Healing Your Inner Child

Most of our triggers as adults stem from childhood experiences. Though it can feel like the reason we are upset, angry, jealous, sad, feeling unloved or unsafe is because of what's happening now, most often, especially if the reaction is bigger than what the situation calls for, it’s because of unresolved childhood wounds.

I often hear clients say that they didn't have a “bad” childhood. But the thing is, it's not about what happened to you, but about how you experienced it. And the truth is that we have all had hurtful experiences, whether big T or little t trauma, most of us go through our own version of struggle/pain/neglect/etc. in childhood that then becomes the curriculum for our healing and evolution as adults.

We can view that as sad, unfortunate, and unfair.. or, we can choose to see it as part of this human experience and a beautiful opportunity for transformation. It is through healing our childhood experiences that we are able to reach new levels of authenticity, empathy, connection, intimacy, success, and love as adults. 

And the beautiful thing is, we don't need to relive those hurtful experiences in order to heal. We don't even have to fully remember our childhood in order to transform our triggers as adults.

We just have to be willing to reconnect to the little one within us. 

So I want to help you with that process to empower you to become your own best healer, your own best support system and safe space. 

I would encourage you to start by either printing out a picture of yourself when you were little, or making your phone background a photo of you from childhood. 

Here is mine ☺️

This gives you a direct access point to opening the conversation with the little you who is, and always will be, a part of who you are. 

Whenever you get triggered, I invite you to practice taking a moment to reconnect to her/him. This process doesn't have to take long, but the more you practice it, the more you healing you will experience.

5 Steps to Heal Your Inner Child: 

1. Find a safe space to take a moment for yourself. Use your breath to calm your body by deepening your inhales and exhales.

2. Put one hand on your heart, signifying love, and one hand on your belly, signifying safety. As you keep breathing, as yourself – “what is this reminding me of?" If possible, allow the trigger to take you back to an experience or feeling from childhood. 

3. In your mind's eye, bring forward the little you from that experience. If no memory comes up, simply connect to the picture of you that you printed/saved. 

4. Ask the little you what she is feeling. Let her express those feelings safely, perhaps in a way that she never could as a child. Angry? maybe punch a pillow. Sad? cry. Frustrated? yell or make the appropriate sound. Letting your inner child feel whatever is alive is key, showing her that it is safe to fully feel her emotions. 

5. Now, as your adult self, tell her whatever she needed to hear in that moment. Imagine yourself holding her, looking directly into her eyes and speaking to her the words she needed to hear in that moment. You can also look directly into her eyes using the photo you picked, which is a really powerful experience. Perhaps she just needed some reassurance or validation, or maybe she's needing to see a higher perspective that you can now offer her as an adult. 

Throughout this process, which can take 30 seconds or 15+ minutes, let your intuition guide you. Use touch as a form to help your nervous system return to safety – perhaps through a self-hug, hugging a pillow or rubbing your arms up and down. Let yourself move through this experience in the way you are called to truly nurture the little you within. 

And if you are having trouble self-soothing, think about how you would show up for a child you loved if she was feeling this way.

Eventually, you'll feel the little you calm down, soften, and let go. Likewise, you'll notice your body in the now do the same. That's when you know you're complete. 

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As healing as one experience like this can be, it is most powerful and effective long-term when repeated often, ideally every time you get triggered. 

Again, it can be a quick process once you've done it a few times. I do it in my car sometimes before walking into an appointment or into the grocery store if I'm feeling activated for some reason. 

We may not be able to go back in time and change our circumstances, but we do get to shift our past by shifting our perception/experience of it. Our past only exists as a memory, which we experience in the now. 

This means that every time you go back to those childhood experiences, you have the chance to heal the version of you that was scared or hurt in that moment and that is still acting up in present time (though disguised as your adult self). Through nurturing her and helping her see the higher perspective you now have, you are healing your past and therefore your future. 

It is your opportunity to give yourself the love you always wanted. To provide for your little you the safety she maybe never felt. To validate her in the ways she never received, and to hold her in the way she always desired. 

That is a gift that I hope you give to yourself. Doing so has the potential to shift your reality in the most profound ways. 

When you heal within, your external world morphs to reflect that.