SELF-CARE: What Is Inner Child Work All About? + FREE Personal Compass Worksheet
I’m sure it doesn’t shock you to know that we can experience trauma at any point in our lives.
But what you might not know is that trauma is especially likely to affect us, our lives, and our relationships when we experience it in childhood.
Many of us might be quick to think that we didn’t experience childhood trauma if we weren’t sexually abused, involved in a severe accident, or orphaned by war or a mass casualty event.
However, what many of us don’t realize is that childhood trauma can also occur when a caregiver is emotionally unavailable, expresses love only under certain conditions, or is working multiple jobs to make ends meet and isn’t home enough to give a child the love and attention they need.
No matter the specific event or experience, childhood trauma can affect our lives in profound ways. This is because whether we realize it or not, the experiences that we have in childhood can play a big role in shaping how we see ourselves, other people, and the world.
And these “templates” that we unconsciously create don’t just influence who we hang out with in middle school or the choices that we make about sex and drugs in high school. They can shape our beliefs, actions, choices, and relationships long into adulthood.
In other words, the experiences that we have as children—whether they involve trauma or not—can have a big impact on our ability to find joy, build fulfilling lives, and form healthy relationships today.
The good news, though, is that we aren’t doomed to live unhappy, lonely, or unfulfilling lives just because we didn’t have “perfect” childhoods.
Because by uncovering and addressing our childhood experiences and “templates” (i.e., doing what’s called inner child work), we can heal long-held wounds, transform the beliefs that we have about ourselves and the world, and set ourselves up to approach our lives and relationships in healthier ways.
That’s why in this blog post, I want to do a deep dive into inner child work and what it’s all about.
Because when you gain insight into the childhood trauma or childhood wounds that you might be living with and how you can uncover and address them, it empowers you to break free from unhealthy engrained patterns and habits that have been limiting the joy, love, and fulfillment in your life.
Let’s get to it!
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What Is an Inner Child?
Before we start talking about inner child work, I want to back up and talk about what an inner child is. After all, it’ll be easier to wrap your head around what inner child work is all about if you know what an inner child actually is.
So what is an inner child?
To start off, each one of us has an inner child. But everyone’s inner child is unique.
The concept of the inner child stems from the fact that we were all children at one point in time. According to psychological theory, as we grew older, we developed adult bodies, gained more advanced cognitive abilities, and took on greater responsibilities. But our child self didn’t simply disappear. Instead, we retained this child self deep within us, and it continues to be part of us to this day.
Your inner child contains the qualities you had as a child, including your childlike curiosity, enthusiasm, and creativity.
But it also contains things that you learned or gained based on your childhood experiences. After all, as a child, you were wired to readily absorb information from your environment, including things that your caregivers intentionally and unintentionally taught you, and use it to build your knowledge of the world.
So your inner child includes the emotions, memories, and relationship and behavioral templates that you experienced or developed based on your childhood experiences. In the present, these emotions, memories, and templates continue to shape how you think about yourself, how you respond to situations, and how you show up in relationships.
If you had a healthy relationship with your caregiver(s) and received the love, care, and attention that you needed as a child, your inner child may contain positive emotions, happy memories, and healthy templates for how to approach others and the world.
But if you didn’t receive the love and care that you needed or if you experienced a different type of trauma in childhood, your inner child might contain negative emotions, painful memories, and unhealthy behavioral templates.
For example, if your parents punished you or withheld love when you displayed strong emotions, you might have learned that it’s “bad” or “wrong” to express strong emotions. And to this day, you might suppress these emotions and avoid expressing them in your adult relationships.
Or if your parent often failed to show up to your dance recitals, swim meets, or school plays, you might have felt abandoned by them. That’s why when your current partner doesn’t return your call or is late to meet you for dinner, you might get disproportionately upset because you think that they are abandoning you too.
What Is Inner Child Work?
Also known as inner child healing, inner child work is a method of uncovering, processing, and addressing unmet childhood needs and wounds. It’s also about connecting with and embracing the natural joy, innocence, and confidence that you were born with.
When you do inner child work, either alone or with a therapist, you look deep within yourself to identify and explore the parts of you that were rejected, labelled as “wrong,” or not validated by others, especially childhood caregivers. By uncovering and processing the painful emotions and memories that you carry with you from your childhood, you’re able to gain insight into your unmet needs or how you weren’t loved in the way that you needed to be loved as a child.
Uncovering your unmet needs is important. Because unlike when you were a child, you have the ability as an adult to give your inner child (and your adult self) the love and care that you didn’t receive in childhood. In other words, you can love yourself in the way that your parent didn’t, you can give yourself the attention that your parent didn’t, or you can show compassion in response to your strong emotions in the way that your parent didn’t. And when you make an effort to connect with, listen to, and nurture your inner child, you can heal the wounds that are at the root of the challenges you experience as an adult.
After all, when you no longer believe that strong emotions are “bad,” you can more freely experience them as an adult and express them in your relationships. Similarly, when you no longer believe that everyone who matters to you will abandon you, you can approach and navigate relationships with a healthier and more open mindset.
Keep in mind that inner child work isn’t about digging up all of the things that your parents did “wrong” and holding them accountable for them. As part of inner child work, you will explore the needs you had as a child that your parents didn’t fulfill. And you may explore the true feelings you had (and that you may still have) about your parents not fulfilling these needs.
However, inner child work isn’t about your parents. It’s about you and your needs. It’s about recognizing that as an adult, you now have the power to do what your parents didn’t do or weren’t able to do. And it’s about claiming and deploying this power to nurture your inner child and your adult self in the way that you’ve always deserved to be nurtured.
Inner child work is part of many types of therapy, including trauma therapy, somatic work, Gestalt work, and art therapy. It can be helpful for addressing a variety of issues, including childhood abuse, depression and anxiety, anger management, self-esteem issues, relationship challenges, and codependency.
What Are the Benefits Of Doing Inner Child Work?
It may seem odd to focus on connecting with the child within you and “parenting” yourself in the way that you deserved to be parented as a child. But inner child work has a wide range of benefits.
Specifically, when you work on healing your inner child, you can create a sense of safety and security for yourself, change deep-seated beliefs that you’re “wrong” or “bad,” and feel more comfortable with the emotions you experience and the choices you make. In other words, you get the chance to build your self-confidence and be YOU, not a shadow of who you truly are.
You also get the chance to develop your capacity for self-compassion and acceptance and unlock your potential, talent, passion, and capacity for love. This can help you navigate daily stressors and life challenges more successfully and harness the power that’s already within you to pursue your dreams and build the life you’ve always wanted.
Because you may have learned as a child to suppress your emotions, let others make decisions for you, or prioritize others over yourself, inner child work can also help you give yourself permission to live life on your own terms. That is, it can help you understand that it’s okay and, in fact, healthy to express your emotions, make your own decisions, set boundaries, or prioritize yourself. And when you feel that you have autonomy over your choices and your life as a whole, it’s much easier to feel happy and fulfilled.
Furthermore, doing inner child work can improve the health of your relationships. This is because the relationship that you had with your caregiver(s) as a child played a strong role in shaping the relationship templates you developed and, therefore, how you approach relationships as an adult.
If you didn’t receive the love and care you needed as a child, you may have learned not to trust others, to avoid pain in relationships at all costs, or other unhealthy relationship habits. Doing inner child work can transform your underlying relationships beliefs and templates and make you feel safer in relationships. And ultimately, this can make it easier for you to build and maintain healthy relationships.
It’s Never Too Late to Be The Parent You Always Needed
When we become parents to our own children, we often vow to avoid or “fix” the mistakes our parents made and give our kids the parent we wish we had had ourselves.
But what we often don’t realize is that we don’t have to wait until we have kids or even have kids at all to be the parent we always longed for as a child. Because there’s already someone in our lives who can benefit from the loving and nurturing “parenting” that we can provide: us!
By doing inner child work, we can connect with our inner child and heal the childhood wounds that we’ve been living with by giving ourselves the love, care, and attention that we didn’t receive as kids or that we didn’t receive in the way that we needed. And just like a child thrives when they receive unconditional love and care, we too can begin thriving as adults by loving, embracing, accepting, and nurturing all parts of ourselves.
And remember, it’s never too late to do inner child work and give yourself the “parent” that you deserved to have as a child. Even if it’s been decades since you were a child, doing inner child work can help you heal from pain, feel comfortable being who you really are, discover joy and fulfillment, and enjoy healthier relationships. After all, you’re never too old to be loved and cared for.
Part of inner child work is discovering who you truly are—the part of you that you might have suppressed or lost touch with because of what you were taught as a child. To help you get a head start on reconnecting with your true self, I’ve created a FREE worksheet for you called My Personal Compass.
It’ll help you uncover and understand your needs, passions, goals, and values so that you can discover who you really are and build a life that reflects what’s most important to you.
And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and courses.
Until next time!
Vera
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