SELF-CARE: 5 Ways to Get a Feel for Inner Child Work & Begin Healing and Integration + FREE Strategy Session

Sep 15, 2023

Have you ever thought lately about how great it would be to…

feel happier and more relaxed?
be able to navigate daily stressors without getting flustered?
have stronger, healthier relationships with the people who matter to you?
live the life you’ve always pictured for yourself?

Well, my dear, as much as each of these may seem like a distant fantasy, it doesn’t have to be.

Because inner child work can make it a reality.

Specifically, by getting to the root of your current struggles, healing inner wounds, and breaking through limiting habits, you can finally have the joy, love, or lifestyle you’ve been longing for.

But what if the idea of healing your inner child seems too “out there,” terrifying, or hard?

Or what if you’re just not sure whether inner child work is the right fit for you?

Then you’re in the right place!

Because in this blog post, I’m going to share 5 simple ways to get your feet wet with inner child work and begin to heal your inner child.

This way, you can get a better feel for what inner child work is all about and discover whether it might be something that you want to pursue more deeply—either on your own or with the help of a therapist.

Are you ready to get a taste of inner child work?

Let’s get started!

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1. Acknowledge Your Inner Child

One way to get your feet wet with inner child work is to simply acknowledge your inner child.

If you’re skeptical about having an inner child or being able to connect with her, I encourage you to check out my post on connecting with your inner child. In it, I discuss the importance of being open to the idea of your inner child, which lays the foundation for what I want to focus on here: acknowledging to your inner child (instead of just to adult you) that she exists.

To acknowledge your inner child, start a conversation with her and tell her that you know that she’s there—deep within you. Let her know that you see and hear her, even if you’ve largely ignored her for most of your life or weren’t even aware that she existed. If it feels right, you can even directly say something like, “I see you."

You can also take this opportunity to help your inner child feel safe by communicating that you’re paying attention to her, that you’re there for her, and that you’re looking out for her.

If talking to your inner child aloud or in your head feels awkward or doesn’t work for you, feel free to communicate with her in writing instead. You can express your thoughts to your inner child just as well by writing a letter to her or journaling.

Later on in this post, I’ll talk about how you can connect with and nurture your inner child more deeply. But note that just like it’s incredibly powerful to simply acknowledge that you truly see someone you love, you can take key steps toward cultivating a relationship with your inner child and loving her simply by acknowledging her.

2. Validate Your Inner Child’s Feelings and Experiences

Another way to delve into inner child work and begin to heal your inner child is to validate her feelings and experiences.

If your inner child is wounded, it’s because her needs weren’t fulfilled by your parents or caregiver. Now that you’re an adult, you have the ability to understand what your inner child really went through and communicate that her experiences and feelings are real and valid.

Even in your everyday life as an adult, you can probably think of a time when all you wanted was to be heard and understood (even more than you wanted someone to “fix” the situation). Maybe it was when you got into an argument with a coworker and you just wanted your partner to acknowledge that your feelings about the situation made sense. Or perhaps it was the time when your mom said something unkind to you at a family event and you were desperate for your sister to agree that you had the right to be upset.

Validation is powerful because it allows us to feel seen, respected, and cared for. So when you validate the feelings and experiences of your inner child, you help her feel seen, respected, and cared for. In doing this, you give your inner child the parent that she may have never had. And you give her the chance to receive the empathy and deep understanding that she may have never experienced before.

Of course, before you can tell your inner child that you see her experiences and feelings as valid, you need to know what these feelings and experiences are in the first place. To gain insight into your inner child’s feelings and experiences, you might find it helpful to start a dialogue with her (silently, aloud, or in writing) and ask her some questions.

For example, you might start by asking questions like…

“What did you experience?”
“How did it make you feel?”
“How do you feel about it now?”
“How can I support you now?”

Your inner child might not feel safe enough to give you the answers that you’re looking for right off the bat. But as you cultivate a relationship with her, she might be increasingly willing to share her emotions and experiences. And when she does, you can validate them.

Bonus: If it is challenging for you to connect to the feelings and thoughts of your inner child, think about what would a child of the same age feel or think under the same circumstance as yours.

3. Express Compassion

A key responsibility of any parent or caregiver is to express unconditional love toward their child. That’s why an important part of inner child work and being the parent you never had is to show compassion toward your inner child.

Just like with validating your inner child’s experiences, the first step to expressing compassion is to understand what your inner child experienced. Because when you know what your inner child went through and how it made her feel, you can show genuine understanding of her pain and offer love to her in response to it—just like you would with a real child.

Once you’re ready to express compassion toward your inner child, you can start by treating your inner child with kindness and respect. You can also communicate to her that you love and care about her. For example, you might say things like…

“I’m sorry”
“I love you”
“I see you”
“I’m here for you”
“I’ll take care of you”

Like with communicating validation, you can express love toward your inner child silently, aloud, or in writing. You can also use different methods at different times.

Keep in mind that expressing compassion toward your inner child goes hand in hand with expressing compassion toward your adult self. After all, when you truly understand what your inner child experienced and express compassion in response to her pain, it’s easier to acknowledge and forgive yourself for how your childhood experiences still affect your life today.

So as you express love and care toward your inner child, go ahead and do the same toward your adult self. Forgive yourself for reacting disproportionately to situations, getting stuck in unhealthy relationship patterns, or sabotaging your own life, for example. And let yourself know that you recognize the effort that you’re putting into healing and that it’s okay to tackle this journey at your own pace.

4. Hug Yourself

If expressing compassion toward yourself verbally just isn’t working for you (or if you’d like to explore other methods of showing compassion too), you can also show compassion toward your inner child by hugging yourself.

Just like real children often find comfort in being hugged when they’re upset (and even when they’re not), a hug can also offer comfort and compassion to your inner child. Plus, you might know from reading my blog that trauma can get stored in the body. So hugging yourself can also provide the physical comfort that your body needs to begin releasing trauma from the body and healing.

You can hug your inner child simply by wrapping your arms around yourself and allowing yourself to rock, cry, or smile—whatever comes naturally to you.

Alternatively, you can try doing a butterfly hug. The butterfly hug was originally created to be used as part of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. But it’s a self-soothing technique that can be used on its own too.

Here’s how to do a butterfly hug:

cross your hands over your chest
link your thumbs to form the shape of a butterfly
place your fingertips right below your collarbone
tap your chest first with your left hand and then with your right hand. Keep alternating the taps with your hands.
as you tap your chest, take slow deep breaths

5. Recognize Patterns Between Your Childhood and Adult Life

You can also get your feet wet with inner child work by beginning to recognize patterns between triggers or challenges in your adult life and your childhood experiences.

Specifically, as you cultivate a relationship with your inner child and talk to her, she might express difficult feelings, such as sadness, anger, anxiety, guilt, shame, vulnerability, or rejection. When these feelings come up, see if you can link these to specific childhood events. Then, consider whether similar events or situations in your adult life elicit similar feelings.

For example, maybe you tend to get upset when your partner has to cancel the plans that you made with them because they have something urgent to deal with at work. When this happens, you might notice that you feel sad, lonely, and rejected. When you consider your inner child’s feelings and experiences, you might recognize that these feelings that you experience when your partner has to cancel on you are very similar to how you felt when your parents had to cancel plans with you or miss important events in your life (e.g., a swim meet or dance recital) for work.

Alternatively, maybe your inner child is struggling with feelings of rejection and abandonment because one of your parents left the family when you were young. As an adult, the pain of being abandoned by your parent may still be so strong that you avoid the chance of another abandonment at all costs by not letting anyone get close to you.

Beginning to notice patterns or connections between your adult life and childhood can give you insight into the root of current challenges that you’re experiencing. And it can help you identify the underlying feelings and experiences that would be helpful to process and address so that you can heal and break free of unhealthy patterns that are limiting you in your adult life.

Getting A Feel for Inner Child Work Is Easier Than You Might Think

Inner child work involves looking deeply within yourself, exploring your past, and leveraging the power that’s already within you to heal.

But just because it’s a powerful approach to healing doesn’t mean that you need to dive deep into it right off the bat or make a massive commitment before you find out if it might be right for you.

Instead, using the 5 methods that I shared above, you can get a taste of inner child work to learn more about it and gauge whether pursuing it more deeply might be the right fit for you.

If you try these methods and decide that inner child work isn’t right for you at this time, that’s completely okay. Remember, this is YOUR journey.

But if you find that you begin to learn more about yourself and your challenges by using any of these methods, you might be curious about diving deeper into inner child work.

And because revisiting your past can cause painful memories and experiences to resurface, you might wonder if you could benefit from tackling inner child work more deeply with the help and guidance of a trained therapist.

That’s why this October, I’ll be accepting a few new clients into my one-on-one Heal Your Inner Child program. If you’re wondering how getting personalized guidance and support in this program could maximize the healing you achieve with inner child work, I invite you to schedule a free strategy session with me.

And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and courses.

Until next time!

Vera

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