How Healing Your Inner Child is Your DIRECT Path to Wellness

3 Steps To Healing Your Inner Wounded Child

Regardless of the childhood we've had, we all have wounds. Some big, some small and unless we do the work to heal them, they control how we respond to those in our life.

 
Emotional pain from childhood can affect your subconscious mind and physical health. As a child, you couldn't process an adult's intentions nor protect yourself and assert your needs. These experiences are stuck in time from whenever the child experienced them. 

Through this powerful work, the inner child or wounded child will no longer run the ship. You will feel more at peace and in control of your emotions and behavior. The child within you most of all wants to know that you are not going to abandon them—that you will be there to protect and nurture them.


It is a way of receiving the nurturing that your parents were probably unable to give you at the time, because they didn’t know how to or were wounded themselves.

The intention is to express and release long-held emotions. If you do remember an abuse scenario, you may not know how to handle your changed perspective on this relationship. Avoid the impulse to confront the abuser until you’ve had time to gain strength. Many abusers, when confronted by the person they abused, deny it. The abuser is often so racked with guilt that they cannot face what they did. Of course, after they pass from the earth, they will understand the gravity of their hurtful behavior.

Until then, though, many abusers continue to deny that they actually abused anyone. In your fantasy, your abuser will apologize and become the ideal father. This is rarely what occurs, though, unfortunately.

Many abusers committed their actions while in an alcoholic blackout or while out of their minds due to drug use or a psychotic episode, so they actually may not remember the incident.

That’s why it’s important to wait and see if confrontation is the best method for you. We recommend focusing upon healing yourself rather than punishing the person who abused you.

3 Steps to Healing the Inner Child

Doing these inner child exercises is a great addition or complement to any counseling or therapy that you may already be engaged in.

1. Access your inner child. Start by asking your inner child, How are you feeling right now? What would you like me to know? It may help to have a photograph of yourself as a child beside you.

You can make the space where you do this exercise inviting to your inner child by placing toys, teddy bears, or a children’s blanket or night-light next to you.

2. Gain your inner child’s trust. In truth, that part of you may have felt abandoned, betrayed, neglected, and forgotten by you, the adult self. You may need to take a little time to gain the trust of that part of your child self.

Much like you would in a conversation with a friend who is feeling vulnerable, reassure your child that it’s safe to communicate. At first your inner child may feel that they cannot trust you because they felt ignored or suppressed for so long. Reassuring the child (yourself) that you are now there for them will help the child feel safe. It’s important that your inner child trusts your willingness to listen to, feel, see, or otherwise sense what they are experiencing.

3. Allow yourself to feel your inner child’s feelings. Allow all of your feelings to rise to the surface. You may be surprised by what comes up when you first decide to say hello to that part of yourself. Expressing with the intention of releasing is so therapeutic.

There will probably be tears of sadness, hurt, shame, and anger. Crying is always a good release, and in a short while, you’ll start feeling more compassionate toward yourself.

You may feel afraid that if you unleash your anger, you’ll lose control. You won’t. In fact, you’ll have more control once you release the built-up energy of suppressed emotions. Without an outlet, those buried feelings always bubble up in ways that aren’t pretty, so it’s important to unearth them. Your unconscious mind won’t give you more than you can handle.

Commit to doing this exercise weekly. Doing so establishes trust with the lost and abandoned aspects of yourself. Your child within begins to trust you. Your inner child begins to feel heard and understood. Make a commitment that you will never abandon yourself. That is a promise that you need to keep with yourself— that is, to take great care of yourself and your inner child

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