and write this on every page:
My worth is inherent.
Success does not increase it.
Failure does not decrease it.
Someone liking me does not create it.
Someone disagreeing with me does not take it away.
A Permission Slip
This one is signed by you.
Permission to rest.
Permission to play.
Permission to change your mind.
Permission to disappoint someone.
Permission to not know.
Permission to ask questions.
Permission to ask for help.
Permission to be a beginner and be curious about your internal self and your external world.
A Compassionate Inner Voice
When something goes wrong, notice the voice that appears. Curiosity helps us grow. Instead of “what is wrong with me?” pause and ask, “what happened and what do I need now?”
A Pause Button
Before reacting. Before fixing. Before rescuing. Before defending. Before explaining. Before shutting down. Pause long enough to ask how the functional adult in me would like to respond.
WHO’S DRIVING THE BUS?
Moving into our functional adult does not mean silencing our inner child. It means listening without handing that younger part of ourselves the steering wheel – using our school thinking, this is putting the functional adult in the driver's seat with all the parts of me riding along. It is noticing all those experiences of the inner child and having compassion, honoring how I adapted to survive, and allowing the functional adult to take over so I can thrive.
My functional adult gathers information, asks questions, sets boundaries, tolerates discomfort, speaks respectfully, makes mistakes, repairs relationships, gets curious, and remains grounded in an inherent sense of worth even when someone else disagrees.
What does the adult me know that the younger me did not? Our childhood will always be part of our story. But it does not have to be the only voice answering the questions.
Sometimes growing up means realizing we can finally become the safe, grounded, curious adult who walks into the room with that younger version of ourselves—and says: “I’ve got the backpack now.”
