Inner Child Healing

I encourage anyone and everyone who has issues, trauma or anger over things that happened in their childhood to do inner child work.

“Inner child work is a therapeutic process that involves acknowledging and healing unresolved childhood emotions, memories, and beliefs that shape adult behaviors, relationships, and self-esteem. The goal is to safely “reparent” yourself, replacing defensive coping mechanisms with self-compassion and emotional maturity.” Healing the Inner Child: How Adults Can Support Their Younger Selves – NACoA

I have been doing a lot of work on my inner child with my therapist and on my own using the Tapping Solution and Insight Timer apps. I was unsure about this type of work at first, seemed a little hokey and you can’t change the past. I also grew up hearing that people should just “get over it”, quit looking for excuses for your behavior and just move on. For some of us that is easier said than done because “the wound” has been inside us and festering for too long. Everyone knows that physical wounds have to be treated to heal or they will get infected and get worse. Emotional wounds are the same.

When I allowed myself to connect to my scared 10 month old self, I was amazed at the difference it made in me. I envisioned holding her and telling her she was safe, she was loved, she had done nothing wrong and that I would take care of her. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks and I felt a release of fear and confusion that I have felt my whole life. Something inside of me uncoiled, the tension, anxiety and pain that I had held in my body for 69 yrs was released and has not returned. I am a little calmer on the inside which allows me to move forward without the emotions I never understood causing “knee-jerk” reactions that I also never understood.

I of course had no memories of the actual events but my 10 month old mind and body absorbed all of the emotions flowing around me. Not knowing when it started made it very difficult but through therapy, talking with my siblings, reading books about the event allowed me to figure out what happened. My parents never talked about the tornado or the aftermath in any detail and my older siblings were out of town so I didn’t know what had happened and never will be 100% sure and that is okay.

I knew my parents and when I read about what other people (I knew some of the names) saw, felt and did I was able to draw a picture in my mind about how they reacted. Having that picture allowed me to connect with the child within me that had experienced it and heal.

So now I can “get over it”, “let it go” and move forward.

Talk to the Children

I also want to encourage all adults who have children in their lives to talk to them when scary things happen. You can fix, clean up or adjust whatever you need to do to move forward but, include talking about it with impacted children because they might think a “monster” did it.

LINKS

Here are links to a song on some different apps, that I love about healing the inner child:

• Inner Child – song and Lyrics by Here II Here on Spotify
• Inner Child – You Tube
• Inner Child by Here II Here on Amazon Music

Here are links to the Tapping Solution and Insight Timer programs I used:

The Tapping Solution.com-Inner Child Healing – you can try one of the four days free.

Insight Timer App on Google Play – I cannot share a link to the meditations and music on the app but here is a picture of what they have to offer: