It’s a buzz word today in wellness and mental health circles: inner child work. So we’re going to talk about it. What it is, how to do it, and what it can do. So buckle in everyone, and let’s get started.
What is your inner child? (and why do you have one)
When you were first born, you grew quickly into a child from a baby. Young people are huge sponges, soaking up information and habits and conclusions from everywhere and anywhere, but they don’t have a lot of critical thinking skills, or life experience to be able to filter out nonsensical and unhelpful things. This can lead to a whole lot of bad habits, like repressing your feelings, or assuming that you at your core are bad or burdensome.
As you grow up, you (hopefully) learn more about critical thinking and are better able to filter out bad ideas and habits that are not serving you, but the conclusions and habits you made as a kid are still formed and stuck there, often subconsciously.
One of the best and simplest ways to get an understanding of what these wounds, habits, and ideas are is by connecting with your inner child to understand the buildup to them and the motivation behind them. Through that, you can better work out how to unwind them and get your needs met in a more healthy way, as well as dissolve the wrong ideas that got you into these patterns in the first place. Or at least, that’s the idea.
What does inner child work consist of
So how do you do this? Well, inner child work can be done on your own or with a therapist. Depending on your level of self-awareness, you might benefit more from one approach or the other. But in general, there are a few simple approaches I can suggest.
Journal as your inner child
First, you can try journaling through the point of view of your childhood self. Don’t try to censor yourself into talking about only certain topics. Let yourself explore how you feel about everything and anything you experienced. You can go back and try to sort through it later, but for now, just be open and honest. When you do come back and look through what you wrote, look for themes of feelings and thoughts. Were you an angry kid or a scared kid? Did you feel hopeless, out of place or alone? What were you supposed to do but had a hard time with? These questions will help lead you to what your inner problems are today, and how to fix them. Remember, we often hold onto these things. That’s why it’s still there, bouncing about your psyche.
Talk to your childhood self
Another approach is to try to have a conversation with your childhood self as you now. In this way, you will play both selves, and you can give your past self the knowledge and reassurance that you needed and wished you could have. You can ask your present self the questions you always wanted to know as a kid. And it’s an uncanny feeling, the catharsis that follows this sort of thing. Because only you know just what it is that you wanted and needed to hear. And now you can give it to yourself.
Reparent yourself
And finally, an approach that is far less immersive, but also incredibly beneficial, is to try and reparent yourself. Regardless of what kind of parents you may or may not have had, there are some things you likely didn’t get but could have benefitted from. These needs haven’t just disappeared in you. They got buried underneath years of repression, supression, or void-filling.
This also involves a certain level of two-brained-ness, but imagine you going about your day as childhood you, or your child. And the part of you that knows what you need to do in order to be happy and healthy and moving towards your goals, as yourself today, or your parent self. Let this wiser self inform general you on how to act, but also, when to take a break, and give yourself the encouragement and kindness that you need in order to stay productive and in good spirits. Give yourself new rules to replace the old ones, or the implied ones, and watch yourself blossom with the love and guidance that you’re now giving yourself.
How can it help you
Getting in touch with your childhood or childlike self can first and foremost give you answers. Answers to questions like, “why do I always push people away?” “Why do I self-sabotage?” “What am I so scared of?” “Why do I let people treat me badly, even seeking them out?” It will help you remember details about your past, important ones, that formed the basis of how you behave today. And if you know why you’re doing something, then you’re one step closer to being able to figure out how to stop, and how to replace them with something better. Something more healthy and that actually satisfies your needs.
Getting past the silly feeling and into the real work
I think there’s a definite silly feeling initially, getting in touch with the childhood self, especially acting and speaking from that place. You feel…weird and vulnerable. But it’s worth it to push past it. In fact, everyone has this part of them, so you’re not alone, and acknowledging it and connecting with it certainly doesn’t make you less mature or grown-up. All it really does is open a new channel for healing. And it’s a channel which, if you’re uncomfortable with, you can close right back up. No harm, no foul.
It is for this reason that I recommend many people to do inner child work alone, at least in the beginning, to get acquainted with the feeling of connecting with your inner child. It’s easier to get vulnerable and accept that side of ourselves when we’re all alone. If you don’t quite know how to start that sort of thing, dig into an old post of mine about how to craft a place to feel your feelings in. (You can find it by clicking here.) That takes you through a tangible way to make a safe space for just you. And once you’ve done this, think back to a childhood memory. Let yourself really go there and see the world through the eyes of a shorter version of you, and let yourself sink into that person. At that point, the hardest part is done.
This is a learning process, not a blaming one
There are many people who are skeptical of therapy, therapists, and many psychological exercises. And one criticism I often hear is that it’s just a big cycle of blame. Like, “who you are isn’t your fault, it’s just your parents, your childhood environment”, that sort of thing. And I can hear those people howling now, when it comes to inner child work too. However, I defend this practice, not on the idea that “it really is the parent’s fault though…”, but more of a nuanced response. You were raised by imperfect people, and you yourself are an imperfect person. There are bound to be misunderstandings, miscommunications, and mistakes, and those sorts of things can wound and fester for years. You’re not going to get better by sticking your head in the sand, which is what you may be wont to do if you are scared of acknowledging the limitations of where you came from.
Basically what I’m saying is this: it’s not about blaming your parents or your past for who you are. It’s about identifying your problems. Where they came from, and how they developed. That gives you a better understand of how to move forward. Whether it’s inner child work or therapy in general, it’s not a parent blaming exercise. Maybe your parents were horrible. Maybe they were cold, uncaring, unfeeling, or downright abusive. Either way, you can’t fix that or erase that now. All you can do is see it, acknowledge what it brought you to, and course correct. And that is the point, of therapy, and of inner child work.
A case for inner child work
Your childhood still lives on within you, and you are, in many ways that same child, that fell down and skinned their knee. Or that was laughed at for being the fat kid. Or whose first pet died before they knew what death actually was. These events shape us. And if you can get ahold of them, they can help you make your way closer to the person that you want and need to become.
So let yourself be vulnerable, and search your mind for the days when you first came to these conclusions. I promise you, with kindness and patience, you will see yourself through to the other side without drowning.
