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How to Heal Your Inner Child With These 3 Loving Practices
Healing your inner child is a sacred work. It allows you to go to the root of your past and heal it on a fundamental level.
I always think of inner child work as a way to reparent yourself. But this time, the source of support, love, encouragement, and understanding doesn’t depend on someone from the outside. It is entirely in your hands.
You are the child, and you are the parent.
You can also think of it like this: your conscious, logical mind is the parent. She knows the right thing to do, what is good for you, and what you need.
Your subconscious mind is your child. It represents all your beliefs, habits, and behavioral patterns that (often) unconsciously drive your life.
When your inner child is acting up, your subconscious mind is in play. Let’s take relationships as an example.
Your partner, friend, or someone else is not giving you the attention that you desire. You don’t feel seen or heard. Therefore, you may use silent treatment as a way to cope with it and indirectly demand their attention.
Although your conscious mind(parent within you) knows this isn’t the best way to deal with the situation, the subconscious mind (your inner child) is taking over and running the show.
Therefore, to begin healing your inner child and make her feel safe, here are 3 simple, yet effective practices you can start with.
1. Listen to your inner child
When your inner child is acting up, meaning doing things that are unhealthy or not good for you, she is asking for attention.
She wants you to pay attention to her and listen to what she has to say.
Often, we dismiss these moments because they feel uncomfortable or because we prefer not dealing with them.
However, these moments of discomfort are our opportunity. This is our chance to pay attention, look within, and see what is there.
2. Validate your inner child
I always shied away from my anger. It was like a scary monster I didn’t want to face.
One day, out of nowhere, I got angry because of some mundane thing I had to deal with. It alarmed me right away and frankly, surprised me. I didn’t expect this surge of anger for such a small, almost unimportant thing.
Suddenly, I realized that it was the little girl inside of me that was angry. Often, she wanted me to pay attention to her and validate her, but because of my fear of anger, I kept dismissing her.
The moment I recognized and validated her (my) feelings while approaching them with acceptance, the anger left my body.
It was a profound experience that made me understand that we must validate our inner child’s feelings.
Both emotions, negative and positive, are essential to our well-being. Negative emotions serve as a compass telling us that something isn’t quite right or that we need to reevaluate the situation.
Validating your inner child’s feelings means that you give them space to express themselves and don’t judge what is there. You feel them and accept them for what they are.
3. Write your inner child a letter
In this letter, express everything you want your inner child to know. How much you love her and care for her. Maybe you want to ask for forgiveness or let her know that today, she is safe because you got her back.
Use this letter to express deep love, compassion, and empathy.
Save the letter and reread it anytime you want. It can serve as a reminder of your path to inner healing or an expression of love and gratitude.
Remember that with any healing modality, whether it is inner child work or something else, it is vital that you move away from emotions like judgment, guilt, and shame and go on the other side of the spectrum to embrace emotions of love and support. Because when you do that, that's when healing always takes place.
Posted 9 months ago
