Inner child work: how your past affects your present and what you can do
We all carry unmet needs and pain from childhood. In some cases, that wound to our inner child could be the result of trauma, abuse, or abandonment. In other cases, the source of the pain may be more subtle – experiencing unmet emotional needs, the illness of a parent or sibling, growing up in a broken family, or even a childhood friend moving away. The wounds to our inner child can bubble to the surface in unexpected ways, and the effects can damage our adult relationships.
Pain carried by your inner child can create intimacy and other problems in your adult life
Hiding pain from childhood doesn’t make the pain evaporate. Instead, it often surfaces in your adult life, showing up as distress in personal relationships or difficulty meeting your own needs. Working to heal your inner child can help you address some of these issues.
Childhood pain often manifests in adult life as immaturity, low self-esteem, boundary issues, and other challenges. Difficulties managing resentment, controlling rage, addiction, emotional swings, and intimacy challenges often result.
Healing your inner child can take time, but the results can make your life much better.
What happens in inner child work
As we grow up, what happened to us as children is still with us. Inner child work helps us go back and give to ourselves what we didn’t get in these childhood stages. It helps you bring your past to your present. In therapy, we will explore boundaries and vulnerability. In a session, we may use meditation, visualization, letter writing, drawing, and other techniques to get in touch with our inner child.
In inner-child work, we connect to the little boy or girl within us and use that connection to being to understand what powers our anxiety and behavior patterns as an adult. With understanding, we can embark on healing and transformation. Each journey is different, but the process often includes
Acknowledge. Recognize and accept things that caused you pain in childhood.
Listen. Pay attention to the feelings that you experience when you open the door to your inner child. Do you feel angry, rejected, vulnerable, guilty, or anxious? What situations in your adult life or in your relationship triggers these same feelings?
Open a dialog. Consider writing a letter to your inner child. Ask your inner child, “how do you feel?” and “how would you like me to support you”? It takes time, but you can help your inner child feel safer and more secure.
Meditate. Children (and your inner child is still a child!) have a hard time naming uncomfortable emotions. Adults often praise children who repress their feelings. Unfortunately, repressed emotions just appear later in life, often in harmful ways. Meditation helps you acknowledge and accepting emotions. This sends your inner child the message that it’s okay to express emotions.
Journal. For adults, journaling can be a great way to cope with emotional turmoil and recognize patterns in your adult life. When you journal with the perspective of your inner child, you can often identify unhelpful behavior patterns that began in your childhood.
Bring the joys of childhood into your adult life. Playfulness is an essential component of good emotional health. If your inner child feels that it missed out on pleasant experiences, finding time for relaxation and fun in your adult life can help you build positive emotions.
When you tune in to your inner child, offering love and compassion, you can open the door to healing your adult relationships and feelings.
Reaching out for help for your inner child is a sign of inner strength in your adult life
None of us want to admit that we face difficulties. Friends and colleagues curate an image that all is well and they have it all, regardless of their struggles. Asking for help dealing with the long-term effects of unmet childhood needs means that you can get the help that you need and deserve. Reach out today.
Call now to make an appointment or just fill out the contact form and click Send. As you heal from childhood experiences, you may find that you can develop more joy, more balance, more resilience, and more strength than you imagined possible.
