No matter how big or small, almost all of us experienced some kind of trauma as children.
These traumas could vary from having your favorite stuffed toy thrown in the trash, to being abandoned by your best childhood friend, to being physically or emotionally abused by your parents.
Inner child work is a vital component of inner work (alongside shadow work) because it reconnects us with a wounded element of ourselves: the child within. When we reconnect with this fragmented part of ourselves, we can begin to discover the root of many of our fears, phobias, insecurities and sabotaging life patterns. This is where the true healing happens!
Likely, you’ll be surprised by what you discover through inner child work. Instead of simply looking at a symptom of your pain, you’ll go right to the core and reveal when a fear, phobia or certain life pattern first began.
We’ve previously written about reconnecting with your inner child in the past, and how childhood trauma impacts you on a physical, emotional, mental and even sexual level. In this article I want to expand on some powerful healing techniques that I’ve used before to soothe this delicate place within us.
Types of Childhood Trauma
Firstly it’s important to understand that there are different types of childhood trauma. These include the physical (including sexual), emotional and mental variety. Also, when a childhood trauma is severe or repeated enough, it can result in soul loss. This is why you might need to undergo a process known in shamanic circles as “soul retrieval.” Soul retrieval is literally the process of “retrieving” the hidden, or inaccessible parts of your soul. Read more about soul retrieval.
However, not all childhood trauma results in soul loss — but they do result in a wounded psyche. This can result in issues such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, phobias, destructive behavioral patterns, and even chronic illnesses.
Examples of childhood trauma could include:
- Being hit or smacked by your parents/grandparents
- Having an emotionally unavailable parent who withholds affection
- Being “punished” by kicking, shaking, biting, burning, hair pulling, pinching, scratching or “washing out the mouth” with soap
- Being the recipient of molestation, shown pornography, or any other type of sexual contact from a parent, relative or friend
- Being the child of divorce
- Being given inappropriate or burdensome responsibilities (such as caring for your parents)
- Not being fed or provided a safe place to live from your parents
- Abandonment (your caretakers leaving you alone for long periods of time without a babysitter)
- Emotional neglect, i.e. not being nurtured, encouraged or supported
- Being deliberately called names or verbally insulted
- Denigration of your personality
- Destruction of personal belongings
- Excessive demands
- Humiliation
- Car accidents, or other spontaneous traumatic events
There are many more examples of childhood trauma, but I just wanted to provide you with a few to give you an idea of what inner child work deals with. It’s also important to remember that our parents weren’t the only ones responsible for provoking childhood trauma — our grandparents, brothers, sisters, extended family members, family friends and childhood friends may have also played a part.
What is Inner Child Work?
This leads us to explore the definition of inner child work:
Inner child work is the process of contacting, understanding, embracing and healing your inner child. Your inner child represents your first original self that entered into this world; it contains your capacity to experience wonder, joy, innocence, sensitivity and playfulness.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that forces us to repress our inner child and “grow up.” But the truth is that while most adults physically “grown up,” they never quite reach emotional or psychological adulthood. In other words, most “grown-ups” aren’t really adults at all. This leaves most people in a state of puerile fears, angers and traumas that fester away in the unconscious mind for decades.
When we deny and snuff out the voice of the child within we accumulate heavy psychological baggage. This unexplored and unresolved baggage causes us to experience problems such as mental illnesses, physical ailments and relationship dysfunction.
In fact, it could be said that the lack of conscious relatedness to our own inner child is one of the major causes of the severe issues we see in today’s society. From the brutal way we treat the environment, to the cruel way we talk to ourselves, we have become completely separated from our original innocence.
4 Simple Ways to Work With Your Inner Child
Learning to work with your inner child isn’t about becoming childish again, it is about reconnecting with your childLIKE side.
In other words, there is a big difference between being childish and childlike.
Being childish can be thought of as behaving in an immature or naive way. Being childlike on the other hand, can be thought of as a state of purity and innocence.
We all have the capacity to experience our original innocence; that period in our lives when we saw the world with openness and wonder.
In order to remove the guilt, shame, fear, hatred, self-loathing and anger that we carry with us, we have to heal the child within. To do this, we must earn the trust of our inner child through love and self-nurturing.
Here are 4 of the most powerful ways to perform inner child work:
1. Speak to your inner child
Acknowledge your inner child and let it know that you’re there for it. Treat it with kindness and respect.
Some self-nurturing things you could say to your inner child include, for example:
- I love you.
- I hear you.
- I’m sorry.
- Thank you.
- I forgive you.
Make a habit of talking to your inner child. You could also communicate through journal work by asking your inner child a question, then writing down the response.
2. Look at pictures of yourself as a child
Go through old photo albums and rediscover what your younger self looked like. Let that image be burned into your brain because it will serve you well throughout the rest of your inner child work. You might even like to put photos of yourself next to your bedside table, in your wallet, or around the house just to remind yourself of your inner child’s presence.
3. Recreate what you loved to do as a child
Sit down and think about what you loved to do as a child. Maybe you liked climbing trees, playing with toy blocks, cuddling toy bears or eating warm porridge. Make time to include whatever activity you loved to do as a child in your present life.
Through inner child work, people have told me that they’ve connected to sides of themselves that they never even knew existed as adults. This discovery is truly life-changing. It’s important that you make a habit of this “play time” and explore any embarrassment or silliness you feel towards it. It’s completely normal to feel a bit foolish at first, but it’s important to keep an open mind.
4. Do an inner journey
One of the most powerful ways to reconnect with your inner child to heal childhood traumas, is to do an inner journey.
For beginners, I recommend two types of inner journeys: those done through meditation, and those done through visualization.
In order to do these inner journeys, it is important that you first gain the trust of your inner child through the previous activities. Once you have developed a strong connection to your inner child, you can then ask it to reveal what earlier life circumstances created the trauma you’re struggling with today.
How to do a meditation journey:
Connecting to your inner child through meditation is a passive process: simply breathe deeply, relax, allow yourself to witness your thoughts, and ask your question. For example, you might like to ask, “Dear inner child, when was the first time I experienced trauma in my life?”
Allow yourself to witness the thoughts that rise and fall within your mind. Your inner child may or may not decide to reveal the answer to you. Remember to be patient, loving and accepting. If your inner child doesn’t want to reveal the answer, embrace that. It’s important that your inner child feels safe, secure, and ready.
You might like to repeat your question every now and then if nothing of significance arises inside of your mind. This process could take anywhere from a couple of minutes to 1 hour or more.
Tips — In order to do the inner child meditation journey, you’ll need to have experience meditating. Learning to witness your thoughts can take a lot of practice, so if you’re not used to meditating, you might struggle with this technique.
How to do a visualization journey:
A more active way to connect with your inner child and earlier life traumas is through visualization.
To connect with your inner child through visualization, you must create a “power place” or safe place. To do this you must visualize a beautiful garden, or any type of place in which you feel safe, empowered and whole. After entering your power place, you can then invite your inner child to speak with you.
Here are a few steps:
- Relax, close your eyes and breathe deeply.
- Imagine you’re walking down a staircase.
- At the bottom of the staircase is your power place, or safe place. In this place you feel strong, safe and supported.
- Spend a bit of time in your power place. Soak it in. What does it look like, smell like and sound like?
- After you have acquainted yourself with your power place, imagine that your younger self has entered, perhaps through a door or waterfall.
- Hug your younger self and make them feel home.
- When you’re ready, ask your inner child your question, e.g. “When was the first time you/I felt sad or scared?” You might like to phrase the question in child terminology.
- Await their response.
- Make sure you hug them, thank them, and tell them how much they mean to you.
- Say goodbye to them.
- Leave your power place and ascend up the stairs.
- Return to normal consciousness.
These are very basic steps, but they provide a good outline of how to perform an inner child visualization journey.
***
As children we perceived the world very differently from our adult selves. Because of this, many of the things we presently assume never hurt us as children may have left deep scars. This is why it’s important to never make assumptions about your inner child.
Through inner child work, you can learn to grieve, heal and resolve any sources of trauma you’ve been unconsciously holding on to for years. This can liberate you and allow you to live a life of true adulthood, emotional balance and wellbeing.
I hope this article has inspired you to reconnect with your inner child. Tell me, what ways have you learned to heal the trauma from your childhood?
I’m struggling to connect or trust anyone, including my inner child, inner parent, inner anything. There is a part of me that just doesn’t trust anyone or even life. In many ways I still feel like I am a child. I struggle to cope. And to fulfill my adult responsibilities. I think deep inside I don’t trust adults. And I don’t want to be one. Maybe if I stay a child I wont fuck up so much, or hurt others, like they hurt me… But I am an adult, and I am by default hurting myself and others by not taking responsibility for myself and my life. My inner child wants love and hugs and comfort. Wants to be loved unconditionally. Wants true honesty in relationships. Wants kindness. And care. That feels like so much work. It’s so hard. And the world feels so intense. When I give my child that kind of love, especially out in the world, it feels dangerous. I don’t want to be attacked anymore. But my inner parent is struggling. This is a lot of work. I have trouble accepting my inner parents lacking in struggles. Because I saw my parents struggles and what they did to me – and I don’t want to repeat that cycle. But I can’t live up to my own standards. So I’m constantly upset with myself. I still feel like I need parents. Real parents. And what I have are dysfunctional family relationships that confuse and scare me. I’m not sure what or if they can offer anything or if that’s even worth trying for. I keep trying to love myself. But where that takes me is working part time and just scraping by. Too anxious to pursue relationships, career, or other projects. Feel to incapable. And lacking skill/ability. And full of troubles. I don’t know what to do.
Although I can communicate with my inner child, I still.find it difficult to embrace her. My therapist says I need to do this, but I have not been able to scale or overcome my inner blocks or fears in doing this. It has been so frustrating because I try so many angles and I just cannot find a way to get through. It is affecting my life in the intense anxiety I feel around people. I’ve tried so hard with my inner work, facing previous traumas and self care, and I’ve reached a point where I wonder if I’m just broken and must learn to function with avoiding intimacy and letting no one get too close. It’s a terrible feeling and I don’t know what to do.
I’m very sorry Mairel. I can relate.
Thank you, first thing i saw when i closed my eyes was my sister, i pushed her away, and than after telling myself how beautiful, creative and so very strong i am, i said, you never got your place, it’s not your fault. and then i started to cry. I haven’t cried in 13 years.
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Thank you thank you
Wondering if you have any advice for someone like me on inner child work? I had a very traumatic childhood in a multitude of ways. I know what happened to me but I have no visual memory so I am having a hard time doing any work like this. I don’t have much memory of anything in general really, i know highlights of what happened but not really any specifics. I am in EMDR therapy but that is also quite hard to accomplish without visualization. Do you have any tips?!
Hi, I just have a question… Is it possible that the energies between you and you twin could be so intertwined that you can connect to your twins’ inner child?
My twin and I have been separated since last Christmas, he won’t talk to me. But we connect mentally sometimes.
I tried to connect with my inner child, and found this little girl with pigtails, playing with her dolls, feeling quite content and happy (early years, still ok). :)
Suddenly I saw this angry version of my twin in his early teens, stomping into a kitchen (not the kitchen from my own childhood) getting something out of the fridge. I never met my twin as a teen, nor have I seen pictures or talked to him about it… I felt so surprised at his appearance, it sort of yanked me out of it (the vision or what you might call it).
Is it possible, or is my brain just throwing random imaginative stuff at me? To the point where it even surprises myself!?!
I don’t think you should ask your inner child the first time she/he experienced trauma… maybe you can ask your higher self. Your inner child needs to be loved and nurtured, and kept safe, as you said, but that question doesn’t address the hurt and curious beautiful child self, but the higher self or divine who knows beyond the rest. We need to tell the inner child how much we love her and keep going back to talk with her and hug her until she knows she is safe, and ask her how she feels and what she needs and let her know how deeply loved she is. God bless! Thanks for sharing this though bc it resonates with my own practice. Peace, Rachel.
I must admit I skipped most of the post. I’ve been doing shadow work for some time now and most of the things in there are well known to me. I skipped directly to the techniques. I have been using the meditation technique for some time and it has been offering me glimpses into the depths of my soul. All information I retrieved has been extremely valuable.
But then I read about the visualization technique and even as I was reading, I realized that my “power place”, as you call it, is a barn. A very particular barn that really existed, where I used to “play” as a child. I followed the steps of the technique as I read through them and I got goosebumps, and tears welled up in my eyes. Though I did not get any answers from the “child” yet, I feel this is the way to continue my journey.
Thank you for showing me this.
There are several levels of healing, it occurs to me. Thank you for showing me the next steps!
Hi Sol,
I’m looking for a spiritual mentor for my son, do you offer personal coaching?Sa
Thanks for the inquiry Sarah. Unfortunately at this time we’re focusing more on our online work as one-on-one mentoring is an ongoing process that we like to dedicate our full attention to when we open our services for it. There’s plenty of well trained locally now days, we recommend anyone knowledgable in somatic experiencing.
Thank you for this article! I’ve been doing a lot of soul work lately, and have come to discover that my inner child needs a lot of attention. There were a lot of times during my childhood that I felt alone, and that my emotions weren’t validated. But overall, I had a really good, carefree, happy childhood!
But when I was a very young adult (18), I was emotionally abused by my now ex-fiancé. And a year later, I was sexually assaulted by a friend. I feel like both of these things happened at a very vulnerable age, as I was just coming into adulthood. And now at 25, I’m realizing how much these events actually impacted me.
I’m going to try the techniques listed in this article! Thank you for this!
I’m so sorry you’ve experienced that Emma, I wish you strength and wellness in your path of applying these techniques <3.
…Learning to draw is a visual language upon which to let your inner child emerge and speak straight from the subconscious. Every body is an artist and every body can doodle on a drawing pad, or writing pad. When relaxed things just emerge on paper and helps to relieve sub conscious pressures. Regards John …
Curious, I’m just starting to connect with my inner child and mentioned above it seems like we can ask one question. Is it best to ask one question per visit/session or could we ask a few?
Thank you!
Hi sol,my name is nagendra from india. This topic regarding inner child amazing and uplifting this helped my spiritual journey to go even more deeper and clearer. You and luna have done excellent work to guide us on the journey. Thank you so much. Along with this i have request that i need a support and guidance from you regarding parent and children issues. Its really serious issue.
The problem is my younger brother assaults his mom (our mom)physically, emotionally, when i try to stop it he assaulted me too. Thats not all, i came to know recently that he had a ‘Oedipus complex’. He is trying to behave sexually with his mother and she rejects all of that. Then he try to abuse her with extreme anger and she’s suffering with this. My request is can you help us to overcome from this parent and child relationship issue (Oedipus Complex). Please create an article or send some suggestions, wisdom and tools to be free from this problem. I will be waiting for your reply. Once again thank you SOL AND LUNA for this inner child article. Thanks. Namaste.
Hey Nagendra,
Thank you for sharing your story and difficult situation. Unfortunately, this sounds like a problem that would benefit from ongoing work. It’s one thing to write about topics for people who are interested in changing themselves and are willing to apply the advice, but when it comes to dealing with other people who aren’t receptive to change, it requires a more complex treatment.
I wish you and your family the best.
I lost my father in a tragic accident when I was 11 years old but before that my childhood was wonderful and safe, I wanted to share this because sometimes tragic events happens that steals your innocenct life and secureness of your childhood in a split second.
My inner child spent a lot of time hiding/playing in closets and home made tents. My brothers either used me as free entertainment, or something smaller than them to humiliate, as a sort of living doll for their twisted preadolescent humor. Yes, I had about 80% of the traumas mentioned, including my brother (golden child) showing me adult films on VHS he found by going through my parent’s closet. Can you blame him? Our mother went through all of our belongings, arbitrarily discarding “junk”, which was not based on any logic- randomly throwing away our belongings.
I lived with my parents and also at my grandparents apartment. I was told a few years ago my parents never took me home from the hospital, after I spent a week in an incubator malnourished. 4 lbs, full term 9 months, not premature, my mother did nothing…except pretend she hadn’t had a drink or a smoke in 9 months.
Thank you for all of these techniques. I’m so isolated I think I’m in a meditative state half the day. I journaled and immediately my inner child was ready to talk.
In my isolation I decided to get sand from the beach and make a home sand box for Jungian Sand Play. I’m also unashamed to sleep with plush animals and even create activities for them, just like I did as an isolated child.
I think I want to practice more of this; I had no therapeutic goal other than amusing myself with the dolls, but it started as life stress increased. Maybe my inner child is an ally already! She’s not bad at all, she just happened to grow up in an untamable hell. That’s why she liked drawing, storytelling (to the dolls), making places to hide and she made friends with younger children next door to continue more *childlike* creative activities as their friend and babysitter.
Under stress I had also already made up a power place. It’s a Native American Earth Lodge I visited as a child, and yes the monks I watch on YouTube are there to counsel me and of course tell jokes. Also Guardian Angels that protect me, so I’m safe as I sleep. It’s become a very helpful technique for falling asleep, avoiding night time anxiety.
Wow. i like to sleep with stuffed animals too. They feel so safe and comforting and warm … they make me feel not alone… it’s ok that we are adults :) part of us needs it. obviously. thanks for sharing. it’s awesome that you are aware of your angels as I am too.
There’s a book by John Bradshaw called Homecoming that’s exactly about this. I’ve started reading it and it’s already need helpful.
That’s wonderful, thank you for sharing it Stephen!
You can never know too much about any topic :)
Thank you for mentioning the book! I’m going to check it out. Take care and glad we have these resources. When I was growing up, there was no internet…and when I tried to talk with a school counselor I was threatened I would “expose family secrets”, punished and the school was told I was not to see the counselor again.
I worked extensively with this book and his videos on PBS!! Awesome help!!