Healing Your Inner Child: Reconnecting, Reparenting, and Finding Peace
Facilitating inner child healing is a huge part of my work as a somatic sex and relationship coach. I realize this may surprise you. You may be thinking of inner child work as some kind of psychobabble that you’ve heard about on social media rather than something that actually has the capacity to change your love life.
The reality is that the inner child is not an abstract psychological concept. It’s an actual living part of you that is still very much present in your adult life. The inner child carries very tender emotions related to unmet needs in childhood, as well as survival strategies they adopted at an early age to be able to handle those emotions. And you probably don’t realize it, but you’re still using those same survival strategies today.
For most of us, the wounded inner child is responsible for a lot of our adult behaviors. They like to pick our romantic partners based on who feels familiar and reminds us of mom or dad. They hope that if they can fill the void of unmet childhood needs from someone who reminds them of a parent, they’ll finally heal those challenging feelings around the unmet need. Of course, this never works, and it leads to a lot of heartbreak and frustration in dating.
Our younger self also loves to show up when we get emotionally triggered. Ever find yourself having a disproportionate emotional reaction to a situation? That’s because the situation kicked up your inner child wounds, so you regressed in age in your response.
Your inner child is also present in your sex life. In fact, childhood is where our core desires are formed. Our brains eroticize unpleasant feelings due to unmet needs or childhood trauma, and it forms our core sexual desires. If you’re curious to learn more about this process, check out my blog on core desires.
So, what do we do about it? Well, your core desires are pretty much set. But you can definitely work with the inner child in terms of how they show up in other areas of your life. If you’re ready to break the cycle of your inner child making adult decisions, definitely keep reading. It is entirely possible to connect with your inner child, nurture them, and reparent them so that your adult self can take the lead with compassion, safety, and confidence.
Step 1: Understanding Your Inner Child
The inner child is an emotional and instinctive part of our psyche—the one who learned what love, safety, and worthiness meant early on. All of us have childhood wounds of some kind, whether it’s lack of safety, lack of freedom, unworthiness, lack of fulfillment of emotional and/or physical needs, neglect, abandonment, intense childhood trauma, and more. In response, your child self adopted survival strategies as a way of fabricating a feeling of safety when things felt scary. They adapted to their environment in order to survive. Survival strategies can be anything from over-achieving to get attention, people-pleasing to earn love, or shutting down emotionally to avoid getting hurt (to name a few).
Although it may be tempting, inner child work is not about blaming your parents or yourself. It’s about understanding why you chose the strategies you chose, having self-compassion for the little one who did what they had to do, and healing the emotional wounds of the inner child so you can begin to choose differently. Having this awareness of your younger self is the foundation for building emotional intelligence and embarking on your healing journey.
Step 2: Reconnecting with Your Younger Self
In order to begin healing your inner child, you need to establish a connection to them first. Maybe you haven’t thought about your younger self in quite some time, let alone paid any attention to them. If that’s the case, your child self may be feeling abandoned by you, so be patient with them. It may take several visits and attempts at connection before they feel safe enough to trust you, or even look at you.
Start with some gentle reconnection exercises, such as:
Do a visualization or guided meditation where you attempt to make contact with your inner child and speak to them.
Write letters to your younger self, or write letters as your younger self. (Writing with your non-dominant hand is great for embodying your child self).
Get a photo of your child self and connect emotionally with them daily.
As you connect with your inner child, notice how old they are. They usually appear at an age that was particularly challenging for them. What did they need at this age that they weren’t getting? You can ask them, or if they aren’t speaking to you yet, try to put yourself back in that time and see what needs and wants arise. Focus on creating a safe internal space where the inner child can express themselves freely when they’re ready.
Step 3: Reparenting: Meeting the Needs That Weren’t Met
Reparenting is the powerful healing process of your adult self providing the safety, nurturing, and validation that your younger self didn’t consistently receive from your real-life parents. It’s a combination of grieving the parents you didn’t have and the needs they didn’t meet, consciously visiting your inner child regularly and helping meet their needs now, and practicing self-compassion and nervous system regulation throughout your day.
Try comforting and nurturing yourself during times of distress instead of criticizing yourself for having emotions. Try setting healthy boundaries the next time you feel your inner child wanting to bend over backwards to please someone. Try indulging in childlike play, creativity, and rest to balance the stress of adult responsibility. And notice how these radical acts of self-care strengthen your relationship to your inner child.
Remember that inner child work is not about erasing the past. It’s about healing your younger self by giving them a new experience of safety and love. Once your inner child feels safe and cared for by you, they will no longer feel the need to pick your romantic partners or run your sex life.
Step 4: Recognizing When Your Inner Child Is Running the Show
There’s a saying in the therapy world that goes, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical”. It means that in those moments when you or a loved one is having a disproportionate reaction to a situation, it’s not really about the present situation. Rather, it’s triggering emotional wounds from the past and making you react as a child would. You’re no longer your adult self when you’re triggered. Instead, your lizard brain takes over and sends you into a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response, before your logical adult brain even knows what happened. And if both you and your partner are triggered at the same time, forget it. All of the adults have left the building at that point, and you’re left with two wounded inner children trying to duke it out.
This is just one of the many ways that your inner child tries to take over your adult responsibilities. As I mentioned above, they love to do adult things like choose your romantic partners in hopes of finally getting their childhood needs met from them. They tend to seek validation from said partners romantically and/or sexually, and they can either throw a fit or shut down when they don’t get what they want. They also really love to accompany you on dates in hopes of getting chosen or feeling special or seen (especially if they never felt those things from mom and dad).
There are countless ways that the wounded inner child tries to take control of your adult life to help them feel safe. Noticing when the inner child is activated and responding with judgment-free compassion, nurturing, and self-acceptance is an essential step in the healing process.
Step 5: Practicing Self-Compassion and Emotional Regulation
Inner child healing requires a great deal of self-compassion. Focus on creating a nurturing relationship with the inner child and caring for them in the same way you might care for a real-life child. We can be so hard on ourselves as adults. Many of us have a harsh inner critic that dominates the airwaves in our adult brains. But when you envision your sweet younger self and think about saying the same things you say to your adult self, I bet it gives you pause.
Start by noticing your inner critic. The inner critic is really just an exiled part of us that is trying to protect us and keep us safe, much like the inner child did when we were younger. So we can have compassion for the inner critic and not shame it, while giving it another job description. Then, practice changing the language of your inner monologue as if you were speaking directly to your child self (because really, you are). If having a picture of your younger self helps, that’s fantastic. Whatever it takes to be able to envision that little one and speak to them with love and self-compassion.
Another very important part of any inner child healing journey is keeping your nervous system regulated. As I mentioned above, when you’re triggered, the inner child feels the need to spring into action and either fight, flee, freeze, or fawn to keep you safe. When you’re able to regulate your own nervous system, the inner child feels safe to just be a kid. They’ll trust that you’ve got you and them, and they’ll be able to relax. A very simple way to start the process of regulation is to use box breathing. Inhale through your nose for a count of five, hold the breath for a count of five, and exhale out of your mouth for a count of seven. And most importantly, remind your adult self and your child self that you’re safe.
Step 6: Integrating Mindfulness and Somatic Awareness
In order to keep yourself in a regulated state, it’s important to employ mindfulness to recognize when you’re dysregulated. In today’s busy, high-stress world, many of us have gotten so used to living in fight or fight mode that we don’t even recognize that it’s dysregulation. Your body holds the answers, but you still have to listen to it.
I encourage you to start a regular practice of checking in with your body and your emotional state throughout the day. If it helps in the beginning, feel free to set reminders on your phone. When the reminder pops up, don’t just swipe it away and keep working. Really pause and breathe for a minute. Notice how you feel in your body. Are there any sensations that are getting your attention? Maybe there’s tension in your throat, chest, or belly? Drop everything and breathe into the tension. Then ask yourself, “What do I need right now?”. And give yourself that thing.
It may also help to have a grounding object or piece of jewelry with you during the day to bring yourself and your inner child back to the present moment. Maybe it’s a bracelet, stress ball, or keychain that you can hold, breathe, and remind yourself and your inner child that you’re safe.
Creating and maintaining a regular practice of mindfulness, meditation, and breathwork can also help you become more somatically aware naturally and put you on a path to greater emotional intelligence and overall mental health.
Step 7: Setting Boundaries That Protect, Not Punish
Setting healthy boundaries can be such a difficult topic for so many people, especially those who decided at an early age to please people in order to get love. Part of the inner child healing process is to break the patterns that we formed as children as an attempt to keep ourselves safe. As your inner child begins to feel safe in your adult self’s care, they will start to realize that safety can come from within, and that they don’t need to desperately seek it from others. This will make you feel more empowered to set healthy boundaries, which will in turn lead to healthier relationships.
Remember that boundaries aren’t about rejection. They’re an important form of self-care that help your inner child feel safe. Both external and internal boundaries are an essential part of the inner child healing process. External boundaries are the ones you set with others, while internal boundaries are the ones you set with yourself.
External boundaries may sound like, “I’m not available to help you with that”, “I don’t have the capacity for that right now”, or “The next time you do this behavior that you know triggers me, I’m going to leave the room for an hour to regulate my nervous system”. (Note that none of these contain an apology).
Internal boundaries may sound like, “It’s okay to rest”, “It’s safe to say no”, or “I’m not going to let myself get lost in a spiral of negative beliefs right now”.
Your wounded inner child wasn’t capable of speaking up for themselves when they were young. Through setting healthy boundaries in adulthood, you can help the inner child to finally feel like they have a voice.
Step 8: Creating a Supportive Environment for Healing
The process of healing the inner child is not easy, and it can sometimes bring up painful childhood memories. It’s so important for the wounded inner child to feel that they’re in a safe space during the healing process (which is ongoing, by the way). An essential part of your healing journey is to surround yourself with people who model emotional maturity and compassion, whether that be with your romantic partner(s), friends, or with a mental health professional like a coach or a therapist. If you’re working through childhood trauma, struggling with attachment wounds, or if this all just sounds a little overwhelming, it can be really helpful to get professional support. I’d be absolutely honored to help you and your inner child through the healing journey.
Step 9: Allowing Joy, Play, and Creativity
Inner child healing isn’t just about processing pain. It’s also about reclaiming joy! I invite you to use play as a way to connect with your inner child, whether it’s through dancing, making art, laughing, spending time in nature, or just allowing your imagination to run wild. Play is how children (and adults) integrate safety and cultivate aliveness. Your inner child deserves to act like a child: curious, messy and free.
Step 10: Letting Your Adult Self Lead
When you allow your adult self to take the lead, you allow the inner child to feel safe enough to get back to being a child. Through the process of reparenting, your adult self can become the consistent, loving, wise parent your inner child didn’t have. When the inner child reassumes their role as the child, and they feel that they can trust you to be the adult, they will stop feeling like they have to accompany you when you do adult things. You will be able to tell your inner child that they get to play and have fun while you go on a date or a job interview. This is how you lead from your adult resourced self rather than from the wounded inner child.
Remember that inner child healing is not a one-and-done exercise. You will need to maintain your nurturing relationship with your inner child by checking in with them regularly and keeping your promises. Reparenting requires patience and repetition (just like regular parenting!). You will still get triggered sometimes. You will still react disproportionately sometimes. Your inner critic will still flare up sometimes. The difference will be that now you have the tools to regulate and remind yourself and your inner child that you’re safe. Staying committed to the inner child healing process even when it’s difficult will lead to deeper self-acceptance, healthier relationships, and emotional freedom.
Final Reflection: Healing Is Returning Home To Yourself
Remember that inner child work is not about “fixing” your inner child wounds. It’s more about reparenting the inner child so that they feel safe, seen, and loved. I encourage you to lead with gentle self-compassion and curiosity rather than perfectionism. Remember to visualize that sweet little one and give them the same level of understanding as you would a real-life child. Start by saying to your inner child something like, “You are safe, loved, and free to play. I promise to care for you with compassion and love. I’ve got you. You’re safe”. With these simple words, you are well on your way to creating a nurturing relationship with your inner child and thus creating healthier relationships with others.
