How To Heal Your Inner Child
At age 15, I was diagnosed with an Eating Disorder. Over the course of the next 17 years, I was in and out of therapy for depression, anxiety, panic attacks, grief, sexual trauma, childhood trauma, marriage counseling, and so much more.
I felt completely stuck and overwhelmed with why I struggled so much to cope with life, and for a long time I was convinced I was broken.
When I started working with my current therapist almost two years ago, she introduced me to the concept of “Inner Child Work.”
I had NO CLUE what she was talking about. I had been in therapy for almost 15 years when we met, and I had never heard of an “Inner Child,” let alone “Inner Child Wounds” or a “Wise Inner Parent.”
She had me start by having a photo of my as a little girl placed somewhere I could see it daily, as a reminder of my innocence, of my goodness, and my worth — a reminder of a time in my life before any trauma happened, before society convinced me I had to prove my worth, a time before I developed harmful coping mechanisms either from observing my parent’s own habits or simply because nobody taught me.
This was the beginning of a massive transformation in my healing, because for the first time, I felt like I had a lens through which to understand all of my adolescent and adult struggles that made sense to me.
For YEARS, I struggled as a teen and young adult with relationships, identity, worth, and generally managing stressors in my life.
When I started Inner Child Work (despite over a decade of therapy), I was still struggling:
Struggling to set boundaries and say no
Careless with my actions and taking unhealthy risks
People-pleasing like it was my JOB
Literally NEVER asking for help (let alone say YES to an offer)
Feeling incapable of making decisions, or second-guessing every choice I made
Wondering who I WAS, what I liked, and how to spend my time (please don’t ask me what I want to do!)
Trapped in a cycle of longing for love, pushing it away, and feeling totally responsible for everyone else’s feelings
I had NO idea Inner Child healing would help me tackle all of this and more.
Still, I felt completely overwhelmed.
How am I supposed to heal my Inner Child? Do I literally go back and examine my entire adolescence for wounds and trauma? Do I blame my parents? Do I forgive them? Is it even their fault, or does society and culture play a role? Where do Inner Child Wounds come from, and what the heck do I do to actually heal them?
Slowly, with the help of my therapist and a lot of personal reading and research, I developed a roadmap for healing my Inner Child. I drew on the tools and skills I’d learned over the years in therapy, pulled from theories like Attachment Theory, Internal Family Systems, and Systemic.
After a year and a half of close work with my therapist, studying different types of psychology around childhood trauma, and doing deep healing work, I’ve created a system of Inner Child Healing that works for me, and I hope it might work for at least ONE of you.
The Three Steps of Inner Child Healing:
I have broken down Inner Child Healing into three steps, which allows us to reduce the overwhelming task of reviewing our entire childhood for trauma, wounds, or loss into a simpler process.
1) LEARNING
Before engaging in any actual healing, it is important to understand the framework from which you’re doing the healing. I found SO often in therapy that counselors would have me engage in worksheets or exercises that theoretically would help me, but I resisted doing them because I didn’t have any context for how or why they would help me.
The Inner Child Journal is a 90-day guided journal designed to heal and re-parent your Inner Child. The prompts in this journal will connect you to your Inner Child, facilitate meaningful healing, and teach you to cultivate your wise Inner Parent so that you can find peace and wholeness in your daily life.
I discovered that actually understanding the concepts behind the methods allowed me to feel confident in the work I was engaging in and trust that it was actually going to be effective for the pain I was experiencing.
When it comes to Inner Child Work, we want to first learn some basic concepts: What is the Inner Child; What are Inner Child Wounds; What is the Wise Inner Parent and Re-Parenting; and How Does this Framework Relate to My Current Struggles or Past?
What is the Inner Child?
The Inner Child is a part of self — an archetype or representation of the TRUE YOU before trauma, conditioned behavior, or maladaptive coping skills. A part of yourself that is curious, playful, open, trusting, and generally likes who they are in the world. It is a part of ourselves that hopefully we can regain access to and let out into the world so that we can feel free to be ourselves, trust others, and generally feel safe to explore and experiment in the world.
What are Inner Child Wounds?
An Inner Child Wounds is essentially a way for us to conceptualize any moment in our adolescence where we were traumatized, emotionally harmed, shamed, criticized, bullied, oppressed, abandoned, made to feel unsafe…moments in time or ongoing experiences that cut into the part of us that believed we were good, safe, or wanted in the world.
These wounds can also have to do with being taught or modeled poor coping skills or internalized beliefs about our identity, relationships, or worth.
I have broken down Inner Child Wounds into four categories, as this makes understanding the wounds and how to pair them with healing skills much easier: Safety + Security (do I feel safe in the world, do I feel insecure?), Dependence (can I rely on others or accept support/love?), Independence (do I feel confident solving problems and making decisions/do I have healthy boundaries?), and Identity (do I know/like who I am, what I like/dislike, and am I open to other’s uniqueness?).
I will dive deeper into each of these four categories in a later article, so stay tuned to more blog posts, or follow me on Medium if you’d like to learn more about each of these Inner Child Wounds.
What is a Wise Inner Parent and Re-Parenting?
The Wise Inner Parent is also a part of self — an archetype or representation of our wise, adult, skillful self that knows how to be in the world and take care of ourselves. It is a part of ourselves that holds the hand of our Inner Child and helps guide, teach, and encourage us when we are stuck, lost, or unsure. It is the part of us that is wise enough to keep us safe and protect us when our Inner Child may be in danger, at risk, or simply confused with how to cope with something stressful or new.
How does this framework relate to my struggles or past?
Finally, we want to begin to make sense of how these concepts relate to our own unique past. We begin to ask ourselves self-discovery questions like, When in my childhood did I feel unsafe? Was I allowed to explore and take risks? Did I have privacy? How was I treated when I expressed myself?
Once we learn these important concepts, we can start to better understand how and why using this lens can actually be an effective model for healing all kinds of symptoms, relational difficulties, or mental health conditions.
2) RE-PARENTING
Re-Parenting is essentially cultivating a Wise Inner Parent, having the courage and willingness to look at our Inner Child Wounds, and the strength and self-love to un-learn, re-learn, and practice the lifeskills we never learned in childhood.
We do this by:
Developing a Wise Inner Parent
Cultivating Self-Compassion
Shifting Self-Talk and Busting Limiting Beliefs
Learning + Self-Teaching lifeskills like setting boundaries, regulating emotions, problem-solving, communication, and tolerating stress.
The re-parenting process is essentially our adult selves making the choice to say, “I know that my childhood wasn’t ideal, and I know that because of what did or didn’t happen to me, I am now suffering as an adult. Even though that wasn’t my fault, I am choosing to take action to heal so that I can live a life of peace, joy, and stability.”
By cultivating the skills we never learned in childhood, and doing so with self-compassion and an inner voice that reflects a caregiver we may have always wanted, we start to develop a way of being in the world that is patient, wise, flexible, and understanding: We start to see our past, present, and future with less anxiety, shame, or judgment, and we allow our Inner Child to exist freely.
3) PRACTICE
Ready to start practicing?
My Inner Child Workshop has in depth skills, journaling prompts, and exercises to help you start this work today.
This is the part that is ongoing: the part that is simply beginning to engage with life in a new way, with new skills, and with an awareness of our Inner Child, our wounds, and our Inner Parent.
We literally begin to put one foot in front of the other, practicing the life skills we never learned in childhood, practicing self-compassion when we fail or fall, and finding ways to re-connect with the version of us that is open, trusting, curious, and delighted by life.
We do this by:
Cultivating Self-Compassion
Identifying and Setting Boundaries
Learning to regulate emotions (alone and with others)
Discovering our core needs and learning to ask for them
Learning to ask for support, accept support, and allow others to emotionally give to us (accepting compliments without deflection is a great place to start!)
Self-Discovery and finding out who we ARE as unique individuals (I love Core Values work for this!)
This is not an exhaustive list, as there are many important skills we can develop to help us navigate life. Since this is mainly a framework for the healing process, I won’t dive into each skill in this article, but make sure to follow along as I dive deeper into each step, each concept, and each skill in coming articles.
It takes courage to move through this process, and if you are on this path, I applaud you. It takes time, and there is no finish line — it is a matter of re-engaging with life in new ways, learning to adapt and respond with more wisdom and pause, and reminding yourself over and over that you are human, and that you are not broken just because life bends you.
Looking for more in-depth work? Check out my Inner Child Workshop, a 90-minute recorded replay that takes you through the steps of healing and provides real-time journaling prompts, reflections, and skills-practice to help you heal, my 90 Day Inner Child Journal, The Inner Child Masterclass, or all three bundled below.
All access to my inner child masterclass, inner child workshop, and inner child journal.
Please note, I am not a licensed therapist. This system is what I have developed based on 17+ years as a client of therapy, my masters education in Mental Health Counseling, study on Attachment Theory, Mind-body connection and Trauma Healing, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder, and more.
References
A., V. der K. B. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.
A., V. der K. B. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.
Corey, G. (2021). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. Cengage.
Heller, D. P. (2019). The power of attachment: How to create deep and lasting intimate relationships. Sounds True.
Jackman, R. (2020). Healing your lost inner child: How to stop impulse reactions, set healthy boundaries and embrace an authentic life. Practical Wisdom Press.
Wolynn, M. (2017). It didn’t start with you: How inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle. Penguin Books.