8 Nurturing Inner Child Exercises to Heal Your Inner Child
I wish I knew about these inner child healing exercises sooner. As a young woman, I would have given anything to know that I had a wounded inner child. I was stuck with false beliefs that I absorbed growing up: beliefs about my worthiness, belonging, and trust in others. This kept me feeling limited and stuck, suffering from a range of emotional issues.
I was disconnected from myself, love, wisdom, and my own divine guidance. I spent 6 years studying psychology and was taught that I was hardwired. But I had a glimmer of faith and hope that healing was possible.
That’s when I started on a spiritual search – a search to heal and find inner peace. It wasn’t until I discovered inner child work that I realised that I was able to heal and give little Vicky the love and validation she needed as a child.
For years, I was looking outside of myself to seek truth from other spiritual gurus. But instead of looking for a god and somewhat scary parent-in-the-sky, I realised that I could be my own inner parent who could give myself all of the love I needed.
I was highly self-aware and I had a strong connection to this idea that my inner child was the echo of the child that I once was, but I didn’t know how to start.
Time after time, people would say to me: “you need to heal your inner child” but they couldn’t show me how, so I took it upon myself to go looking for it.
And so, for the past few years, I’ve been on a quest to uncover the codes to inner child healing.
Since then I’ve found my own inner child healing exercises that have helped me to reparent myself and find peace, and it’s been nothing short of a miracle. To me, nothing has helped me heal and integrate my past more than inner child work, because its helped me to get to the core of the childhood wounds that were holding me back in life, and meet my own emotional needs that weren’t met in childhood.
I’m still a work in progress, but it’s helped me to find internal strength, inner peace, and the deepest connection to love that I’ve ever had.
What I love about it the most, is that it’s a self-healing tool that I am in full control of. I may not be able to change my past, but I have found my inner parent to give me that secure base my inner child needed.
I’ve tried a few different things and these are some inner child exercises that helped me to connect to my inner child initially.
When I was ready to go deeper, I came across Internal Family Systems therapy by accident. The presence of another human and their empathy, compassion and psychotherapeutic skills helped me to “unblend” and regulate my emotions, so that I could connect to my inner child with mindfulness. So if you do find it difficult to connect with your inner child, it may be that you have parts that need to unblend, before you go to those deeper emotions.
Approach these inner child healing exercises with care
These inner child healing exercises need to be approached with love, gentleness and compassion.
This a delicate process because it brings up past memories that we’ve repressed for a long time. This is why I recommend that as you go through these inner child healing exercises that you listen to your own needs and go at your own pace, so that you are taking care of yourself. Do the inner child healing exercises that resonate with you and if you feel emotionally overwhelmed, I recommend working with a therapist, practitioner or coach that you connect with, as it gives you a safe container to process those deeper emotions. If at any point this causes distress, stop, breathe, take a break, go for a walk and revisit them when you feel ready.
Inner child healing exercises to grow your capacity for love, inner safety and inner peace
So without further ado, here’s some inner child healing exercises you can start exploring.
1. Listening to your inner child
Oftentimes an unhealed inner child shows up through overreacting, irritation, righteousness, blame, and/or telling feelings.
Listen to your inner child to reflect on what is triggering you. Because the root of the trigger is where love and self-compassion need to be applied. For instance, you might feel rejected by someone and this might trigger rejection issues from your childhood.
The key is listening to the cries and pains of your inner child. How are they feeling? Are they stressed, anxious, angry, or lonely? Then, you want to ask them: how can I validate and reassure you?
A lot of us do not allow our inner child to just be. We might criticise, diminish, shame, or suppress certain emotions. But intense emotions are signs of unmet emotional needs from childhood.
Now, how can you practice self-acceptance? If you feel lonely, tell yourself: it’s ok to feel lonely. It’s ok to feel sad. It’s ok to feel anxious. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.
Allowing yourself to feel the feelings is a form of self-soothing and it will reduce the intensity of the emotions.
2. Journaling
Traumas, attachments and early painful experiences in our lives manifest into emotions that become stored in our bodies.
If we ignore and avoid them, the built-up emotional storage compounds over time and can manifest into illness.
If you work on your mind and you’re not integrating your body, your body is manifesting all of that suppressed pain. This is why writing your feelings out helps you to release any stuck emotions in your body.
One way you might do this is to recall a childhood incident and write about it. You can imagine yourself as a younger child. How old were you? Who were you with? Then you can start writing a letter to the person involved and begin with: this is what you did, this is how you made me feel and this is how I choose to feel about it now.
You can read about my inner child heal
3. Art therapy
One of my favourite inner child healing exercises is art therapy.
Art is a powerful tool in releasing trauma as it goes to the parts of the brain in the limbic system that words don’t. Whereas the left side of the brain is connected to language, the right side of the brain is where emotions are stored. This is why expressive art therapy is incredibly healing because it allows you to speak the language of the inner child.
Some argue that organs in the body have a consciousness of their own and that they will speak to you if you give them a chance.
One of the ways to start this process is by sitting with the body, quieting down, and paying attention to anything that is uncomfortable or in pain.
Now, on a piece of paper, you can colour in the areas of the body that feel pain and discomfort using colours associated with that sensation.
For example, if you feel pain in your lower back then you might colour it red and orange to show the inflammation. Next, you can have a written dialogue with your back by asking your back: what are you? How do you feel? Why do you feel that way? What is causing it? What can I do to help you?
It may sound strange but our body is our greatest healer because it knows what it needs. It’s a very simple exercise, but it’s often the most simple exercises that move the needle the most.
4. Teddy bear exercise
The teddy bear exercises is another one of my favourite inner child healing exercises.
The teddy bear exercise helps you to see how your inner child runs you when you’re triggered or emotionally reactive. So, if you get triggered then you might have a few days when you feel anxious or depressed.
This is because you have a part of the brain called the amygdala and if it becomes too activated, you feel like a hot mess, because adrenaline is running through your system.
But until you become aware of these triggers and create more space between stimulus and response, they will run your life.
So, how it works is you carry a small teddy that fits in your bag. You carry it around all day and notice when you’re having a reaction and your inner child is running the show.
For example, if someone makes a negative comment and you suddenly feel overwhelmingly sad or lonely, you’ll see that your wounded child is crying for comfort. And because you’re an adult, you can call in your inner mother and inner father to reassure your inner child. This will help you to cultivate resilience and you’ll no longer avoid your painful feelings, because you’ll have a self-healing process and self-support system.
This awareness will help you to have more understanding and compassion for your feelings. So instead of feeling powerless and helpless with your emotions and drowning in them, you’ll feel more in control and on top of your emotions.
This combination of awareness, writing therapy, and art therapy will help you to release these traumas from your system.
It allows you to take your power back and go back in time and be the caregiver that you needed in your life when you were little. It can be a way to step into that situation as an adult and comfort the inner child.
At first, it’s likely to feel hard, scary, and overwhelming, especially if you’re witnessing your trauma and thinking about the sad times in your childhood. But trust the process and give it time because it will deactivate triggers and give you a sense of grounding in your life.
5. Look at photographs
Another one of my favourite inner child healing exercises is looking at photographs. As you begin reparenting him or her, you can imagine retrieving them from that place when they were sad, scared and afraid, and bring them to a safe place.
It feels reassuring to know that you can take her somewhere safe, where she is seen, heard and loved. This can be as simple as putting her in a photo frame in your bedroom.
Now, as you look at that picture of her, you want to imagine bringing that young girl into your bedroom. Perhaps, you can create some space in the room for her, where you can talk to her and reassure her that you’re there.
Perhaps you have several photographs at different times in your life, and you want to bring all of those versions of you into the present moment. You can have these photographs in your room, where you can speak with them often.
6. Identify unmet emotional needs
Inner child healing exercises can help us address unmet emotional needs that weren’t met in childhood. You might look back and wish that you had more love and affection, empathy, emotional validation, guidance, protection, encouragement and appreciation.
Even if you think you had a good childhood, everyone has childhood wounds. These childhood wounds are a result of stressful life events, that can range from neglect, abuse and parental abandonment, to bullying, struggling in school, having an emotionally absent father, mental illness in the family, moving house, discrimination, racial oppression, harassment and chronic illness.
So if you think about the stressful life events you’ve experienced: what emotional needs do you think weren’t met? What do you think you needed at the time?
7. Validating your inner child
When we think about healing our inner child, one of the most important things we can do is to learn how to validate their feelings and experiences. What does this mean? Essentially, it’s about acknowledging and accepting the emotions and thoughts our inner child experienced, even if they seem irrational or difficult to understand. By doing this, we can begin to heal old wounds and create a stronger sense of self-acceptance.
For example, imagine your inner child felt hurt or rejected when a parent didn’t show up to a school play. As an adult, you might acknowledge these feelings by saying, “It makes sense that you were disappointed when your parent didn’t show up. That must have been really difficult for you.” By doing this, you’re validating the emotions your inner child experienced, even if they may not seem entirely rational to your adult self.
Another example could be feeling afraid of the dark as a child. You might tell your inner child, “I understand why you were scared of the dark. It’s okay to feel that way. Let’s find ways to make you feel safe and secure.”
8. Practice compassion
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) encourages mindfulness and acceptance of our thoughts and feelings, which can be helpful when working with our inner child. One powerful technique involves using language to mindfully separate ourselves from our inner child’s emotions.
For instance, instead of saying “I am anxious,” you could say, “I notice an aspect of me that is feeling anxious.” This subtle shift in language helps create a sense of distance between you and the emotion, making it easier to observe and accept without getting overwhelmed.
Other examples might include:
“I’m aware of a part of me that is angry.”
“I observe a younger part of myself that is feeling sad.”
“I acknowledge an aspect of my inner child that is scared.”
By using this mindful language, we can develop a more compassionate and non-judgmental relationship with our inner child. Instead of becoming consumed by their emotions, we can learn to observe and accept them, providing support and understanding as we continue on our healing journey.
Consider inner child therapy
Embarking on an inner child therapy journey can offer profound healing for unresolved emotional wounds and play a crucial role in the reparenting process. While reparenting your inner child may bring up suppressed emotions stored within your subconscious mind and nervous system, it’s essential to approach this process with support from a compassionate witness who validates your feelings and fosters a sense of internal trust, safety, and stability.
As an inner child therapist in London, I provide empathetic guidance and support on your journey towards self-compassion and healing. Together, we’ll create a safe, non-judgmental environment where you can explore and process your emotions, develop self-awareness, and cultivate a nurturing relationship with your inner child. This therapeutic process will not only help you address underlying trauma but also equip you with valuable tools and strategies to promote ongoing healing and personal growth.
If this resonates, go to my home page to view my current availability for booking a session. I offer virtual therapy for those in the UK, US & Europe.
You can read my other articles on inner child work here