12 Inner Child Healing Exercises For Your Personal Journey Home to Wholeness
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 low-level depression, anxiety, emptiness, and loneliness.
I was disconnected from myself, love, wisdom, and my own divine guidance. I spent 6 years studying psychology and was taught that childhood traumas were a life-sentence. But I had a glimmer of faith and hope that I would manifest miracles and that healing from my past was possible.
That’s when I started on a spiritual search – a search to connect with source, love, higher guidance, and wisdom. I had read a lot about spirituality to know that this was a path I needed to learn more about.
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 that she needed.
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 modern-day mystic who could hear the voice of truth, wisdom, and love in myself.
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.
Time after time, people would say to me: you need to connect to your inner child. I met a therapist who said that I needed to self-soothe my inner child, but she couldn’t tell me how.
I was frustrated that she couldn’t give me the steps, so I took it upon myself to go looking for them.
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 connect with my inner mother and inner father and cultivate psychological resilience.
And it’s been nothing short of a miracle. To me, nothing has crystallised my emotional pain more than inner child work, because it gets to the core of the emotional wounds that are holding me back in life.
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 my own healing toolkit to create my own sense of psychological safety.
This is something that nobody can take away from me.
I’ve tried a few different things but here are the exercises that have worked for me the best.
But before I dive in, a word of caution: this process takes time.
After so many years of repressing your inner child it may take a while for you to connect with it, so pause and be patient.
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.
3. Art therapy
Another way to connect with the inner child is through 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 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 is a way to 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. Invite play into your everyday life
If you faced lots of stressful experiences as a child, it’s likely that you missed out on being playful and spontaneous.
It’s likely that your quirky, spontaneous and goofy side has been repressed after being judged or labelled as “too much” by others. But the problem with this is that we’re rejecting our inner child when we don’t let our inner child express themselves.
Making time for fun and getting back in touch with your playful side is incredibly healing as it allows you to meet those needs for joy, fun and play that weren’t met in childhood.
Inviting play into your everyday life can be as simple as enjoying the small pleasures like playing games with friends, stopping in the middle of the street to stroke a cat, playing games, going to a ceilidh and playing songs from your childhood.
8. Do activities you loved as a child
Doing activities you enjoyed as a child helps you to take back your inner child. This might be dancing, singing, acting, joining an improv class, drawing, painting or baking.
9. Mirror gazing exercise
Mirror gazing is a powerful way to connect with your inner child. It allows you to dialogue with your inner child in a powerful way and give your inner child the words of affirmation they wish they heard as a child.
You want to do it when you’re calm and you’re not overwhelmed. To do this, place your hand on your heart and gaze softly at yourself.
See if you can sense the presence of your inner child emerge in your eyes and just observe your inner child from self (self is your seat of consciousness and inner guidance system that can help you to connect to your inner child without feeling overwhelmed.
Practice giving your inner child pure loving presence and embodied listening. This is what your inner child yearns for – to be seen and heard.
Let your inner child know that you’re there and that you’re here to listen. You can say “hey, sweetheart”, “I’m here”.
As you lovingly show up for your inner child, she or he might feel emotional, shocked or in disbelief that you’re showing up for them. Observe their feelings and reaction to your presence.
Now you can say something reassuring or loving to comfort your inner child. You can say “I see you”, “I’m so proud of you”, “I think you’re so brave”, “I’m here now’, “I’m not going to leave you”.
10. Write a letter to your inner child
Something that will help your inner child feel loved is self-compassion.
You can start to cultivate self-compassion by dialoging from your self to your inner child.
You can start writing this letter by asking your inner child, how are you feeling today? Would you like me to listen or give advice? What do you need?
11. Self-soothing
If you feel overwhelmed, stressed or anxious, you can self-soothe your inner child and use breathing and meditation to calm you down.
To practice this, place your hand on your heart and take 3 deep breaths. Say to your inner child “it’s ok sweetheart”, “I’m here”. You might also want to validate their feelings by saying “I hear you”, “it’s ok to be upset”, “it’s ok to have feelings”, “it’s ok not to be ok”, “i’m here to listen”.
12. Talk to a therapist
Connecting to your inner child alone can be emotionally overwhelming as it brings back past memories that can cause distress.
Our inner child holds emotional turmoil that we’ve repressed for a long time, and it can be overwhelming to process these feelings alone.
Therapists are trained to create a safe, calm and gentle space for you to process your feelings and acknowledge how your inner child has been hurt and impacted by stressful life events.
If you’re interested in doing some exploration of your past, look for a therapist whose work is grounded in inner child healing. Internal family systems therapy is oriented to reparenting the inner child.
Beginning inner child work
If you’re striving to heal your inner child and find inner peace, I do inner child therapy empaths and highly sensitives who are struggling with anxiety, depression, loneliness, unhealthy relationships etc, so they can open their capacity for more love, self-worth, self-compassion, self-confidence and inner peace.
My primary approach is Internal Family Systems Therapy, which is grounded in the theory that we don’t just have one inner child, but various versions of our inner child at different life stages.
We also have coping mechanisms that we’ve learned to cope, numb and manage the feelings of our inner child. These might be being anxious, being avoidant, numbing our feelings and overeating.
By allowing ourselves to go inside, we get to explore our feelings and the parts of us that may have been rejected and judged by others.
Together, we’ll heal the childhood wounds that are keeping you stuck, help you reparent your inner child, and help you increase your capacity for more safety, love and inner peace.
If you resonate and would like to explore inner child healing in a safe and gentle way, you can book a discovery session with me below.