How to Heal Your Inner Child

I believe that this neglected, wounded, inner child of the past is the major source of human misery.

John Bradshaw

The words inner child bring up several things for people. Some people believe that inner child work is hooey, too new age, and only for the easily manipulated.

The fact is we all have wounds from childhood, and sometimes the overwhelm from the event does not grow up; it stays stuck.

How does this get healed?

Acknowledging the younger you while tracking your sensations is the start and visualizing the older you giving the care and attention to your younger self is the next step.

A session can look like this; A client will feel a sensation. After describing the feeling and having a clear vision of it, they will know what they have found.

The Client will see an image, a short movie, a picture of an event from their childhood. At this moment, they are touching in on what it felt like to be in the situation when they were younger.

I ask the client to make contact with their younger self and give it what it needed.

This process is as imaginative as possible. They can offer hugs, blankets, walking them to somewhere safe whatever the younger version did not get to have or do but needed to survive the situation healthily.

As the therapist, I sit quietly and allow the client to do this process on their own. The story can be shared or not.

The point is to heal that moment in time and regain control of that piece of your history.

We all have versions of younger selves living in our nervous system.

Healing inner children does not have to be dramatic or cathartic. It usually is a quiet moment that takes an episode of overwhelm and brings it to safety.

New awareness and an understanding of where they have remained stuck becomes crystal clear. With knowledge comes the ability to shift, grow, and evolve in a way not possible before.

Being present as a practitioner when a client touches in on a specific age and then heals the issues from it is profoundly humbling.

Call me and let me be humbled while you grow.

Free Somatic therapy consultations always available.

“Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your perceptions need you, your feeling needs you. The wounded child in you needs you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it.”

― Thich Nhat Hanh, Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child

Read:

Reconciliation: Healing The Inner Child (2010) by Thich Nhat Hanh

Healing the Shame That Binds You John Bradshaw