How To Heal Your Inner Child
Human beings are all unique and different in the way we think, live, and experience the world.
However, one thing every person has in common is that we all began life as children. Each of us had a childhood where we developed ourselves into the person we are today.
Of course, not everyone has a positive experience as a young child. Many of us have traumatic experiences, or grow up in a dysfunctional environment. These can lead to childhood wounds.
If these emotional wounds are not treated, we still struggle to become fully grown adults.
The hurt we experience as a child stays with us as adults, and we repeat the same cycle of suffering over and over.
If you feel like there are emotional blocks in your life as an adult, it may be due to experiences from your childhood.
It doesn’t matter if you are 20, 40, or 70 years old. That wounded 5-year-old or 11-year-old child still stays inside of you. Needing for healing and understanding of who you truly are .
We must begin to recognize childhood wounds that need to be healed with wholeness and love and learn to accept and let go.
Understanding Your ‘Inner Child’
The psychologist Carl Jung is commonly considered to have coined the term “inner child.” Jung believed that the inner child was an unconscious part of our personality that consists of what we learn and experience in the earliest years of our life.
As an adult your inner child stays in your unconscious mind and shapes your thoughts, emotions, and causes destructive behaviors.
For many people, the inner child has been pushed aside in favor of the adult role they need to play in life. Even though the inner child personality does not control the conscious mind, it influences our thoughts, behaviors, and habits.
The power of your inner child should never be underestimated for they can shape your entire life, including the romantic partners you choose and the career path you take.
To heal your past wounds, it’s important to take time for self-reflection so you can reconnect with your inner child.
Do You Have a Wounded Inner Child?
Many adults I have worked with feel stuck in some way from moving forward or improving their lives. They might indulge in self-sabotaging behavior, or they may feel like they can’t find happiness or fulfillment.
They have a lot of wants, and need validation and acknowledgement in order to have a secure feeling.
Oftentimes, their mind is filled with what they don’t have or need in order to be happy. Until these things are met, they cannot move past their negative emotional state. A lot of times these people don’t see what they already have, instead they focus only on what’s missing. Even though the abundance of life is already there, they are not able to experience it.
The ‘wounded inner child’ is a term that I use to describe the accumulated scars and traumas we all experience in childhood. These unconscious wounds can lead to an inability to emotionally cope with life’s difficulties and problems. They can also lead to feelings of loneliness.
People who have suffered traumas, such as neglect, abandonment, abuse, or even aspects of childhood that weren’t meeting their needs, can still suffer emotionally well into adulthood.
What Causes a Wounded Inner Child?
Every person experiences trauma differently, and their inner child wounds appear as unique problems in their life.
Here are a few ways that we develop inner child wounds:
● Strict parents and extreme discipline, no time to be just a kid
● Growing up in a family of generational trauma
● Parents or caregiver neglected you emotionally or physically
● Teased or bullied by family members or people around you
● Growing up with parents with addictions to alcohol, drugs, or gambling
● Any kind of emotional, mental, physical or sexual abuse.
What Are The Symptoms of a Wounded Inner Child?
As a result of the experiences explained above, you may suffer some sort of struggle on an emotional level, or feelings of extreme loneliness. If you seem to have the same kinds of emotional issues showing up over and over, it can be a sign of a wounded inner child.
Here are some of ways that these symptoms can manifest:
.● Low self-esteem and self-confidence
● Self doubt or self criticism
● Trust issues with others and controlling behavior
● Constant feeling of not being enough and a lot of wants
● Lack of career success
● Love and relationship addiction
● Self-image disorders
● People-pleasing
● Perfectionism
● Anxiety and depression.
● Addictive behaviors
● Substance use with drugs or alcohol
● Fear and panic attack
● Feelings of loneliness/ emptiness
● Relationship and intimacy issues
● Insecure attachment style
● Validation seeking and a need for acknowledgement
● Codependency : relying on others to make you feel happy, safe and loved.
The Wounded Inner Child Limits Our Happiness
Even when you think that you’ve replaced your childlike beliefs with ‘grown up’ or mature viewpoints, your inner child can still be secretly steering things behind the scenes.
If you wish to live a fulfilling and happy life, it’s important to recognize childhood wounds and aim to repair them. Whilever these childhood wounds exist, we tend to repeat the same cycle of suffering.
How To Heal Your Wounded Inner Child
For healing, any sort of mindfulness physical exercise is helpful.
It’s important to connect with your own mind, body and breath, keep coming back to yourself by listening to and learning to take care of our bodies.
In daily awareness of your body to release tension and yoga practice, being in the present moment.
Whenever you feel lonely and empty, it might be that your inner child wants to experience some play, something like bike writing, just play like a child.
Whenever possible, try to be authentic yourself. You can be with your own child, do activities that you wanted to do when you were young but were suppressed.
Self love, caring for yourself and being joyful. So the child doesn’t have to be lonely. Learn to be yourself. Keep in mind, we have to be in the presence of awareness to experience, or discover self love and self acceptance.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the past, and you are not able to be grounded in your present, then return to focusing on your breathing. It is a simple, important daily practice that enables you to heal deeper wounds. Healing needs time and space.
Activities such as journaling about your feelings and writing a list of experiences from your childhood can help bring awareness to things you might have suppressed or forgotten about.
After identifying and better understanding the triggers that cause intense emotional reactions, it’s also important to be kind and gentle with ourselves.
Practicing mindfulness produces right thinking, self awareness, and inner joy.
Practicing self-love and kindness will help build resilience and empower us to face difficult experiences that stir up past memories related to our “inner child” wounds.
Showing compassion towards ourselves rather than self-criticism can allow us greater capacity for growth and perseverance when facing tough times.
Finally, you might seek out other people who have gone through similar childhood experiences. Discussing your difficult childhood with others can help you find more self-acceptance. Being vulnerable and allowing them into your circle of safety can be beneficial when healing our inner child trauma.
Need Help Healing Your Inner Child?
As an ICF-certified Life Coach, I specialize in recovery coaching guided by spiritual work. If you are looking for support to pursue a life of peace, happiness, and purpose, I am here to help you overcome your obstacles, which might seem overwhelming to you now, and learn to live a peaceful, fulfilled life.
