Today we are going to discuss how to start healing our inner child.
You can study the psychology of the inner child through psychotherapy, but also get to know and heal your inner child through energy work.
This aspect of our personality develops while we are young, from birth to age 8 roughly, and carries the programming and the imprinted lessons we learned during that time.
This means our inner child can be shaped and motivated by events that we don’t even remember.
The first time I did a birth energy healing for myself I thought it was going to be totally wacky, because I did not believe that the energy surrounding my birth would effect me as an adult.
But it was profound and healed me in ways I didn’t even know I needed.
And that is what happens when we start getting to know our inner child better. This work brings us closer and closer to wholeness. The ultimate goal of inner child work is to become the adult responsible for our own inner child so it can become a happy, healthy, and loved part of ourselves.
So hear you are, 4 steps to begin working on healing your inner child.
1. The first step to healing our inner child is learning how to recognize when that part of us wants attention by recognizing its energy and holding space for it.
Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as feeling our phone vibrate and then checking to see who is calling. We have to figure out how our inner child “calls” us.
This can be a challenge if we created a habit of ignoring the calls, which is basically the opposite of holding space.
Sometimes when we feel the energy of our inner child coming up for air, we push it back down by ignoring, shaming, or punishing it. So in this step, we are going to practice recognizing the energy and holding space for it.
One of my friends was telling me that, as an adult, she sometimes becomes whiny as a reaction to being hurt by a significant other, and that she has hated that about herself.
The more we talked about it, the more she realized that the whininess was really her inner child calling her to say “I have an unmet need!”
When we looked through her childhood and what her inner child might be upset about, it was obvious why she was triggered.
As a child, she was abused by her parents. When she would feel like there was no hope, and that no one was ever going to save her from that hell, she felt that “whininess,” which was actually desperation and hopelessness.
The whininess in adulthood was her inner child screaming out, wanting to be saved from her suffering, wanting someone to love her and protect her.
When a current significant other would turn away, her inner child was not resilient to the loss of a loving adult, because in her childhood, loving and safe adults were nowhere to be found.
Our inner child doesn’t only show up when a childhood wound is having salt rubbed on it. Our inner child can also come forward in happy moments, in joyful moments, in moments that nourish and inspire us, moments that help us grow, and moments where we feel loved.
An integrated inner child is part of us showing up whole.
You can start to recognize the energy of your inner child several different ways. Pick whichever way feels best for you. The intention is to become aware of when the inner child is trying to have a say, or is showing up in the forefront of your personality.
We will have clues. Maybe it is a physical sensation, like a stomach ache, the same stomach ache you have every time you think of your second grade teacher.
Maybe it is a thought pattern, like “She always gets what she wants and I never get what I want!”
Maybe it is a behavior pattern, like twirling your hair when you get nervous, or even giggling when you are excited.
The clues could be feelings and emotions as a response to a situation, event, or even feelings ABOUT feelings, like feeling jealous, then feeling ashamed for feeling jealous.
So you can get in touch with your inner child by learning his/her clues. To do this, you can meditate or journal. You can even look at a picture of yourself in your early childhood and envision yourself talking with this little you.
Go in to this work with the intention of meeting your inner child. Imagine yourself as a young child standing directly in front of you today. Greet the child. How does the child react to you? Help the child feel safe. Here are some ideas of questions you can ask the child.
How will I know when you are showing up?
What feelings will I have?
What emotions?
What sensations?
What behaviors?
What words?
What thoughts?
What reactions?
This will help you start to realize when your inner child is “calling” or showing up in the foreground of your personality, particularly when they have an unmet need that needs attention and healing.
2. The second step towards healing your inner child is three mini-steps.
Become the adult responsible for this child’s wellbeing,
identify what makes this child feel loved, safe, and happy,
and commit to taking responsibility for providing these things for your inner child.
- The first mini-step is that you must become the adult responsible for this child now.
Not your parents, caregivers, teachers, extended family, etc. None of them are responsible for your inner child anymore.In this step, you commit to providing for this child all the things you needed in childhood but never received.
You are committed to telling this child all the things you needed to hear but never heard.
No one else is responsible for this child’s well being any longer. You now get to show up and love this child the way it needs and deserves.
- That leads us to the second mini-step, which is identifying this child’s needs.
If we had a childhood where we weren’t allowed to be in touch with our needs, whether emotional, physical, or mental, it is possible that into adulthood, we are not actually in tune with what it is that we really need to feel loved, safe, and happy.
But our inner child needs and deserves to feel those feelings.
So we start slowly. Comb back through your childhood memories. When did you feel loved? Safe? Happy?
These are clues to what will support your inner child. You can journal or meditate and ask your inner child, “What would help you feel safe? Loved? Happy?”
It is ok if this is a slow process, or if you only get a few answers to try. We have to honor the pace of healings. We can’t force our inner child to do this, but we can commit to providing it what we know it needs, and honoring its truth.
While we are doing inner child work, we have to respect the free will of others, even if we don’t agree with it. That means we cannot make someone apologize to us or love us or act a certain way. That is healthy information to pass along to your inner child.
We can, however, set healthy boundaries that protect our inner child. “I can’t have so-and-so in my life” is a healthy and reasonable request, and something that should be respected, especially if that person is actually not safe!
Figure out what you must do to remove that person from your life! Remember, you are committed to taking care of your inner child!
But if your inner child is feeling like “I need so-and-so to love me a specific way” or “I need to have this job to be happy,” here are some ideas of what to say.
“I’m sorry I can’t make so-and-so love you. It feels very sad. But I am going to love you. I love you the way you deserve. Let’s focus on what qualities we expect from the people in our life and start looking for people with those qualities. Because you are right, you deserve to be loved and to love someone. Because I love you, I am going to show you how to love yourself and have healthy boundaries and expectations about the people in your life.”
or
“I know that job looks like the only thing that will make you happy. But we can’t give our happiness to something we can’t control. And we can’t control whether or not we get that job. Let’s figure out how to be happy even without that job. Because I love you, I am going to show you how to actually be happy.”
If you feel like you don’t know how to “actually be happy,” thats ok! You don’t have to lie to your inner child! You can say, “I”m not sure how to be happy without that job, but we both deserve to figure this out.”
Those are just examples, and you should talk to your inner child in whatever ways feels most empowering and loving to you!!!!
- The third mini-step is, once you know what your inner child needs to be supported and healthy, you commit to it as non-negotiable.
This will help you make good decisions, set and enforce boundaries, help you decide who and what you give your time and energy to.
And these are not things anyone can tell us or decide for us. This is completely personal and unique. You become the authority on what is and is not ok in your life as the adult responsible for your inner child.
So the questions for this step are
-What helps my inner child feel safe, loved, and happy?
-As the adult responsible for the well-being of this child, how can I commit to providing this child what it needs?
3. The third step to healing your inner child is to go to some of that child’s pain.
I’m not talking about going through and clearing every catalogued trauma in one sitting. That would take forever and who knows if we could even survive it?!?!
I’m talking about going to one painful memory and sitting there with the child.
Do not try to tell the child how to feel, not at first. The first and most important step here is to validate the child. Affirm their pain to them, and that how they are feeling makes perfect sense.
Some of the worst feelings are when our loved ones will not validate our pain to us. They will not say that it makes sense for us to be scared, sad, lonely, anxious, depressed, angry, jealous, etc.
If those feelings make them uncomfortable, they are likely to instantly say “yeah but look at the bright side.”
This doesn’t give us a chance to own and process our feelings in a healthy way.
And as a result, we become crippled emotionally.
So go back to a moment that was painful, when you needed some love and understanding that you did not get.
Sometimes the memory is right there waiting to be healed, sometimes we have to wait for awhile for it to show up.
Other times, we will ask ourselves, “Why is this memory popping up? It was so silly that I completely overreacted.” Those memories need healing, too, and maybe need it the most.
Your only intentions for this step are to affirm to your inner child that their feelings are 100% valid and reasonable and make total sense, and that you love them. No need to tell them how they “should” feel.
You absolutely can tell them they did not deserve that trauma. Just have the intention to listen, affirm, and love.
For instance,
“You are right, it was not fair that she embarassed you in front of your class. You are right, she was being vindictive. It makes sense that you hate her. It makes sense that you are crying. It makes sense that you never want to trust her again. I am so sorry that happened. You did not deserve that. She should not have don’t that to you.”
Imagine yourself treating little you the way you needed to be treated at that time, whether it is hugging each other, having all the time you need to talk things through, or needing to hear “I love you and we will get through this.”
4. The fourth step towards healing your inner child is committing to having experiences that support and nurture your inner child.
These are not things where other people treat you like a child. These are experiences you enjoy just for the sake of the experience. You have to protect these experiences as sacred and non-negotiable.
Affirm to your inner child that they deserve these experiences and to feel safe, loved, and happy.
Honestly, this step looks the easiest but is the one people struggle with the most. So here are the guidelines for getting going.
Brainstorm what would be enjoyable to your inner child.
This does not mean you have to spend time with a coloring book and crayons, but you absolutely can if you want!
It means you should do an activity that is about the experience, not the outcome. It means you can get a massage, play the piano, spend time with friends at a coffee shop or art festival.
Think back to fond memories from your childhood for ideas.
My fondest memories from childhood are going for bike rides by myself, and laying on a blanket under the tree in the backyard watching clouds and reading books. So my inner-child-self-care includes components of these fond memories.
As a child, I loved doing watercolor with my aunt, so I do watercolor and art with my daughter as a way to nurture my own inner child.
For my husband, superhero movies and reading comics are ways to stay connected to the joy of his childhood.
We can even cook some of our favorite childhood meals and snacks as a way to connect with some of our joy in childhood.
Ultimately, for this step to actually occur, you must first give yourself permission. If you aren’t used to making time to take care of little you, this might feel unnatural.
You might want permission from someone else to do what you know you must do to be healthy.
But the beauty is, you have already taken responsibility for the care of your inner child, so the only person you need permission from is you. So go ahead and give it to yourself.
Next, you must surrender to the experience and let yourself enjoy it.
We may have blocks here that are hiccups to allowing ourselves to surrender and enjoy. This usually means we need to let go of the beliefs we have about how we “should” spend our time.
Our to-do lists can be long and unforgiving. Sometimes we put off taking a moment of joy until we make more progress on our to do list, which might be hours, days, months, years, lifetimes.
Instead, tell your inner child that they deserve this experience and to just enjoy it.
And when you are done, don’t let comparison and productivity destroy the value of the work you are doing. Sometimes we say, “Was that a valuable way to spend my time?”
But we measure value in money and productivity, neither of which are currencies our inner child understands.
The only currency our inner child understands is joy.
So for this step, you must
1.Give yourself permission to have an experience that your inner child DESERVES
- Surrender to the experience and allow yourself to enjoy it.
3. Value the experience for exactly what it is, time connecting with the spirit and joy of your childhod.
Inner child healing is a journey, not a destination. Creating a healthy expectation of a lifetime of caring for our inner child is the best way to use this work to cultivate our wholeness.
Good luck. Remember, stay gentle with yourself and honor your progress.