Little me will always be a part of me now.
“Just finished my therapy session. It was so emotional. We did inner child healing and I met my inner child. I instantly felt protective over her. It was powerful. I owe it to her to have a good, happy life and surround her with loving people. Not everyone is going to hurt or deceive me. I need to show my inner child so much love. I feel raw and exposed. I’m a bit shaky. I really do feel like I connected with that little girl. She’s just a happy kid with so much love in her and she didn’t deserve to be treated like that. But I’m here to protect her now when no one did at the time.”
This was my first journal entry after my therapy session diving into inner child healing. It’s strange to read back on it now and remember how powerful it felt. I didn’t even know about inner child healing before I started therapy. Then when I met her (little me) for the first time during a meditation it all made sense, it all felt real. We are all just our child selves in adult bodies, carrying everything that happened to us and trying to navigate this world.
Did you know that 95% of your brain is sub-conscious, formed when you were a child? That means you are seeing the world through your child self. When you’re triggered it’s firing your child brain. Inner child therapy is about integrating your adult brain into the subconscious and seeing the world through the eyes of an empowered adult and not a child. It’s about letting go of all those beliefs that were formed when we didn’t know any better.
I was introduced to my inner child in meditation, in a beautiful garden with a lake and white flowers and shady trees – a safe space for her to play. I could see her so clearly and she just wanted a hug from me. I felt this overwhelming sense that I needed to protect her. I don’t have children, but I felt like a mother to her. I wanted to shield her, protect her innocence. I felt sadness at what she had to go through. But also admiration at how happy she still was. A little ray of sunshine. I felt proud that that was me.
Since that first session we continued to work on healing my inner child and I’ve journaled many many times to integrate this into my everyday healing.
“It’s emotional speaking to her. She is so brave with such a big heart. To still hold capacity to love someone that betrayed her, it shows what kind of person she is. I’m proud that was me. I’m excited to get to know my inner child more and spend more time with her because I’m just starting to realise how wonderful she is. It’s a strange feeling but when I truly think about it, she’s now always going to be with me. My inner child is a part of me – always has been but I’ve never connected to her. It’s a comforting discovery.”
So many journal entries, so many letters, so may tears shed for her. But each time I’m healing on a deeper level.
For someone who has never experienced or even heard of inner child therapy, this might all seem strange. It might be hard to believe any of this is real. But I promise you, your inner child is in there, and it’s up to you whether you connect with them or not. Every single thing that has happened to you is shaping who you are today. Great news if you had a perfect upbringing, but I imagine this is quite rare. I think almost all of us are carrying some kind of pain, even if you don’t recognise it to be so. ‘How to do the work’ by Nicole Perera opened my eyes to all of the things that are considered as childhood trauma. I knew I had some big T trauma, but never considered the small T. So much of my behaviour, my triggers, make sense since I started to map it all back to my childhood. It’s actually quite liberating and I have more compassion for myself now.
If you’re considering inner child healing then I would say it’s one of the most transformative things you can do on your healing journey, and it’s worth investing in a professional to guide you. But there are a few things you can do yourself, which I continue to do now:
Find an image of your younger self and keep it close – the background on your phone, saved to your photo library, in a frame by your bed – whatever works for you, and then journal. Write, write, write – acknowledge what your inner child went through, rewrite the story and make sure they know they are safe and loved now, join the dots of what you went through then vs. how you react and feel today, write your inner child letters. Journaling has been one of my biggest healing tools because it allowed me to understand myself and start to change my thought patterns.
I hope you can connect with your inner child. I hope that if you went through something hard you can reassure your inner child now that they are safe.
All my love, to you and your inner child,
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