How Inner Child Work is the Key to Healing
When was the last time you saw a young child throwing a tantrum? Regardless of how long it’s been, you can probably remember the intensity of the situation pretty clearly, right? That’s because our brains are designed to remember really strong emotions and when children are throwing a tantrum, they are experiencing VERY strong emotions.
What if we told you that just as a real child experiences strong emotions, there is a metaphorical “little child” inside you, that experiences life in the exact same way? In the field of psychology, that part of your psyche that is vulnerable, innocent, and playful like a child is often called “the inner child”. And for many of us, the relationship we have with our inner child can play an important part in our personal healing journey.
What is “the inner child”?
The inner child was first coined by the psychologist Carl Jung as the “the child archetype” - the part of your unconscious mind that represents all of the unmet needs and repressed emotions of your childhood as well as your child-like sense of creativity, wonder, and curiosity.
While we all might have grown up to be adults, there still remains a part of our minds that represents who we were at multiple points in our childhood - both for our good and negative experiences.
This part of us is very much still connected to our innate sense of enthusiasm for life, our curiosity and wonder as well as our desire to play and be creative. However, at the same time, it’s also still connected to the sense of vulnerability and dependence we experienced when we were young.
As children, we didn’t have the ability or emotional maturity to be able to process and integrate our experiences in a healthy way so instead, we turned to repressing anything that made us feel scared, vulnerable or threatened. When this happens, we often speak of the “wounded inner child”.
What is the “wounded inner child”?
The inner child can become wounded after events and experiences in our childhood where our emotional needs aren’t met or negative emotions aren’t properly integrated. These types of events can look like larger trauma (childhood abuse, the death of a loved one, bullying in school, an illness, etc.) but it could also come from much smaller negative experiences, such as not being listened to by a parent, having to constantly subordinate your needs to those of another family member or even just a random negative comment from a stranger at the grocery store.
The moment we experience a negative emotion and don’t know how to deal with it or make it go away, the inner child becomes wounded and represses those negative emotions so that it can start to feel better again. Once we become adults, our cognitive ability to process negative experiences might improve but we still harbor all these repressed emotions that have been neglected and forgotten about for years.
How do you recognize a wounded inner child? Here are some of the common signs:
Fear of being criticized or seen/heard
Shame and fear around expressing yourself openly
Chronic people-pleasing and trying to unconsciously fix/save/rescue others
Guilt/shame around needing alone time or having own needs
Feeling responsible for other people’s needs and emotions
Looking to other people for what is right/wrong
Child-like emotional outbursts in situations of stress or conflict
What is “inner child work” and what are its benefits?
In short, inner child work basically consists of trying to reconnect with the child that once was wounded and learning how to let go and reprocess those negative emotions that caused your wounding in the first place.
By making space for more self-discovery and communication with your innermost needs (or your subconscious), you can slowly create that sense of safety and security that you might have been lacking as a child. Once you feel safe, you’ll be able to start peeling back all the layers of unhealthy coping mechanisms that you’ve created for yourself over the years and make room for all the newer healthy ones that actually help you own your power.
While doing inner child work might sound daunting, the positive outcomes that we’ve witnessed from people going through this type of work have been incredible. By forming a healthy dialogue between yourself and your inner child and integrating any negative experiences from your past, you’ll most likely see a variety of positive outcomes in your life. These could include:
Feeling more connected to your body, your emotions and your needs
Being able to clearly communicate what you’re feeling and what your needs are
Being able to see where your boundaries are and set them properly
A strengthened sense of self
An increased sense of self-confidence and personal power
Being able to feel joy and a new sense of vitality after feeling numb
An improvement in loving yourself and taking care of yourself
An improvement in many psychological issues (such as abuse, depression, anxiety, anger management and rage, abandonment issues, self-sabotage, relationship issues, codependency)
How do you do inner child work?
So how do we actually get started with this type of work? In essence, the process can be broken down into three simple steps: becoming aware of your inner child, reconnecting with your inner child and reparenting your inner child.
Step 1: Becoming aware of your inner child
If you’re reading this article, you’ll most likely already have become aware of your inner child but it’s a crucial step nonetheless. The parts of us that remain unconscious are powerful enough to be able to take control over our personality and behavior to the point where they can overpower any sense of control we feel as adults. So by not being aware of your wounded inner child, you continue to allow it to have a hold on you. And that hold can prevent you from being able to connect and do the kind of work that will support you on your healing journey.
Step 2: Reconnecting to your inner child
Once you’re aware that you have an inner child that is wounded, the next step is simply to start building a relationship with it. Think of your relationship with your inner child as you would any other relationship in your life. After years of “neglect”, your inner child will feel hurt, shy and perhaps even resentful. Always try to start off slow and be patient. With time, you’ll be able to get yourself to a point where your inner child will feel like it can trust and open up to you again.
To help yourself get there you can:
Practice meditation/breathwork/mindfulness to help you feel in touch with your inner child’s needs
Have a normal dialogue with your inner child (in your head or aloud)
Write or journal from the perspective of your inner child
Use a doll or stuffed animal to represent your inner child
Engage in playful activities that you would have loved as a child
Let yourself enjoy anything you enjoyed as a child (food, music, TV shows, movies, etc.)
Be creative just for the process of enjoying it
Step 3: Reparenting your inner child
After establishing a new-found relationship with your inner child, the process of reparenting begins. For many of us, the emotion that can come up when we hear the word “reparenting” is shame and guilt.
“My parents did so much for me. I love them and I’m grateful for everything they’ve done. I wouldn’t dare to admit that a part of me feels the need to be reparented. That would feel like betraying my parents”.
We see this reaction a lot and it’s absolutely normal not to want to feel like you’re being ungrateful. Luckily, there’s no need to approach this process as if your parents didn’t do a good job and that’s why you needed to reparent yourself. Instead, try think of it like this:
Reparenting means that the adult part of your personality is learning how to relate to your inner child the way that a good parent would relate to a real child. It has nothing to do with how well you were parented and everything to do with learning how YOU can provide structure, boundaries, support and compassion for your own inner child.
In general, there are four main responsibilities that you as the parent will have in the relationship with your inner child:
Teaching emotional regulation: Emotional regulation refers to the ability to be able to process emotions in healthy ways and to understand that your emotions don’t represent the truth. Most children don’t have the frame of reference to understand their emotions yet so you as the parent are responsible to remain calm and regulate your reactions so that your inner child doesn’t become overwhelmed. Whenever you’re feeling upset, try to channel the adult part of your brain. Explain to them why you’re feeling the way that you are and reassure them that with time, this emotion will pass.
Providing self-care: Your inner child doesn’t have the language to ask for what it wants so it’s up to you to figure out what your fundamental needs are and learn what you need to do to meet them. This type of self-care isn’t just about facemasks and bubble baths. It’s about becoming aware of what boundaries you need to have to feel your best and not hesitating to do what it takes to protect them.
Providing self-discipline: Because your inner child is still young and a little naive, it’s up to you to provide the structure and discipline that it needs to thrive in this world. We all want to be nice all the time but an important part of parenting any child is helping them understand when they need to sacrifice their short-term gratification for long-term wellbeing and happiness. By keeping the promises you make to your inner child and showing up for it even when it’s difficult, you’ll slowly start to restore the trust you have in yourself which will greatly impact your overall sense of self-worth.
Encouraging playfulness + wonder: This element of parenting is often lost on adults because we’ve lost this connection to ourselves. However, allowing your inner child enough time to play, to be creative and to use their imagination is vital to their overall well-being and development. If you fill up your inner child’s tank by giving yourself enough time to be spontaneous and to find joy and wonder in the little moments, you’ll quickly find that you’ll have a much easier time working on any of the other pillars of reparenting.
If you’re interested in doing this kind of work, there are many therapists out there who understand and are trained in helping their clients reconnect with their inner child and consequently, work through their inner child wounds.
Additionally, we provide lots of resources for you to dive into this work in a safe, supportive way in The Self Care Space. We have everything from self-guided prompts and programs to guided meditations and healing visualizations to help you reconnect to your inner child. We also have amazing advisory board members who specialize in this area and will be there to answer your questions in the private community or at our members-only live events. Whichever route you choose, we just want you to know we are proud of you for showing up for yourself in the first place!
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