Healing Your Inner Child:

A Journey to Wholeness

Have you ever heard the term “inner child” and wondered what it means? It’s a concept that many people find transformative on their journey to personal growth and emotional well-being.

Let’s explore what the inner child is, why healing it is so important, and how you can start this healing process.

What is the Inner Child?

Think of your inner child as the childlike part of your subconscious mind. It holds all your early memories, emotions, and experiences. This inner child is where you find the purest forms of your emotions—like joy, wonder, and curiosity—but it can also hold pain, fear, and trauma from childhood. These feelings and experiences can influence how you behave and react as an adult.

Why is Healing the Inner Child Important?

Healing your inner child is like giving yourself a gift. Here’s why it matters:

1. Emotional Freedom: Unresolved childhood wounds can lead to emotional blockages and recurring negative patterns. Healing these wounds frees you from old baggage and helps you move forward with more emotional clarity.
2. Self-Acceptance: When you embrace and nurture your inner child, you learn to accept and love yourself more deeply. This self-love is the foundation for healthy relationships and a fulfilling life.
3. Breaking Cycles: Many people find themselves stuck in patterns from their childhood. Healing your inner child helps you break free from these cycles and create healthier habits.
4. Enhanced Creativity and Joy: Reconnecting with your inner child can bring back your natural creativity and capacity for joy, which might have been suppressed over the years.

Signs You Have a Wounded Inner Child

It’s not always easy to recognize that your inner child is wounded. However, there are several signs that may indicate unresolved childhood issues. Here are some common indicators:

1. Difficulty with Emotions: You may have trouble understanding or expressing your emotions. You might feel overwhelmed by your feelings or numb to them.
2. Low Self-Esteem: A wounded inner child often manifests as chronic self-doubt and low self-worth. You might struggle with feelings of inadequacy or believe you are unlovable.
3. Fear of Abandonment: If you find yourself excessively worried about being abandoned or rejected by loved ones, this could stem from a wounded inner child.
4. Trust Issues: Difficulty trusting others, fearing betrayal, or being overly suspicious in relationships can be a sign of trust wounds from childhood.
5. Perfectionism: You might have an inner critic that drives you to be perfect in everything you do. This can be a coping mechanism to avoid criticism or rejection.
6. People-Pleasing: A strong need to please others at the expense of your own needs can indicate that your inner child learned to seek validation through approval.
7. Attachment Issues: You may struggle with forming secure attachments, either becoming overly dependent or overly distant in relationships.
8. Reactivity: Overreacting to situations or feeling easily triggered by certain events can be a sign that unresolved childhood trauma is being activated.
9. Chronic Anxiety or Depression: Persistent feelings of anxiety or depression can often be traced back to unresolved childhood pain.
10. Self-Sabotage: Engaging in behaviors that undermine your success or happiness may be a way your inner child expresses unresolved pain.

Types of Wounds Inner Children Can Carry

Your inner child might carry various wounds from past experiences. Here are some common types:

1. Abandonment Wounds: These happen when a child feels neglected or abandoned. This can lead to feelings of insecurity and fear of rejection.
2. Shame Wounds: These occur when a child is made to feel unworthy or inherently bad. As an adult, this can result in low self-esteem and self-doubt.
3. Trust Wounds: Repeatedly broken trust can make it hard to form healthy relationships. Adults with trust wounds may struggle with intimacy and fear betrayal.
4. Neglect Wounds: Emotional or physical neglect can make a child feel unseen and unheard. This often leads to feelings of unworthiness and a need for constant validation.
5. Control Wounds: Growing up in a controlling environment can stifle a child’s sense of autonomy. This can lead to issues with authority or fear of taking risks as an adult.

Steps to Heal Your Inner Child

Healing your inner child is a gentle and compassionate process. Here’s how to start:

1. Acknowledge Your Inner Child: The first step is recognizing that your inner child exists. Connect with your childhood memories and emotions.
2. Listen with Compassion: Practice listening to your inner child’s needs and feelings without judgment. Validate their experiences and acknowledge their pain.
3. Re-parent Yourself: Offer yourself the love, care, and support you may have missed as a child. This can include affirmations, setting healthy boundaries, and doing activities that bring you joy.
4. Seek Professional Support: Therapy can provide a safe space to explore and heal deep-seated wounds. A therapist can guide you through the process with expertise and empathy.
5. Practice Self-Care: Make self-care a regular part of your routine. This can include journaling, meditation, creative activities, and physical exercise.
6. Build Healthy Relationships: Surround yourself with supportive people who respect your healing journey. Healthy relationships can reinforce your sense of worth and provide a safe environment for growth.

Resources

Here are some of my favorite tools for working with your inner child and facilitating healing on your own:

Affirmations for the Inner Child – This is a wonderful book for getting daily inspiration for how to heal your inner child wounds. Each day’s affirmation is usually tied to the season and time of year, and gives you one tool and perspective for talking to your inner child. You can check it out here. 

If you’d like to pair your affirmations with some relaxing, therapeutic coloring, then check out Coloring for Inner Child Healing. Each page has a unique affirmation, and you can get a free inner child workbook from the author’s website. If you are curious, here is a link.

If you are ready to take a deep dive into healing your inner child wounds, The Inner Child Workbook is an absolutely fantastic resource for taking your healing into your own hands. The workbook incorporates written and verbal exercises, guided imagery, journaling, drawing, mirror work, and rituals, to help you change your experience of the past. You can find it here.

Oracle Cards are a great way to tap into divine guidance and they can reveal healing opportunities and the calling of our soul–including our inner child! If you are feeling a bit stuck or unsure where to start with inner child healing, or you need help identifying your wounds and the areas that are calling for healing, pulling and oracle card can point you in the right direction. I’ve got two decks I love when it comes to inner child healing.

The first deck is Inner Child Oracle. Because it combines four key aspects of inner child work in one deck, it’s really comprehensive. Those four aspects are reparenting of the inner child, self-care, childlike wonder, and inner child connection exercises. It’s also a gorgeous deck, and you can get it here.

The second deck is Inner Child Healing Oracle. This is another gorgeous deck with an enchanting and playful vibe. Each card has an affirmation that relates to the issues the card is highlighting. If you are looking for inspiration for how to harness your wild and free childlike spirit, this is the deck for you.

Conclusion

Healing your inner child is a beautiful journey that leads to greater emotional health, self-acceptance, and fulfillment. By acknowledging and nurturing this vulnerable part of yourself, you can break free from past wounds and embrace a future filled with joy, creativity, and authentic connections. 

Sometimes getting started on your own just feels too overwhelming, and that is totally understandable. If you need support, I got you! As a certified Intuitive Counselor, I can hold space and hold your hand through the process to heal your inner child so you can let go of what is holding you back and soar to new heights.

If you’re curious whether an Intuitive Counseling session with me would be a good fit, you can book a free consultation here.

Remember, it’s never too late to heal, and every step you take is a testament to your courage and resilience. You’ve got this!