200-item Outer Child Inventory
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1. We all have an Outer Child -- our hidden self-saboteur -- "the devil on my shoulder"
2. Outer Child is the selfish, obstinate, impulsive, self-centered part of all of us.
3. Outer Child acts out your inner child’s feelings, especially its abandonment feelings.
4. Outer Child encompasses all of the outward signs of your inner child’s vulnerability – the scars, the warts, the defenses that manifest outwardly.
5. Outer Child actively ignores you, especially when you try to tell it what to do, like “Go to the gym.” Outer just goes right on eating potato chips and lounging in front of the television.
6. Outer Child wears many disguises, especially in public. Since other people's outer children are usually well hidden, you may have thought you were the only one with an outer child.
7. Outer Child is the hidden “Chuckie” of the personality. Even the nicest people we know can act like an eight year old with a full blown conduct disorder (perhaps not in public) when they feel rejected, dismissed, abandoned.
8. Outer Child is sandwiched between the inner child and the adult.
9. Outer Child steps right in and takes over when we least expect it. You have every intention of handling a particular situation in a mature, adult manner, but Outer handles things its own way and leaves you holding the bag. Like, you decide to calmly express a grievance to a friend, but Outer gets worked up and starts bringing up the past and creating a drama.
10. Outer Child interferes between Big You and Little You. It blocks the perfectly decent relationship you could otherwise have with your self. In other words, it blocks self-love.
11. Outer Child has a hole in its pocket when it comes to either anger or money. Outer must spend it.
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12. Outer Child is in everyone because we all have emotions that trigger automatic defense mechanisms and learned responses.
13. Outer Child is like the annoying older brother who constantly interferes in your life in the guise of protecting (overprotecting) you.
14. Outer Child is developmentally between eight and twelve. Self-centeredness is age-appropriate for Outer Child.
15. Outer Child is your own personal wolf dressed up in Little Red Riding Hood’s clothing. If you look closely enough, you see Outer’s whiskers sticking out.
16. Outer Child goes undercover in public. Some people are better able to hide their Outer Child than others. Of course, some Outer Children are easier to hide than others.
17. Outer Child becomes most powerful when there is an internal disconnect between head and heart – between your Adult Self and Inner Child.
18. Outer Child loves chocolate and convinces you that it’s good for your heart. Likewise with wine.
19. Outer Child is most able to dominate your personality when you’re going through a vulnerable time. Stress energizes Outer Child. People with extremely stressful, traumatic childhoods tend to have very stressed out inner children and therefore very active Outer Children. Some people are ALL Outer Child.
20. Outer Child throws temper tantrums and goes off in tirades if feels even slightly criticized, rejected, or abandoned.
21. Outer Child is a puppeteer. If you’re not a strong enough adult, it will pull all your strings.
22. Outer Child is OUT of control. Outer Child is Dennis the Menace.
23. Outer Child acts up when you are tired, cranky, hungry. Stress arouses Outer Child.
24. Outer Child thrives on denial. Denial is how Outer defends itself.
25. Outer Child doesn’t like to do things that are good for you.
26. Outer Child would rather do something that will make you fat or broke than thin or fiscally responsible.
27. Outer Child talks about your friends behind their back.
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28. Outer Child hates it when your friends talk about you behind your back.
29. Outer Child represents the defense mechanisms. If you happen to think of personality as a defense, then, Outer Child would represent the personality.
30. Outer Child can't hide from your spouse or children. They get to see it in action. That is what nuclear family is all about: the mutual exposure of your Outer Children.
31. Outer Child’s favorite disguises is 'compliance.' Outer uses compliance to confuse others into thinking that it doesn't want to take control. But don't be fooled – Outer Child is a control freak, even if a subtle one.
32. Outer Child acts pure and innocent to show other people up.
33. Outer Child has OPD – obnoxious personality disorder.
34. Outer Child can become so obstreperous at times, you wish you could ship it off to “Outer Child Care.”
35. Outer Child can’t commit in relationships because it’s always ‘looking to trade up.’
36. Outer Child has ‘bigger is better syndrome.’
37. Outer Child goes in for quick fixes and feeds its emotional hunger with things like shopping, sex, sugar that in the end leave you more in-need.
38. Outer Child is emotionally disturbed at times. Outer’s excuse is that it’s only reacting to what you’ve been through (this may be true), but don’t blame Outer; it doesn't take well to criticism.
39. Outer Child is negatively attracted to the faults of others. Criticizing others is one of Outer’s most socially off-putting features.
40. Outer Child projects its faults on your mate.
41. Outer Child projects its shortcomings onto your children.
42. Outer Child is famous for “taking other people’s inventory.”
43. Outer Child is Queen of Da Nile. Denial is Outer’s favorite defense. If all else fails, just deny it.
44. Outer Child needs to keep you in denial so it can continue doing what it wants to do.
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45. Outer Child takes revenge against the Self. It sees itself apart from Self and creates a schism between Big You and Little You whenever an opening presents itself – that is, whenever you lose touch with your feelings.
46. Outer Child loves to tattle. Badmouthing someone and exposing shortcomings is deeply satisfying to Outer Child.
47. Outer Child can see everybody else’s shortcomings but its own.
48. Outer Child thrives on chaos, loves crisis, and lives to create drama.
49. Outer Child enjoys playing the victim, that is, when not playing the martyr.
50. Outer Child enjoys making the other person wrong. Outer sometimes makes the other person pay for the wrong (though they are probably innocent).
51. Outer Child distracts you when you’re trying to get something done.
52. Outer Child is a world class procrastinator.
53. Outer Child makes huge messes that take forever to clean up.
54. Outer Child makes you late for appointments.
55. Outer Child loses things and blames it one of your children.
56. Outer Child can find an excuse for anything.
57. Outer Child goes off to make a phone or run to the mall call instead of letting you finish what you’re doing.
58. Outer Child tries to look cool and makes you look foolish.
59. Outer Child wears a mini skirt at 65.
60. Outer Child is the 'yes but' of the personality.
61. Outer Child is reactive rather than active or reflective. It is defensive rather than open to feedback, self-justifying rather than self-aware.
62. Outer Child is never wrong and must never be told so, or it will bite someone’s head off.
63. Outer Child hates asking for either help or directions. It would rather get you frustrated or lost.
64. Outer Child explodes when it encounters difficulties with its own abilities, such as when you’re trying to assemble the new barbeque grill. Inner Child is feeling inadequacy, arousing the latent fear of being deemed unworthy of love and left behind – a primitive fear residual of our Clan-of-the-Cave-Bear days when banishment meant death.
65. Outer Child has a favorite feeling: anger. In fact, all of the other feelings like sadness, hurt, loneliness…well, they all make Outer angry.
66. Outer Child acts like a tyrant, but is secretly a coward, afraid to assert its needs appropriately.
67. Outer Child splits its personality between home and office. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – nice at work, a tyrant at home – or vise versa.
68. Outer Child under-reacts when a friend steps on your toes. Outer pretends to be gracious: “Oh, that’s all right…” but holds onto the anger for the next twenty years.
69. Outer Child specializes in blame. If it has an uncomfortable feeling, somebody must be at fault.
70. Outer Child is a people pleaser with ulterior motives. It will give others the shirt off your back. But what does it expect in return? Everything.
71. Outer Child is not old enough to care about others (in spite of its considerable acting skills). Only the adult can do that.
72. Outer Child tests the people it looks to for security – to the limits.
73. Outer Child tests new significant others with emotional games. One of its favorite is playing hard-to-get. Outer Child thinks hard-to-get makes it more loveable, even when it leaves your partner confused and agitated.
74. Outer Child is the addict, the alcoholic, the one who runs at the mouth, runs up your credit cards – the one who overdoes everything.
75. Outer Child’s favorite emotion. Anger is energizing. And self-justifying.
76. Outer Child is charged to DO something about anything that makes you angry. Anger is Outer’s excuse to strike out.
77. Outer Child, when angry, can become blood thirsty, its rampage fueled by adrenaline and other brain chemicals that increase your impulsivity and decrease your reasoning capacity.
78. Outer Child reacts to all pain with anger. Anger is secondary emotion. When you stub your toe, it hurts. Pain. You scream in anger because you’re angry at the pain.
79. Outer Child reacts to emotional pain this way also (i.e. your lover is withholding). Outer directs its anger at the person triggering it or any inanimate object that gets in your way.
80. Outer Child uses crying as a manipulation. But this ploy is so automatic, primitive, and unconscious, that if you call out Outer on it, it becomes indignant and cries louder.
81. Outer Child criticizes others to keep the heat off of itself.
82. Outer Child uses almost any diversionary tactic, no matter now convoluted or unattractive, to keep your vulnerability out of sight.
83. Outer Child has a phony laugh to cover up stray feelings.
84. Outer Child is passive aggressive.
85. Outer Child doesn’t have enough self-control to delay gratification and do the right thing.
86. Outer Child’s favorite mottos: Buy now, pay tomorrow. Cake now, diet tomorrow.
87. Outer Child’s mission is to avoid your having to feel inner child’s feelings, especially feelings like hurt, loneliness, disappointment or abandonment.
88. Outer Child can't stand waiting, especially when waiting for a new lover to call.
89. Outer Child takes your lovers as emotional hostages.
90. Outer Child expects a new lover to compensate it for all of the hurts and betrayals inflicted by old relationships dating all the way back to childhood.
91. Outer Child springs into action when it doesn’t get acceptance or approval.
92. Outer Child will demand, defy, deceive, ignore, balk, manipulate, seduce, pout, whine, and retaliate when it can’t get someone’s loving attention.
93. Outer Child doesn’t see the above as contradictions.
94. Outer Child uses people places and things as props in its own melodrama.
95. Outer Child takes internal feelings and creates circumstances in the outside world that manages to externalize them.
96. Outer Child insists on an unreliable car which breaks down a lot, so it can displace your internal feelings of helplessness and frustration on the old rattletrap or your incompetent mechanic.
97. Outer Child gets hooked on lovers who cheat, so when you catch them, rather than find someone more trustworthy, Outer revels in righteous indignation and get to scream your bloody guts out.
98. Outer Child chooses substitutes for the parent who made you feel abandoned in childhood.
99. Outer Child’s constant trouble-making motivates you to get stronger – to become a better adult. That’s how your adult self gains power – by wresting it away from Outer.
100. Outer Child happens to be an award winning actor who believes its own act. You’re not always sure if this is the real you or your Outer Child disguised as you. This makes it hard to recognize the true face of your own Outer Child or anyone else’s.
101. Outer Child wants to skip the work involved in any self-improvement plan and get straight to the benefits.
102. Outer Child wants everything the easy way – in pill form if possible – rather than have to DO something constructive like perform the behavioral steps of a linear process.
103. Outer Child remains idle, holding out for the next magic pill.
104. Outer Child believes catharsis is a magic pill and gets you to wait (in vain) for a ‘break-through’ rather than let you work on changing your behavior.
105. Outer Child balks at going through any process that takes time. It tries to convince you that to change behavior, awareness is enough – that insight alone will change you– that it’s not necessary to have to actually DO anything differently.
106. Outer Child believes that to change, all you have to do is sit and read and talk and think about yourself and your behavior patterns will spontaneously change for the better and you will turn your life into a bowl of cherries.
107. Outer Child has a covert agenda: it works unconsciously to maintain your patterns. Becoming aware of your Outer Child defenses helps you readjust the mechanisms causing the dysfunction. Outer reacts to this by trying even harder to reinstate these patterns.
108. Outer Child gets right in the middle when we try to start a new relationship and acts over-needy.
109. Outer Child may be found in our mates. Sometimes we marry a person who acts out our own forbidden Outer Child wishes – sometimes this boomerangs and our mate’s Outer acts out against US.
110. Outer Child may be found in our children’s behavior. When we get into power struggles with our actual children, we find ourselves battling our own Outer Child (because our real-life children aggravate our Outer Child). Sometimes we secretly encourage our real children to fulfill our hidden 0uter Child needs. They act out the anger we can’t own up to.
111. Outer Child strives for its own self interest while pretending to protect Little You. But Outer wants one thing only – its own way. Outer is devoted to its own self-interests. Some of us hide this selfish part better than others.
112. Outer Child plays selfless to cover up selfish desires.
113. Outer Child bristles when someone accuses you of being selfish. This means Outer’s disguise isn’t concealing enough. (Your inner child is afraid people won’t like you if they can see your selfishness.)
114. Outer Child has searing insight into other people’s self-centeredness, but not its own.
115. Outer Child is jealous when other people fee entitled to display their selfishness openly. Outer watches from the sidelines, weighed down by its selfless armor.
116. Outer Child can be very cunning, putting its best foot forward when pursuing a new partner. It can act the picture of altruism, decency, kindness, and tolerance.
117. Outer Child can also be seductive, funny, charming, full of life, and pretends to be interested in the other person’s feelings. Then when Outer succeeds in catching its prey, it suddenly becomes cold, critical, unloving, and sexually withholding.
118. Outer makes us pity the person willing to love us.
119. Outer Child gets a headache just on time for the boudoir.
120. Outer Child enjoys breaking rules. Your best friends may have very dominant Outer Children, which makes them a lot of fun to hang out with.
121. Outer Child strives for independence through misguided efforts like power-struggling with You! You wish your Outer Child would get its act together enough to leave home. Wish away, but don’t count on it. (Unless you follow the program.)
122. Outer Child gains strength during dormant periods when you’re between relationships. Then, when you become interested in a new person, Outer swoops in and acts out your insecurity in convoluted, embarrassing ways that jeopardize everything.
123. Outer Child tries to defeat the two major tasks of intimacy: Task one is to get your inner child to become friends with your mate’s inner child. Task two is to make sure you don’t take each other’s Outer Children too personally. But Outer prefers to beat up on your mate’s inner child and go head to head with her Outer Child.
124. Outer Child identifies with Groucho Marx: It would never join any club that would have you as a member.
125. Outer Child has enough vanity and pride to try conquering an emotionally dangerous lover, one who is potentially rejecting, distancing, and abandoning.
126. Outer Child thinks emotionally unavailable people are sexy.
127. Outer Child is attracted to people’s form rather than substance. Outer finds status more attractive than integrity or kindness.
128. Outer Child can’t resist the emotional candy of a hard-to-get-lover. This goes against what’s good for your inner child who needs someone capable of giving love, nurturance, and commitment. But since when has Outer Child ever cared about what’s good for Little You?
129. Outer Child refuses to learn from mistakes. It insists upon ‘doing the same things over and over and expecting different results’ (slogan from Alcoholics Anonymous).
130. Outer Child locks horns with your mate’s Outer Child. The two Outer Children try to control each other’s behavior, which is hopeless and can become very loud. Your best bet is to find something for your Outer Children to do other than interfere in the relationship. If you can’t ignore them, send them out to play.
131. Outer Child gained strength during times of isolation, loss, disappointment, and abandonment – when there was no one available to mitigate your pain. That’s when Outer Child stepped up its defense mechanisms.
132. Outer Child is defeated by consciousness, thrives on unconsciousness.
133. Outer Child’s motivation is what clinicians call ‘unconscious motivation.’
134. Outer Child is Crusader Rabbit, but with ulterior motives.
135. Outer Child believes laws and ethics are for everybody else.
136. Outer Child obeys rules only to avoid getting caught.
137. Outer Child can dish it out but can't take it.
138. Outer Child is holier than thou.
139. Outer Child beats up on other people's inner children – especially the inner child of a significant other. Outer also bullies your own inner child.
140. Outer Child tries to get self esteem by proxy – that is, by trying to attract people who have more status or bigger egos. Outer likes to be liked by a big shot.
141. Outer Child can deliver a subtle but powerful blow if it perceives a social slight, no matter how small.
142. Outer Child can express anger by becoming inconveniently passive.
143. Outer Child finds someone who is committed and attached – someone easy to take for granted – and then treats him badly. Why? Outer doesn’t have to defend against the constant fear of being abandoned. Your inner child’s fear of abandonment was the only reason Outer developed a pleasing persona. When this fear is dormant, its true persona rears its head.
144. Outer Child keeps up an endless protest against any reality it doesn’t want to accept.
145. Outer Child can stay in protest mode no matter how much you try to let go, accept a loss, or face an unwanted reality.
146. Outer Child protests against homework, returning library books, taxes, rejection, global warming, and death.
147. Outer Child refuses to stay on the rock (reference to Black Swan: 12 Lessons of Abandonment Recovery), unlike Little You. Outer climbs down and picks up a hatchet and goes on the war path.
148. Outer Child has a chip on its shoulder which it disguises as assertiveness. Outer Child becomes ‘Outa.’
149. Outer Child (Outa) develops a ‘tude’ to keep people at bay. It’s trying to overprotect your inner child’s feelings of loneliness and vulnerability.
150. Outer Child hides its thorns when it wants to and can smell like a rose.
151. Outer Child has been gaining strength since the terrible twos. Its development got stuck somewhere between eight and twelve – the age when you no longer took rejection, dismissal, or neglect sitting down. Outer will continue to gain power until your adult self gains enough strength to tame its behavior. The program helps you drastically lower your Outer Child-to-Adult ratio.
152. Outer Child doesn't obey the golden rule.
153. Outer Child obeys its own 'Outer Child' rule: Get others to treat you as you want to be treated, and treat others as feel like treating them.
154. Outer Child needs to be disciplined, but don’t expect limit-setting to go smoothly.
155. Outer Child provokes anger in subtle ways, then accuses the other person of being abusive.
156. Outer Child loves to play the injured party.
157. Outer Child submits so it can seethe at being dominated.
158. Outer Child is master at making the other person look like the bad guy. Outer knows how to wear the white hat cocked at a jaunty angle.
159. Outer Child is emotionally allergic to triangles, especially when you’re caught in a triangle between someone you love and someone they love (such as your partner’s daughter from his first marriage or your girlfriend’s ongoing ‘friendship’ with her former boyfriend). Triangles get Outer all bent out of shape. When your inner child feels jealous and threatened, it triggers your Outer Child to go haywire and make you look like a nutcase. That’s when you know you’ve been triangulated.
160. Outer Child is a self-trasher. Outer hopes other people will come to its rescue.
161. Outer Child is empowered by self abandonment.
162. Outer Child has a default diet – comfort food. Outer is addicted to carbs.
163. Outer Child likes to see itself as a freedom fighter, but while it’s off raising hell, you wind up in shackles.
164. Outer Child tries to speak for Little You. You think you’re tuning into your feelings, but you’re really listening to Outer Child trying to manipulate you.
165. Outer Child seeks emotional salve from others.
166. Outer Child is highly principled: it scrupulously obeys the pleasure principle.
167. Outer Child is a hedonist.
168. Outer Child finds that satisfying the sweet tooth is the most immediate way to get pleasure – it’s instantaneous.
169. Outer Child is a champion of pleasure and will valiantly smuggle cookies to your bedroom, especially when you’re dieting.
170. Outer Child is a fairness junky. It fights for what it considers fair. Outer has been known to commit injustices (and declare war) in the name of fairness.
171. Outer Child springs into action when it senses someone recoiling; it gets to practice what it knows best – its excellent groveling skills. Practicing this game of approach-avoidance “scratches the itch” of your old abandonment wounds, but it leaves your inner child hurting from bigger blisters.
172. Outer Child believes that when heartbroken, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else (paraphrased from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love).
173. Outer Child can become so shrill that people can’t tell whether you’re whining or secretly having an orgasm.
174. Outer Child loves to associate with other Outer Children so that it can satisfy all of its indulgences without feeling guilty.
175. Outer Child turns your life into ‘Ferris Beuler Day’s off.’
176. Outer Child uses projection as a defense. Outer projects your shortcomings onto other people to keep the focus off of itself.
177. Outer Child is an environmentalist when it comes to a ‘good catch’ – it just likes to tag them and then throw them back in (submitted by workshop member at Esalen Institute in 2006).
178. Child loves to shrug and say, ‘Whatever…” but this is disingenuous. It is trying to get people to let their guards down to gain control of the situation. Your inner child is afraid of getting beaten in a power struggle, so your Outer Child pretends it has no preferences. But all the while it’s fastidiously keeping score.
179. Outer Child believes what it wants to believe. It has a wishbone where it should have a backbone (paraphrased from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love).
180. Outer Child is always looking for love insurance and refuses to believe there is no such thing.
181. Outer Child might chase after someone who is very hard up and become his ‘caretaker’ in hopes of becoming so valuable that the poor slob will never want to leave you. But this strategy of ‘having the edge’ backfires like all of Outer’s other schemes (the other person resents feeling ‘obligated’ and ‘less-than’) and you wind up abandoned (again).
182. Outer Child is a perfectionist. Your Adult Self has a hard time reasoning with this nit-picking perfectionist.
183. Outer Child’s perfectionism has strings attached. It’s a form of bargaining. It’s saying, “If I’m perfect enough, I deserve to be rewarded.”
184. Outer Child’s perfectionism contains a built-in vice grip; if you don’t get rewarded, Outer’s iron fist may protrude through its velvet glove.
185. Outer Child prepares for a dinner party by ripping through your closet searching for something perfect. Clothes you liked yesterday are suddenly unacceptable. You bite anyone’s head off (family member) that comes near you – because you need to be perfect.
186. Outer Child refuses to accept the simple fact that you, like everyone else, has imperfections, inadequacies, lackings, and shortcomings. We are all bent twigs. The knuckles, knots, and bends in our twigs are what give each of us our special contours and distinctiveness. Nope. Outer wants to be free of knuckles and knots – perfect.
187. Outer Child is an egotist who tries to hide it in all sorts of disguises like altruism, moral superiority, righteous indignation, benevolence.
188. When Outer does something spiteful, it hides behind altruism, moral superiority, righteous indignation, and benevolence.
189. Outer Child can be self-spiteful– make you miserable in order to punish someone else. For instance, Outer can keep you heartbroken forever just to prove the injustice of the breakup. Outer puts you through all of this because it thinks being miserable is a way to get even with your ex. It is behaving like a spoiled, self-spiteful brat toward You, the adult, just to say “So there!” to your ex. As illogical, primitive, and totally self-defeating as you know this to be, Outer goes right on perpetrating its siege of self-spite, undeterred. (Self-spite is what young children do – an early sign of a fledgling Outer Child).
190. Outer Child is attracted to People, Places, and Things in the world of form. Outer belongs almost exclusively to the form world.
191. Outer Child prefers form to substance. In fact, Outer can’t appreciate substance unless it’s wrapped in impressive form. Outer is impressed with form.
192. Outer Child is impressed with people’s confidence because confidence has good form. Outer can’t recognize someone’s intelligence, competence, or wisdom unless it is conveyed with charisma and confidence. Some of the wisest people convey neither charisma nor confidence, but instead may evince a searching, self-effacing demeanor, so thanks to Outer Child culture, they go unrecognized.
193. Outer Child’s attachment to form leaves Little You in jeopardy of being surrounded with false truths, substitute fulfillments, and counterfeit love.
194. Outer Child springs from the mammalian brain.
195. Outer Child writes your life with the blunt instrument.
196. Outer Child is visually triggered and primed to follow the herd. It is instinct-bound, driven by the need for immediate gratification, and hell bent on satisfying your primal emotions.
197. Outer Child reacts to abandonment with rage. When love is involved, abandonment rage can trigger Outer Child’s most destructive, dangerous, and self-justifying behaviors. In fact, abandonment rage has been responsible for most of the infamous murder-suicides so often grabbing headlines.
198. Outer Child’s behavior ranges from mild self-sabotage all the way to criminal destructiveness.
199. Outer Child can gain control so early that the individual doesn’t develop any true empathy or compassion for himself or others. The extreme Outer Child is a sociopath.
200. Outer Child needs to be understood, owned, and overruled by an airtight coalition between your inner child and your adult self.
201. Outer Child holds the key to change. Inner child beholds your emotional truth but can’t change (because it’s developmentally too young to overcome its passivity). When you catch your Outer Child red-handed, wrest the key from its hands and unlock your future.
202. Outer Child becomes your friend and ally. But first you have to help it reach maturity by mentoring, teaching, and guiding its prodigious energy.
I hope this inventory inspired you to get in touch with your Outer Child.
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Do you want to send me your own unique Outer Child behaviors?