By Lea Nguyen
Have you ever heard a little voice inside of you that reminds you of your younger
self? Your inner child is an unconscious part of you that is shaped during childhood
that still begs for attention to be seen and heard. You may even have various inner
child parts, one from various stages in your childhood or adolescence. Maybe your
5-year-old self shows up when your partner doesn’t console us the way you’d want
them to, or your misunderstood 15-year-old self gets angry when your best friend
doesn’t see eye-to-eye. These parts may hold cherishing memories as well as scary,
painful, maybe even traumatic, events that were unresolved. These emotions or
memories come up when you’re an adult.
Healing your inner child is one of the ways to address your needs that haven’t been
met when you were a child and the attachment wounds that you’ve developed.
Inner work is the act of turning inwards to explore parts of us and emotions that
have been unseen, unheard, and even rejected. It is a process of reparenting and
nurturing your younger self. When you turn the focus inward, you begin to
understand your everyday coping mechanisms – think procrastinating, numbing
your feelings, avoiding closeness in relationships, criticizing yourself, and the like.
Believe it or not, this part of you serves to protect you to avoid feeling
overwhelmed by emotions from your inner child. But we’ll explore protectors in-
depth in another blog post.
When your inner child feels cared for, you feel calm, compassionate, confident,
courageous, creative, and connected. When you heal your inner child, you begin to
feel at peace within yourself and your relationships with others. So, how can you
begin to heal your inner child?
A young rabbit is on the back of an adult rabbit
1. Hug Yourself Daily
When horrific, painful, traumatic events have happened in the past, your conscious
mind may not have the words to talk about it, but the body deeply remembers and
carries the trauma, including emotions and sensations from the traumatic event.
When you are reminded of the past, you might feel your heartbeat racing faster,
your muscles tensing up, and your palms feeling clammy and sweaty. Supportive,
soothing physical touch can comfort your inner child when they feel helpless,
terrified, or just need attention.
Dr. Peter Levine, a master somatic psychotherapist, created a basic but effective
technique for self-soothing and self-regulation, called the “Self-Holding” exercise.
To put it simply, you are hugging yourself.
1. Put your right hand under your left armpit on the side of your heart.
2. Put your left hand on your right shoulder.
3. Take a moment to feel what the sensation is like, not just of your hands but of
what is going on inside. What emotions come up? What are you feeling inside?
Some people describe this as grounding, while others report a feeling of warmth.
Allow yourself to feel contained and notice if you can sit and feel the shift of
positive feelings and sensations.
Illustration: Peter Levine Demonstrating the Self-Holding Exercise by Heidi Hanson
The self-hug helps you become aware of your container. Your body is the container
of all your sensations and feelings, and when you feel this container, they do not
feel as overwhelming. They feel contained!
2. Allow Your Inner Child Space to Play
Play is a vital part of a child’s development. When you reflect on your childhood,
maybe you weren’t allowed ample time to play with toys and peers and were given
obligations that an adult should’ve been responsible for. As we grow older, play is
put on the back burner and is seen as childish for adults to engage in. However,
play allows the ability for your inner child to heal.
Whether it’s going to an arcade or amusement park, listening to music, watching
old cartoons you weren’t allowed to watch, or buying a childhood board game you
wished you played more often, explore and invest time to nurture your inner child
this way.
3. Identify Your Emotional Triggers
Do you find yourself instantly feeling angry, scared, or upset during certain
situations? Maybe you feel deeply hurt when your partner does not honor your
request quickly enough. Can you trace these emotions and sensations to negative
experiences in your childhood? Perhaps your parents were too busy to pay
attention to your needs that you felt unloved and uncared for.
Whatever the ways these painful experiences manifest themselves today, it’s
important to be honest with yourself and identify them. When you identify where
this pain originated from, reassure your inner child by letting them know that they
are heard, loved, and safe. Let them know that you have more resources, guidance,
and freedom to care for them.
4. Attend to Your Inner Child Part
Dr. Richard Schwartz, a family psychotherapist, founded Internal Family Systems
(IFS), a psychotherapy technique to help you identify parts of you that are inside
that respond to events and relationships in your life and teaches you to help them
respond in healthier ways. It allows you to establish a trusted, healthy, harmonious
relationship with your inner child. Practice this modified meditation called
“Unblending and Embodying,” from his book, No Bad Parts, to get to know your
inner child and help them feel safe, nurtured, and loved:
“Get comfortable, and, if it helps, take deep breaths. Then start by focusing on and
checking in with whatever child part that is actively working. To do that, see if you
can find them in or around your body and get curious about how they’re doing.
That is, ask if there’s anything they want you to know or if they need anything – as
you might with a child that’s in your care. As you’re getting to know them, at some
point help them get to know you better – the you that’s with them now – since most
of the time these parts don’t really know you. Instead, they’ve been interacting with
other inner child parts or other parts that are protecting them.
They often believe that you are still a young child. Often this is their first encounter
with you – the you who’s curious about them and cares about them. So let them
know who you are, even how old you are, since they often think you’re much
younger. Let them know that they’re not alone anymore and see how they react.
You can ask, if you’d like, how old they thought you were. You can even ask them to
turn around and look at you.
Invite them to tell you what they need. Maybe it’s a hug, an affirmation, or just an
acknowledgment. Invite them to relax and open space inside, so you can be more
in your body. If a part’s willing to do that, you’ll notice a palpable shift in your body
or your mind toward more spaciousness and peace in that place where the part
seems to reside. If that doesn’t happen, don’t despair, as they may not know you
well enough yet to trust that it’s safe to do that, and that’s fine. It takes time and
practice for your inner child to learn to trust you.
If the part does relax, notice that more embodied, spacious sense of who you are
and the qualities you feel when you’re in that space. What’s it like in your body and
mind now? Notice the spaciousness, the sense of well-being and enoughness – that
you are enough. Also, notice the feeling that there’s nothing to do right now, and
everything is okay.”
It might be helpful for you to record and listen to yourself while doing this
meditation.
5. Talk to a Therapist
Some childhood memories can bring a lot of pain. If reaching out to your inner
child triggers discomfort, painful feelings, or traumatic memories, know that you do
not have to heal alone. Our therapists at Haven Mental Health Counseling are
skilled with inner child work including, Parts Work, Internal Family Systems, Eye
Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Sensorimotor Psychotherapy,
and Somatic Work to name a few. We can help you begin to navigate inner child
work and learn how to heal your inner child together. We recognize how your
childhood experiences and other past events can affect your relationship with
yourself and others and your overall well-being. You’ll learn how to meet your inner
child’s needs, express emotions in healthier ways, experience self-compassion and
self-love, and just feel overall better.
It’s never too late to heal.