A Guide to Inner Child Healing

Hi, beautiful soul!

In my last post, I talked about my transformative and visceral experience with inner child healing. Click here if you missed it!

The experience taught me just how tightly our childhood beliefs, experiences, and challenges are woven into the fabrics of our lives. Even much later in life, the way we were taught to see ourselves and the world as children can have a drastic – and sometimes counterproductive – impact on us.

When we start to dig beneath the surface (i.e. into the subconscious, which stores and sometimes represses all of those memories and emotions), we can bring those childhood experiences to light to be healed once and for all.

Today’s post is all about taking your healing into your own hands. You’ve heard me shout from the hilltops about my personal experience with the power of inner child work – now, it’s your turn.

Whether you’re ready to shed old layers of stagnation, reintegrate with the pure, beautiful, playful energy of your inner child, step wholeheartedly into your authenticity, or all of the above, this journey is for you!

Before I jump into the step-by-step, let me give you a quick definition of “inner child,” just so that you can get super clear about exactly what (and who) you’re dealing with.

What is an Inner Child?

Your inner child is, in essence, the little you. When you came into this world, you were completely unbridled by external opinions. You were able to express yourself easily, ask for exactly what you wanted, and shine your unique light without hesitation or reservation.

Your inner child is that authentic, playful, innocent, confident, unattached version of you. And – good news – they are still within you! You never lost them. But as hurt and trauma accumulated over the years, you learned to cover up your inner child’s authenticity with layers of worldly conditioning.

Your inner child carries the hurt that accumulated in that process. They’re wounded by past experiences, and yearn for your wisdom and comfort. They are longing for the now older and wiser version of you to hold them in the utmost love and compassion and tell them that everything is going to be okay. They were always enough.

So, the process we’re going to talk through today is a combo of two things: reintegrating yourself with the authenticity you so easily exhibited in childhood, and healing the wounded little version of yourself that still lives inside, longing for your love.

Reintegrating the Authenticity You Exhibited in Childhood

1. To get started reintegrating with your inner child, choose a meditative exercise of your choice. This can be a traditional meditation, or whatever else floats your boat! Other ideas could be a journaling session, walk, bath, or while cooking. Whatever connects you to your intuition and allows you to go inward is perfect!

2. Call to your awareness any and all characteristics of your inner child that you can think of. Are they playful? Compassionate? Do they love to dance, sing, or make art? Do they express emotions freely? What seemingly mundane moments of daily life do they celebrate?

3. Write down everything that you can identify about your inner child – who they are and how they move through life. Then, jot down a few ways to embody those characteristics in your life.

4. Embody, embody, embody. If your inner child expresses through dance, can you tap into that? If they love music, can you find a time to put on some soothing music and allow yourself to be calmed by its vibrations? If they ask for what they want easily, can you find a small area of your life in which you can ask for what you need clearly and without apology?

Healing the Wounded Little Version of You

Embodying the characteristics of your pure, authentic inner child is an excellent step towards reintegrating with them and, ultimately, healing. But since none of us made it through childhood unscathed, it’s important to take a look at their wounds and bring them to light.

This process can certainly be more intense than the reintegration process, but its rewards are immense. Check out my last post to hear about the incredible ways the Universe responded when I started to clear the subconscious beliefs of unworth that I had picked up in childhood.

Please note that the following step-by-step is partially based on Lacy Phillips' reprogramming method. If you want to fully immerse yourself in this work, her Inner Child workshop is a great place to do so. But if you want to dive in free of charge, stick with me!

1. In a journaling session, identify your most significant pain points from childhood. Write about them at length. What happened? What kind of support did you need that you didn’t receive? How do you see these events impacting you in your adult life?

2. Create a space to sit with all of the emotions that surface during this journaling exercise. This can be a seated meditation, a moving meditation on your yoga mat, a walk in nature, or a call with a trusted friend. It’s possible that you haven’t thought about your childhood pains and traumas in a very long time, and that this will be a very intense exercise. Affirm that you are safe to feel these emotions by using the mantra, “It’s safe to feel my feelings.” Trust that feeling is true healing.

3. If you feel the need to go deeper, take each childhood pain point you’ve identified into its own individual meditation. Bring yourself into a deeply relaxed state, maybe using this healing frequencies playlist to help you really melt into the present. From there, bring the memory you’re working with into your awareness. First, feel all the difficult or painful emotions this scenario brought up for you. Then, reimagine it. See the situation playing out in the way that would have best supported you. Did you need your parents to be more present? Did you need your teachers to be more compassionate? Imagine it happening just as you needed it to to maintain your self-worth and authentic self.

4. If you feel that the memory of this trauma is impacting you physically, give yourself a hands-on healing. Bring your hands to the space in your body that feels tight or inflamed when you remember this painful experience. Imagine golden light flowing from your hands and soothing your body.

5. When you come out of your meditation, journal anything that came up for you. Be gentle with yourself and move slowly through the next parts of your day.

6. Repeat steps 1-5 as needed.

7. Take good care of yourself as you move through this work, especially if you’re doing it over a period of several days or weeks. There’s no need to rush. Take it slowly and mindfully, and give yourself the credit you deserve for embarking on this transformation.

8. Trust that change will come. If you don’t immediately see results in your daily life, have patience. This is deep work, and sometimes the Universe needs time to catch up when we rapidly up-level.

9. Treat your inner child with the utmost compassion. When you imagine them, see them through loving eyes. Offer them comfort. Indulge their desire to play, dance, laugh, sing, and celebrate. They’re you, after all.

This is an individual journey for everyone. Yours will not look exactly like mine did, and that’s perfectly okay. What matters most is the love and compassion you show yourself for going through this transformational journey. Reward yourself often with treats, bubble baths, dance breaks, walks, plenty of water and rest, and whatever else feels celebratory and wonderful.

You are safe to feel your feelings. You are safe to reintegrate with yourself and step into your wholeness. You are safe to shine fully. You are safe to love your inner child. You are safe to love yourself.

Wishing you a beautiful journey. As always, I am right beside you. xo

Thoughts? Let me know in the comments!