Do you know about the word “inner child”? Everyone has their own inner child. So what does inner child means? Inner child is defined as the child like usually hidden part of a person’s personality that is characterized by playfulness, spontaneity, and creativity usually accompanied by anger, hurt, and fear attributable to childhood experiences. You might see your inner child is a direct representation of yourself from your early years. Why does it is important to know about your inner child? Let us say it like this, for someone who is not associated with his/her childhood experiences and wasn’t given the chance to be playful, fun, and carefree due to the fact that he/she grew up handling any forms of abuse, neglect, trauma, and other emotional pain. The child may end up feeling vulnerable, small, in need of emotional support /validation, low self-esteem, and ended up carrying all the guilt and pain of the past as he/she grows up. Buried the pain to his/herself and of course hiding all of the heartaches in order to keep his/herself protected. For someone who grew up in an environment where you were force to act mature because of life circumstances and problems, older people constantly adding up to your mental trauma and emotional pain, the prosperity and happiness of growing up as a child was crushed. The burdens one carry with his/herself to adulthood will greatly affect his/her life. Showing up distress and difficulty in your personal relationships and you day to day agenda. Thus, it is important to heal your inner child. Working to heal your inner child can help you fix some of your past issues. It may take a lot of time but you starting to work on it will be a great starting point.
Here are some of the signs your inner child needs healing :
• The feeling of being highly reactive
You can notice when your wounded inner child appears in your daily life, when you find yourself highly reactive to the situations suddenly feeling detached and irritated.
• Overvaluing independence
This can look like repeating this narrative that you don’t need anyone and not allowing yourself to ask others for help.
• Having destructive coping behavior
This can look like coping with too much alcohol, shipping, eating, gambling, or even chronic procrastination.
• Poor emotional and mental health
These can show up to lots of multiple ways including being depressed, unmotivated, wanting more time alone, sleeping difficulties, weight gain or loss, not focused or productive working or studying, an increased of anxieties to different areas of life.
• Repeating patterns
And this can look like being avoidant during conflicts, being dismissive, gas lighting yourself, being anxious or fearful, and having a deep fear of abandonment or rejection.
• Chronic overworking or needing to achieve something to get approval or a material possession.
• Inability to be present in the moment.
• Trying to be perfect thus cannot handle failure
• Difficulty in noticing and celebrating the wins of life, the feeling that the victories will never be enough.
• Underachieving
Acknowledging your inner child
You can begin healing yourself when you acknowledge the presence of your inner child. If you have a hard time exploring your past and is being doubtful then it might be hard to you to start your healing process. If you feel anxious, strange, or a sense of awkwardness to even imagine opening up to your child self, you can try thinking that healing your inner child is a process of self-discovery. The process of acknowledging your inner child mostly involves recognizing and accepting the pain you experienced during your childhood years. And by bringing these pains in the light of the day can help you begin to understand how great or small the impact will affect you.
Listen to what your inner child has to say
After opening this new door for connection with your inner child it is important to be mindful of the feelings that you begin to feel. For some of you these feelings that appear by remembering the past situations can bring emotional triggers and discomfort. You might notice a strong feeling of anger over the unmet needs, abandonment, rejection, insecurities, vulnerability, guilt and shame, or anxiety resurfacing at the present moment. If you can be able to trace these feelings back to your specific childhood events you may realize that these seems triggering and similar to your responses in your life at the present. Let yourself feel all of the emotions and listen to what messages your child self is trying to tell you. Be open to understanding your situation a little bit more and have some gentleness in you when you are handling all of these unwanted emotions that reappear. You can write your inner child a letter. You can write all of those childhood memories you’ve experience from your perspective now that you’ve grew, offering yourself some insights and explanations addressing all of those distressing circumstances you don’t understand back then. The letter can offer you some reassurance and comfort. And as you continue writing the letter this will lead to some answers and it may take a lot of time to know all of it but just be patient, you will soon know all of the answers to your questions. If your childhood lacked positive experiences, getting back with your playful side and making for fun can help heal the pain that you needed as a child. It is also important to enjoy the small pleasures of life such as eating ice cream for a walk, play some fun games, or have a good laugh with your friends. Whatever you do, just make some time for fun and lightheartedness in life can help you to rekindle some positive emotions. And as you’ve started the process of connecting with your inner child a signal starts for you to cultivate what you’ve started. You can make use of this new found awareness and continue to listen to your inner child’s guidance as you move forward in life.
Gentleness
Be gentle with your inner child. You can start speaking gently like a good parent talking to his/her beloved child. Ask if he/she is doing okay? If the child is still hurting? Or did he/she finally forgive those people who hurt him/her and did let go of those heartbreaking experiences. And if not, console the child within you with love and care. Tell him/her that you’re such a strong child for being able to withstand all those obstacles that he/she get to experience. Tell him/her that you are proud of them, they were able to come this far through life. Tell them that they are worthy individuals and that their existence is valuable. Tell him/her that they are precious. Don’t blame your inner child for the mistakes he/she made in the past. Know that they didn’t deserve those hard phases of life and that they too are growing and that they couldn’t get to experience the lovely days of what childhood is like. Tell your inner child that he/she had great courage from within, he/she was able to put up through all of it. And give your heartfelt gratitude to your inner child because the experiences of the past made you an amazing person of today. Offer your love and compassion to your inner child. You can say some affirmations out loud for your inner child. Here are some suggestions :
• I love you
• I am sorry we went through that
• You deserve the right and play
• Your body is a good place to be in
Healing doesn’t always has a definite end. It is often more of an open-ended journey. And as for you I am wishing that you will be healed from all of the wound of your past. May you remember that you are not defined by your past and your mistakes and decisions back then. You are evolving and you grow, those things are important. Be gentle with yourself even when people can’t do that for you. Continue to proper as you go on with your life’s journey.