Never Grow Up: Why & How You Need to Heal Your Inner Child

We each come into the world with an unformed brain. It is a blank slate that picks up on the signals of the environment and starts to categorize things to make sense of them. The natural processing of information helps us survive and allows us to learn how to avoid danger but it also picks up on the beliefs of those around us based on what we observe in the formative years of our lives.

Those who are raised in a hostile environment often find they are afraid or distrustful of people in their adult lives and we can use common sense to see why. As children, when we begin to form our perspective of the world, we are only able to do so based on where we live, who is raising us and what experiences we have. If we are treated as a burden or neglected, we will develop feelings that we are not good enough and can act out those deep-rooted beliefs well into our lives, unless we do something about it.

Meet Your Inner Child

Many different systems embrace the idea of working with the inner child as an effective way to understand our emotions and behaviors as adults.

This can come in handy when we are trying to learn how to take care of ourselves, get along with others and figure out why we are triggered by things. In a very real way, it can help us overcome deep-rooted fears of taking risks, trusting people, speaking up for ourselves and breaking out of our comfort zones. Because our minds are formed at this age, we can examine our early experiences to understand ourselves and see what is helpful in our thought patterns or what we would like to shift.

The inner child is essentially the memories of our childhood playing on repeat in our subconscious and generating energy. That energy is then filtering our perceptions of the world and actually creating emotions which we experience as well. Those emotions can become overwhelming and make us act out without even knowing where the psychic pressure is coming from. Luckily, healers and psychotherapists have great success in helping break these patterns of thinking and today, you get to learn how to do that too.

Reasons You Need to Heal Your Inner Child

This can be a life-long process that helps you and it isn’t extremely hard to do once you get used to it. It can help us stop blaming others for our feelings and help us see why we make decisions that might be actually sabotaging our happiness. Mental health care has had stigmas for a long time and that has been to our detriment. Look at this work as one of the most empowering stress management activities you can possibly do. It will open you to more success, better relationships and more self-awareness.

You may be surprised to learn all the ways inner child work can help you. It can help you with anxiety, addiction, depression, anger management, all types of neurosis, lack of motivation, selfish behaviors, insecurities, fear of intimacy, perfectionism, trust issues, and control issues. This is major stuff when it comes to being able to function as an adult. Many people that find themselves stuck in a pattern of destructive behavior or non-action are able to break free of it when they heal this energy we collectively call the inner child.

Simple Steps to Heal Your Inner Child

Some people find visualizing on their own difficult because the mind can go in many directions. You can use this meditation to help you stay focused in meditation.

Try recording it in your own voice so you can listen to it and not have to read it. Speak slowly so you have time in the meditation to do each part. Speak with a calm and positive tone to encourage yourself. This is not a one-time thing. You can make it a regular exercise and you get used to finding the root cause of issues as they come up.

The first step is deciding to make this process a part of your life and being open to the hope that it will help free you from chronic emotional pressure. The next step is doing the meditation on a regular basis. Grab a journal that you will use for this and find a quiet place where you can do the meditation. Record the meditation or if you’re not able to, reading it will also suffice.

Start by taking a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Relax your body as you begin breathing slowly and deeply, preparing yourself for this guided meditation. You are taking a step to empower yourself so you can already start to feel a sense of happiness awaiting you. You are going to meet your inner child and just see how they are doing.

Close your eyes and see yourself walking in a park where you will find your inner child.

Are they happy or sad? Write down what you observe when you first see them.

Now ask to be shown what memory is affecting your inner child. You will see an event in your life you may not have thought of in a long time and perhaps you’ve even blocked it from your memory because it was difficult.

Allow yourself to see the memory and how it affected you as a child. You no longer have to let the energy of this affect you. You will now set your intention to release this memory and it affects your mind, body and soul in past, present and future.

Imagine a balloon that holds the energy and you’re holding the string of that balloon. Let the balloon go and watch it float away. Breathe in deeply feeling the freedom from that event whether it was bullying, shame, abuse, bad advice or something that made you sad.

You can now give your inner child what it would have had if it was in a loving, safe and nurturing place. Since it’s in your imagination, you can give her a happy safe home, kind friends, present healthy parents or whatever would have helped her develop in a more stable and loving way.

After you do, return to the park and see the shift in her. You can come back to this park soon. For now, you can take three deep breaths and return to your journal to write down what you healed today, how it was affecting you now and how this new energy is shifting your life and empowering you.

Closing Thoughts…

A great way to approach the process of healing your inner child is to break up your childhood into chunks. You can begin with your inner child as an infant, then meet them as a toddler, a child, and a teen. Don’t do too much in one day because you’re processing energy which is going to require time.

You will be able to work on this on your own, and if you feel like this is something you want to work with on a deeper level, reach out to a professional who can work with you. You can also find books on healing the inner child to explore the concept more, like Healing The Wounded Child Within by Ricky Roberts.

If you feel like you have nowhere to turn it’s often because you need to go within. Many people who have been through what seems like unbearable things or have done things they aren’t proud of are able to heal their self-esteem and recover a sense of purpose by clearing and healing their past.

Related Article: How To Clear Your Energy Field By Healing Traumatic Memories