7 Ways to Start Healing Your Inner Child
Healing your inner child is a transformative journey that allows you to feel more grounded, connected, and emotionally resilient. Many of us carry experiences from childhood that shape our adult relationships, emotional responses, and self-esteem. By taking intentional steps to nurture and heal your inner child, you can release old patterns, build self-compassion, and create a more self-directed and fulfilling life.
Here are seven ways to start healing your inner child, along with practical guidance on how this can positively impact your adult relationships.
1. Acknowledge Your Inner Child
The first step in healing your inner child is acknowledgment. Often, we push aside childhood feelings because they feel painful or overwhelming. Healing your inner child begins with simply noticing and validating those feelings. Ask yourself: What did I need as a child that I didn’t receive? or Which moments from childhood still affect me today? When we acknowledge our inner child, we validate their experience and start emotional repair. Clients often notice that simply acknowledging their inner child brings relief, as they begin to feel seen and understood by themselves. This sets the foundation for self-led, calm adult relationships.
2. Practice Self-Compassion
Healing your inner child requires cultivating self-compassion. Children who experienced neglect, criticism, or trauma often internalize messages of unworthiness. Practicing self-compassion creates a safe space for your inner child to feel cared for and valued. Simple practices like speaking kindly to yourself, journaling supportive messages, or placing a hand on your heart when anxious can be powerful. Healing your inner child through compassion reminds you that your feelings are valid and that you deserve care, even as an adult. Clients who integrate self-compassion report feeling less reactive in challenging situations and more able to manage emotional triggers.
3. Revisit Childhood Memories Safely
Another important way to start healing your inner child is to revisit childhood memories in a safe and controlled way. This isn’t about reliving trauma unnecessarily, but gently reflecting on experiences that shaped you. You might draw, journal, or write letters to your younger self. Some find it helpful to imagine giving their inner child the love, reassurance, or protection they needed at the time. This allows old, unprocessed emotions to surface in a manageable way. Clients often notice that as they revisit and process these memories, they experience less emotional reactivity and feel more grounded in adult interactions.
4. Do a Body Scan Before Working with Protective Parts
Before engaging with protective parts, it’s helpful to do a body scan. Healing your inner child involves connecting with your physical sensations, as our body often holds unresolved trauma. Take a few minutes to notice areas of tension, tightness, or discomfort. Breathe into these areas and allow yourself to feel what is present. This prepares you to approach protective parts with awareness rather than being overwhelmed by their intensity. Clients who practice a body scan first report that they feel safer, more present, and better able to communicate with their inner parts. This foundation of bodily awareness supports deeper healing and emotional regulation.
5. Work with Protective Parts Using IFS Therapy
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a powerful approach for healing your inner child. IFS recognizes that we all have protective parts that developed in response to childhood pain. These parts often act as critics, perfectionists, or caretakers to shield us from further harm. Healing your inner child through IFS involves befriending protective parts, understanding their fears, and reassuring them that you are safe now.
An essential aspect of IFS therapy is working with a professional who has unburdened their own parts and is centered in Self energy. When a therapist is calm, compassionate, and self-led, their presence spreads safety and openness. This allows you to access your own Self energy more easily and support your parts with confidence. Over time, you learn to bring this centered, compassionate approach into your own practice, healing your inner child and other parts independently. Clients often notice reduced anxiety, fewer emotional triggers, and a greater sense of integration between their inner child and adult self when working with an IFS therapist.
6. Work with a Therapist
Healing your inner child can be greatly enhanced with the support of a skilled therapist. Working with a therapist provides guidance, structure, and a safe environment for exploring past trauma. A therapist helps you befriend and heal your parts, build inner safety, and develop emotional stability over time. Clients report that therapy provides a reliable container for processing difficult emotions, practicing self-leadership, and cultivating relational skills that translate into adult life. Healing your inner child in this guided space allows for deeper, safer, and more lasting transformation.
7. Set Boundaries and Meet Needs
Healing your inner child also involves learning to set healthy boundaries. Often, our inner child learned that their needs were unimportant or unsafe to express. By identifying and advocating for your needs now, you show your inner child that it’s safe to have desires and limits. This could mean saying no to requests that drain you, prioritizing rest, or communicating your needs clearly in relationships. Clients frequently experience less anxiety and conflict once they practice boundaries consistently—they become more self-led, calm, and able to navigate relationships without feeling constantly triggered.
8. Engage in Play and Joyful Activities
Children naturally play, explore, and express themselves freely. Healing your inner child involves reintroducing play and joy into your life. Activities like dancing, drawing, singing, or spending time in nature reconnect you with that sense of freedom and creativity. When we nurture our inner child in this way, we restore balance to our adult self and reduce the intensity of stress responses. Clients who incorporate playful activities often feel lighter, happier, and more emotionally resilient. Healing your inner child through play strengthens your ability to enjoy life fully while remaining self-led in your choices.
9. Practice Self-Leadership in Daily Life
Ultimately, healing your inner child is about empowering your adult self to lead with awareness, calm, and care. Self-leadership means making choices that honor your needs, regulating your emotions, and creating healthy connections with others. By consistently responding to your inner child with love, compassion, and guidance, you reinforce the sense that you are safe and capable. Clients who embrace self-leadership experience greater stability in relationships, more calm in stressful situations, and a profound sense of self-worth.
Healing your inner child is a journey, not a single event. It involves acknowledging your younger self, practicing self-compassion, revisiting memories safely, doing body scans, working with protective parts through IFS, seeking guidance from a therapist, setting boundaries, embracing play, and cultivating self-leadership.
By committing to these practices, you create a foundation for calm, empowered, and fulfilling adult relationships. You begin to live from a place of awareness and self-trust, free from old patterns that may have held you back. Healing your inner child is ultimately about giving yourself the care, attention, and love every child deserves—and in doing so, creating a life that is grounded, resilient, and emotionally rich. If this resonates with you and you’d like to begin inner child therapy with IFS therapy, you can get in touch.