How to heal and reparent your inner child

8 Tips for Healing Your Inner Child

Everyone has an inner child.

You might see this inner child as a direct representation of yourself in your early years, a patchwork collection of the developmental stages you’ve passed through, or a symbol of youthful dreams and playfulness.

An awareness of your inner child can help you think back to lighter, carefree years, explains Dr. Diana Raab, author and research psychologist. “Being in touch with the joys of childhood can be an excellent way of dealing with challenging times.”

Not everyone associates childhood with playfulness and fun, though. If you experienced neglect, trauma, or other emotional pain, your inner child might seem small, vulnerable, and in need of protection. You may have buried this pain deep to hide it and protect yourself — both your present self and the child you once were.

Hiding pain doesn’t heal it. Instead, it often surfaces in your adult life, showing up as distress in personal relationships or difficulty meeting your own needs. Working to heal your inner child can help you address some of these issues.

Healing your inner child can take time, but these eight tips are a good starting point.

To begin healing, you first have to acknowledge your inner child’s presence.

As Kim Egel, a therapist in Cardiff, California, points out, anyone can get in touch with their inner child — if they’re open to exploring this relationship. If you feel doubtful or resistant to the idea of exploring the past, you’ll have a harder time beginning the healing process.

If it feels a little strange or awkward to imagine opening up to your child self, trying thinking of inner child work as a process of self-discovery.

Briefly set aside the existence of your inner child and just think of a few key childhood experiences. While some were probably positive, others may have hurt or upset you. Perhaps you still carry the emotional pain from those events today.

The process of acknowledging your inner child mostly just involves recognizing and accepting things that caused you pain in childhood. Bringing these hurts out into the light of day can help you begin to understand their impact.

That said, many people do find it helpful, even soothing, to address their inner child as they would a living person, so don’t feel afraid to give it a try.

After opening the door to a connection with your inner child, it’s important to listen to the feelings that enter.

“These feelings often come up in situations that trigger strong emotions, discomfort, or old wounds,” Egel explains.

You might notice:

anger over unmet needs
abandonment or rejection
insecurity
vulnerability
guilt or shame
anxiety

If you can trace these feelings back to specific childhood events, you may realize similar situations in your adult life trigger the same responses.

Here’s an example:

Your partner suddenly becomes busy with work and doesn’t have time for the big night out you’d planned. While you know they’d prefer to spend time with you, you still feel rejected and frustrated. Your disappointment manifests in a childlike way, with you stomping off to your room and slamming the door.

Considering what happened through the eyes of your inner child can offer some valuable insight in this scenario.

You realize your partner’s sudden need to work made you feel just as you did when your parents canceled plans, playdates, even your birthday party, because of their busy schedules.

In this way, listening to the feelings of your inner child and letting yourself experience them instead of pushing them away can help you identify and validate distress you’ve experienced — an essential first step toward working through it.

To open a dialogue and start the healing process, Raab recommends writing a letter to your inner child.

You might write about childhood memories from your adult perspective, offering insight or explanations for distressing circumstances you didn’t understand back then.

Maybe you didn’t know why your brother always shouted at you and smashed your toys, but you learned to fear him all the same. If you’ve since realized he experienced years of bullying and abuse, his rage may begin to make sense. Sharing this revelation with your inner child can help soothe some of that lingering pain.

A letter can also give you the chance to offer messages of reassurance and comfort.

A few questions can also help keep the dialogue going:

“How do you feel?”
“How can I support you?”
“What do you need from me?”

Sitting with these questions can often lead to answers, though it may take some time before your inner child feels safe and secure.

Those questions you asked your inner child? Meditation can be a great method of opening yourself up for answers.

Meditation has plenty of benefits for physical and mental health, but a few of these relate directly to inner child work.

For one, meditation boosts mindful self-awareness, teaching you to pay more attention to feelings that come up in daily life. Greater mindfulness around your emotions makes it easier to notice when specific situations trigger unhelpful reactions.

Meditation also helps you get more comfortable with unwanted emotions.

Children often have a hard time naming uncomfortable emotions, especially when they aren’t encouraged to express themselves. They may repress or bury these feelings to avoid punishment or earn praise from caregivers for being “good” or maintaining control.

Emotions, positive or negative, are meant to be experienced and expressed. Repressed emotions usually just show up somewhere down the line, often in unhelpful, even harmful ways.

Meditation helps you practice acknowledging and sitting with any feelings that come up in your life. When you get used to accepting emotions as they come, you’ll find it easier to express them in healthy ways. This helps validate your inner child’s feelings by sending the message that it’s OK to have emotions and let them out.

You can also try loving-kindness meditation to send feelings of love to your child self. Egel also recommends visualization meditation as a useful tool for picturing your inner child, or even “visiting” them as your adult self.

Many people find journaling a great way to sort through challenging or confusing experiences and emotional turmoil. If you keep a journal, you might already get a lot of benefit from this coping strategy.

Just as journaling can help you recognize patterns in your adult life that you want to change, journaling from the perspective of your inner child can help you recognize unhelpful patterns that began in childhood.

For this journaling exercise, set your present self aside for the moment and channel your child self. Try photos or a brief visualization exercise to help recall how you felt at the specific age you’re intending to explore.

Once you’re in the right mindset, write down a few memories and any emotions you associate with those events. Try not to think too carefully about what you’re writing. Just let the thoughts flow onto the paper as they come up. Expressing them in an unchecked way can help you get to the heart of your inner child’s pain.

Adulthood certainly comes with plenty of responsibilities, but relaxation and playfulness are both essential components of good mental health.

If your childhood lacked positive experiences, getting back in touch with your playful side and making time for fun can help heal the pain of missing out on what you needed as a child.

It’s also important to enjoy small pleasures, like ice cream after a walk, games with your partner or children, and laughter with friends.

Whatever you do, making regular time for fun and lightheartedness in your life can help rekindle the positive emotions of youth.

Healing doesn’t always have a definite end. It’s often more of an open-ended journey.

You’ve started the process by reaching out to your inner child. Now you can cultivate this newfound awareness and continue listening for your child self’s guidance as you move forward.

Your child self may have more to reveal about challenges from the past. But you can also learn to become more spontaneous and playful and consider what life has to offer with a greater sense of wonder.

Staying in tune with your inner child can lead to a more complete sense of self and boost confidence and motivation. Reinforce the connection you’ve opened by affirming your intent to continue listening, offering love and compassion, and working to heal any wounds that remain open.

Past trauma can cause a lot of distress. Therapists attempt to create a safe space for you to begin navigating this emotional turmoil and learn helpful strategies for healing your inner child.

Therapists typically recognize how childhood experiences and other past events can affect your life, relationships, and overall well-being. But not all types of therapy prioritize exploration of past events or related concepts, such as the inner child.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, is considered a highly effective treatment approach, but it generally focuses on your experiences in the present.

If you’re interested in doing some exploration of your past and getting to know your inner child, look for a therapist who has experience in this area. Typically, psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy can be a good fit.

Inner child therapy, also called inner child work, specifically focuses on this process, but other types of therapists can also offer support. It always helps to let potential therapists know the specific concerns you’d like to explore.

When needs for love, recognition, praise, and other types of emotional support go unmet in childhood, the trauma that results can last well into your adult life.

But it’s never too late to heal. By learning to nurture your inner child, you can validate these needs, learn to express emotions in healthy ways, and increase self-compassion and self-love.

Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.

How to Heal By Reparenting Yourself

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The idea of becoming your own parent may sound a bit out there at first. But what if inner child work is essential for emotional healing?

You may think of yourself as a grown-up just because you reached a certain age. The truth is, many adults carry wounded children within themselves. Often, we don’t see it. We cover up childhood trauma by staying busy and dead-serious about everything we do.

Meanwhile, your inner child holds the key to endless joy, freedom and creativity. To access these, reparenting yourself may be necessary. Your inner child needs you to acknowledge and process its painful experiences.

Only then will it feel safe enough to come out and play the game of life freely.

The degree of childhood trauma differs from person to person. For some, it may come from severe childhood abuse. Others experience subtler forms of abandonment, parental neglect, or simply struggle to fit in their peer group.

Whatever the source of your trauma, working with your inner child can help you heal it. This work isn’t so much a journey “back in time” as it is a journey within. As Michael Brown, the author of The Presence Process, writes:

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“Our past no longer exists as something “behind us” that we can “go back to.” The past is past. However, these unintegrated emotional charges continue to exist as energetic conditions imprinted within our emotional body. In essence, we aren’t “going back” but “going in.” The answers are all within us now.”

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Your inner child is with you all the time, waiting to give you those answers. Will you listen to its voice and allow yourself to be guided by it?

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What Is Inner Child Work?

The concept of the “inner child” originates in Jungian therapy. Carl Jung proposed that the “Child archetype” is the first milestone in the process of individuation — or, forming the Self.

Today, inner child work is a well-known idea in many schools of therapy, such as Transactional Analysis or Gestalt.

Working with your inner child draws on one simple observation: all adults were children at one time. Those children within us don’t simply disappear as we grow older.

Your child self stays with you as a part of your unconscious. It represents your childhood qualities and ways of being. You can think of it as your “subpersonality” — one of the multiple dimensions of being human.

The inner child often gets activated when you’re faced with challenges that remind you of a traumatic childhood memory. Until you consciously process and integrate those memories, your child self is calling the shots.

The definition of the inner child from Harley Therapy’s blog reads:

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“The inner child reflects the child we once were in both his or her ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ aspects. Both our unmet needs and suppressed childhood emotions, as well as our childlike innocence, creativity, and joy, are still waiting within of us.”

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This tells us that inner child work (aka reparenting yourself) has two aspects to it.

One is about reclaiming all the positive qualities of the child within. It’s becoming playful and joyful for no reason at all. It’s making silly jokes and having fun with your own kids, carefree and present in the moment.

This side of inner child work is about expressing yourself freely. However, most people need to deal with the suppressed memories of their inner child, too.

This is the second and often more challenging side of reparenting yourself. It’s a bit similar to what some people call “shadow work.” In short, it’s about consciously processing painful feelings and experiences that you suppressed a long time ago.

This may feel overwhelming — especially for those who didn’t have their basic needs met as children.

In his theory of psychological development, Richard Barrett explains that as we enter the human experience, we all need two things before everything else. These are physical safety and a sense of acceptance and belonging. If parents or caregivers fail to provide that, these unmet needs may chase you along your life path.

As an adult, you can meet those needs by reparenting yourself. This is about stepping into the role of exactly the kind of parent your inner child needs.

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“[I]nner child work is any form of self-discovery that helps you access the child you once were, along with the experiences and emotions that child was taught to repress. The general idea of inner child work is that that if you make an effort to contact, listen to and communicate with, and nurture your inner child, you can find and heal the roots of your issues as an adult.” — Harley Therapy Blog

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You may think: “But this isn’t me! I had a happy childhood. My parents didn’t abuse me. They loved me. We always had food on the table and a safe place to live.”

The tricky part is, your parents didn’t have to do anything spectacularly wrong to leave an imprint on your child self. Childhood trauma sometimes has roots in the most innocent-looking family dynamics.

To the adults, it’s just another day of trying to balance family, work and social life. To the child, it may be the day they get deeply wounded. They may then carry those wounds into adulthood — and unknowingly pass them on to their children.

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What Is Childhood Trauma And How It Happens

The word “trauma” brings horrible things to mind. But you don’t need to go through severe childhood abuse to become traumatized.

The psyche of a child is so fragile it can be affected by what seems like a minor event. In the child’s view of the world, everything looks different. Because children are fully dependent on their caregivers to meet their needs, they may interpret minor negligence as an enormous threat.

What’s more, children can’t recognize their limited perspective. They believe everything they see. Their interpretation of life instantly becomes their reality.

Let me give you an example. Recently, I spoke to my Mom about our family relations. We talked about childhood trauma and inner child work, too. As she shared her childhood memories, she asked me if I wanted to know something about my early years.

I asked about a possibly traumatic event that I’m unlikely to remember.

Without hesitation, she said there was something that stuck with her until today. When I was around 10 months old, my dad drove my mom and me to grandma for a couple of weeks. Then, he went back to work.

This was the first time in my life I haven’t seen him for so long.

When he finally came back, I was lying on the bed as my mom was dressing me. In that moment, I turned my head to look at him. My mom swears I recognized him — and became upset that he left us for so long.

I started crying. I cried and cried, and then cried some more. I didn’t want him to hold me for hours.

I don’t know if that particular event traumatized me. What I do know is that, as an adult, I struggle with abandonment issues. Particularly when I enter a romantic relationship, I immediately fear that I’ll be rejected.

When going through these kinds of painful experiences as children, we’re often taught to hide our pain. A lot of parents discourage their kids from crying or expressing anger. We’re only told we’re being “good” when we’re cheerful, smiling and polite.

This is how childhood trauma becomes unconscious. If you hide it long enough from others, you eventually also start hiding it from yourself. This way, you can cheat yourself that you’ve “overcome it.”

In reality, the wounded child inside you keeps running your life. It pushes you into behaviors that sabotage your happiness, without you being aware of it. Usually, this continues until you address the problem through inner child work.

All this talk about childhood trauma isn’t to blame your parents — or anyone else who may have caused you pain. Most probably, these people were doing their best with what they had and knew.

But, due to their circumstances, they may have failed to give you the attention you needed.

It’s in the nature of human experience to suffer. However, we all get a chance to grow through — and out of — that suffering. Reparenting yourself is a powerful way to do that.

And, you can start even today.

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How To Reparent Your Inner Child And Heal Trauma

To reparent yourself is to give your inner child what it needs on the emotional level. As Stephen Diamond explains in his book Psychotherapy for the Soul:

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“[T]he adult part of the personality learns (…) to relate to the inner child exactly as a good parent relates to a flesh-and-blood child, providing discipline, limits, boundaries and structure. These are — all along with support, nurturance, and acceptance — indispensable elements of loving and living with any child, whether metaphorical or actual. ”

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Some of us still try to find someone “out there” to comfort their inner child. It’s easy to believe that once you find a perfect partner, a soul mate or a spiritual community, everything will finally be alright.

But this is usually a band-aid solution. Other people only comfort your inner child as long as they act according to your expectations. The moment they do something that’s not on your agenda, old wounds are brought to the surface. You go back to suffering.

That’s why inner child work is so powerful. It allows you to become your own parent by consciously working with the trauma you experienced as a child. You learn to give yourself as much loving attention as you require to heal.

And, you don’t need to depend on anyone for that.

Although reparenting techniques come in all shapes and sizes, there are three general steps to work with your inner child: connect, communicate and nurture.

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First, you need to acknowledge the child within. As long as it goes unnoticed, you can’t begin the healing process.
Then, you start communicating with it. Finding a way to hear what your inner child has to tell you is key to access the source of your trauma.
Finally, you step into the role of a nurturing parent. From your adult self, you give your child self exactly what it needs.

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Inner child work is often done with a therapist. However, if your trauma isn’t too heavy, or you’ve already done a fair share of inner work, I’m confident that you can do a lot of this work on your own.

Below, I give some practical tips on just that. Although I haven’t completed my healing process just yet, I’ve learned a fair amount on my journey.

These suggestions are based on my personal practice and the inner child work I did with my therapist. I hope they can be helpful to you.

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Step 1: Connect

When you decide to reparent yourself, you may not know where to begin. If connecting to your inner child sounds vague, I have good news.

The first step can be very practical.

The main point is to increase your awareness of who you were as a child. To do that, unearth as many details as you can about what you did, where you spent your time, what you enjoyed and what you were like.

To collect more insights, speak to people who knew you back then — for example, family members and childhood friends. You can also look at old photographs of yourself. Pay attention to details. Notice what you’re wearing, how you’re standing, who you’re interacting with, and so on.

The more you immerse yourself in childhood memories, the more you’ll tap into the feelings from that period. Having a good idea of how you looked can also help you in the next step of the process — communicating with your inner child.

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Step 2: Communicate

Although your inner child communicates with you on a daily basis, those messages may be hard to notice. When we’re sucked into our busy lives, we overlook even the most obvious clues.

That’s why to communicate with your inner child, it’s best to assign time for just that. This can be done through self-discovery practices, such as meditation or journaling.

I did it with my therapist through a visualization exercise. She guided me through it — but it’s simple enough to do on your own.

Sit in a quiet, comfortable room and close your eyes. In your mind’s eye, picture yourself as a 5–7-year-old — or whatever age you suspect your trauma happened at. Then, allow the child in front of you to express their pain. Let them cry, yell, or do whatever else they may want to do.

It may help to also visualize a specific setup or people that you feel are connected to your trauma — for example, your parents. The more details you bring into this exercise, the easier it will be to empathize with your inner child.

Once you see your child self vividly, you may ask some questions:

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How is the child in front of you feeling?
What do they need?
What are they judging/blaming/shaming themselves for?
What can you forgive them for right now?
What could you say to support that child?

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You don’t have to ask all those questions at once. Even if you only ask one, your child self will already feel a difference. It will feel that someone cares.

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Step 3: Nurture

The last step is to give your inner child what it needs most. Often, this is about meeting the two basic emotional needs we all seek to fulfil in the first years of our lives: safety and unconditional love.

You may do that by continuing the visualization exercise from the previous step. In your mind, hold the child in your arms, stroke their hair or do another loving gesture for them. By visualizing this, you position yourself as your own parent.

You spark feelings of love and safety that your inner child so desperately needs.

Another way to nurture your child is by reinforcing positive self-talk and beliefs. I like to do that in front of a mirror. This way, I get a visual cue that helps me externalize my inner child — and take care of it as a loving parent.

Sit in front of the mirror and look yourself in the eye. Remember, these are the same eyes that belonged to the child you once were. You can treat them as a portal to access your inner child.

What is it that they need to hear?

Tell that to your child, either out loud or in your mind. Whichever it is, make sure you use the soothing words and tone of voice that a loving parent would. Remember: your inner child is listening. What you say has the power to free it from its trauma.

Soon, it’ll come out to play, innocent and joyful.

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Closing Thoughts

All of us were children once.

Those children are still with us today. Many of them are hiding. They’re waiting for someone to come and acknowledge their pain.

Once that happens, they’ll be ready to enjoy every moment, carefree and light. They want to express themselves. For that, they need to feel safe and loved.

When they can’t, it’s usually because of unresolved childhood trauma. These are the painful experiences from the past that you learned to suppress. You may not notice them in everyday life. But this doesn’t mean they’re not there.

Your inner child may sabotage your adult experience by trying to get you to heal its unresolved issues. You can do that through reparenting yourself. This means providing a loving presence and self-compassion that you wished you had received as a child.

This usually happens in three stages:

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connecting with your inner child,
listening to what it has to say,
nurturing the child and meeting its emotional needs.
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You may do that on your own or seek professional help from a therapist. Whichever you choose, make sure you don’t just ignore your inner child.

It has many lessons to teach you.

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Healing the inner child: how to prevent childhood traumas from ruining your adult life

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What is the inner child

This concept refers to any emotional and psychological baggage that a person carries from the first years of life.

The first person to talk about the inner child was a psychiatrist. ^{What is the “Inner Child”? Carl Jung. According to his theory, the inner child archetype helps a person to reconnect with the past, because he remembers his childhood emotions and experiences. So it is easier for him to grow up and understand what he wants from the future.}

The concept became popular after the release of ^{3 Therapies to Heal Your Wounded Inner Child by John Bradshaw's bestselling book Coming Home: Reviving and Protecting the Inner Child at 1990 year. Modern psychological studies ^{Health throughout the lifespan: The phenomenon of the inner child reflected in events during childhood experienced by older persons confirm that early experiences are well remembered. They affect people in different ways. For example, for some, eternally critical parents have become an occasion to cultivate fortitude, for others, this is a trauma for life.}}

Why look for the inner child

Diane Raab

Doctor of Psychology, in a commentary to Healthline

We all have an inner child ^{Finding and Getting to Know Your Inner Child. Communicating with him can make your life more prosperous and bring ease into it.}

When the inner child is "healthy", it usually does not cause trouble in adulthood. But if he is “wounded” by ^{3 Therapies to Heal Your Wounded Inner Child, a person may repeat the wrong behaviors instilled in childhood. For example, a little girl who has seen her mother endure abuse from her father may contact the abuser herself in adulthood.}

Communication with the inner child allows you to find the roots of current problems in childhood and get rid of them. For some, in the process, ^{What is the “Inner Child”?:}

release repressed emotions;
recognize unmet needs;
change wrong patterns of behavior;
loosen up;
increase self-esteem.

How to find the inner child

Anyone can contact and benefit from it. But sometimes disbelief and resistance become an obstacle.

If there is still skepticism, that's fine. Just try to look at the inner child not as a separate person, but as your past experience. This will help you approach your search with curiosity.

There are several ways ^{Finding and Getting to Know Your Inner Child to find your inner child.}

Spend time with children

Playing with them will help you remember pleasant events from the past, learn to enjoy the little things, live in the moment, relax and feel happier. To get started, try, for example, hide and seek.

Children's fantasies sometimes emerge through imaginative play. Maybe before you imagined some scenarios, thanks to which you easily experienced difficult moments.

If you don't have your child yet, you can stay with the children of your friends or relatives.

Reminisce about your childhood

Try leafing through photo albums, reread books and watch movies you once liked. If you have kept a diary, take a look at it. Ask relatives to share their memories of you. All this helps to return to the childish emotional state and connect with the inner child.

Another way to delve into the past is through a visualization exercise. If you find it difficult to remember what you looked like as a child, first look at old photographs. Then close your eyes and imagine yourself as a child. The image must be detailed. Think about what you are wearing, where you are, whether there is someone nearby. How are you feeling? A child can be lost, lonely, insecure, contented, strong.

During the exercise, sometimes it turns out that the inner child feels good, gives you strength, optimism. If he is suffering, you need to help him.

Do something you used to enjoy

Think about what you liked to do as a child. Maybe every summer they cycled to the creek, swam, fished, read in a dusty attic, or roller-skated. Perhaps now you have little entertainment that simply brings happiness.

Drawing and coloring can also help. During these activities, the active mind rests, so emotions that you do not pay attention to will appear on paper. Some of them may be related to the inner child.

Write a letter to your inner child

This is a powerful tool for connecting with your inner child. Writing will help deal with childhood experiences and emotions. There are no restrictions on the form of the exercise. You can talk about something specific or express any thoughts that come to mind.

Diana Raab

If you have wounds or injuries, write about them. This will help you connect with your inner child. During reunion with him, you can find the causes of adult phobias, fears and life stereotypes. Perhaps you understand why you have become the way you are.

Another way to get the inner child to talk is to ask him questions from the adult self, then let him answer and analyze the result. It's normal to be nervous about what a child might say. Especially if in childhood you experienced difficult emotions or you had a negative experience.

If you don't like the format of the letter, try talking out loud to your inner child.

Consult a psychotherapist

If you suspect that the connection with the inner child will bring up bad memories or feelings of fear, it is better to go to a psychotherapist. A therapist will support you and suggest strategies to help you cope with your emotions and trauma.

It is better if you find a therapist who has experience working with the inner child. The expert must know how to contact him and understand if he is suffering. If it turns out that the client had childhood traumas that are causing problems now, the specialist will offer psychotherapy.

How psychotherapists heal the inner child

Childhood trauma has long-term consequences. Therefore, if during communication with the inner child you realized that he was hurt or offended, he needs to be healed. This can be done with a psychotherapist. Specialists have several techniques ^{3 Therapies to Heal Your Wounded Inner Child for help.}

Empty Chair Technique

The therapist asks the client to sit in front of an empty chair and imagine that someone is sitting on it. For example, a parent or other relative. This person needs to be told about his feelings and thoughts, to explain what was missing from him in childhood. Also, a specialist may offer to change places with an imaginary character. For example, imagine yourself as your grandmother and listen to your inner child.

In therapy, you can get to know feelings from the past better and understand how they affect adult life. Some patients get to know the sides of the character that they tried to deny.

Schema Therapy

People who grew up in a hostile environment often exhibit maladaptive (incorrect) behavior patterns. Because of them, difficulties in relationships or with self-control can arise.

Schema therapy helps to get rid of problems that appeared in childhood. The key to success is that the therapist uses the re-education technique to meet the emotional needs of the person. For example, praise him. As a result, the patient changes his mind about himself and learns new patterns of behavior.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

This type of therapy helps with panic attacks, stress, painful memories and intrusive thoughts due to childhood trauma.

During the session, the person focuses on bad thoughts, emotions or sensations. The therapist begins to move his hand left and right, and the patient follows the movement. Depending on which way the eyes look, the left or right hemisphere is activated. At this point, the brain begins to process negative information.

How to help your inner child on your own

Visualization is a way of healing ^{Healing Your Inner Child that you can try yourself. The method is based on the fact that when we think about an action, the same parts of the brain begin to work as during execution.}

Use your imagination and imagine yourself as a child at any stage of development where you have experienced stress or abuse. It could be your five year old self or your teenager. If necessary, consider that the child is adopted.

Visualize another inner self that will help heal the child. For example, a parent, advocate, compassionate, or therapist. Who exactly it will be is up to you.

The method is that you must re-educate yourself. Everything must be done to make the child feel safe and develop resilience. Let the second inner “I” take care of him, approve, satisfy his needs.

How to Heal Your Inner Child | Publishing House AST

In esotericism, the inner child is called the unconscious part of the personality. It stores childhood memories, including anxiety, fear and pain. If a person does not overcome these traumas, they will constantly torment him in similar situations in adulthood.

To heal your inner child, show yourself love and compassion. This is what a psychologist, esotericist and blogger with a million audience Dasha Gorod advises. Meditation will help you with this. To do this exercise correctly, imagine yourself as a child. The girl explains why and how to do it.

How the inner child reflects your relationship with your parents

The love of parents determines how happy and harmonious personality the child will grow up. If in childhood they were callous or even cruel to him, his adult life will be full of complexes, resentment and fears. He will react painfully to those actions and emotions for which he was scolded or forbidden to him in childhood.

You cannot change the past. And blaming parents for not getting enough love, support and care is pointless. But you can help yourself. Give your inner child what he didn't get as a child.

What is meditation

Translated from Latin, meditation means “thinking”. This is a spiritual practice that allows you to find harmony with the inner world. It includes breathing exercises and concentration to help you relax.

To meditate, you do not need to immerse yourself in Hinduism and Buddhism. Long before meditation became part of Indian yoga, it was mentioned in antiquity and other cultures. You can master it on your own if you practice regularly.

How to heal the inner child with meditation

Sit in a comfortable position, relax and take 2-3 deep breaths in and out.
Imagine that you are walking down a long corridor with a light in front of it. On your right side there are doors with signs. On one of them you see a number that corresponds to your age. You go further, and the numbers start to decrease: 25. ..21...18...16...12, etc.
Stop at the door marked 5 and enter it. Carefully inspect the room: furniture, walls, floor. Open the window: look at the view, smell the street, listen to the sounds.
Close the window and turn around. You will see a child in front of you - this is you.
Take the baby in your arms and hug him. Tell him you love him. Ask for forgiveness for restricting him in actions, thoughts, fantasies, games. For shutting him alone for a long time in this room. For not always hearing and feeling him. Ask for forgiveness for not always remembering him.
Tell your child that you like the way he plays and behaves, even if he does something wrong.
"I love you very much. I accept you the way you are. With all the mistakes, fears, inability, uncertainty and timidity. I accept you with your shyness. I take back the desire to remake you. I take back my frustrations, discontents, fears and stubbornness.”
Feel the light within you. It flares up in you and is transmitted to the baby. Tell your inner child whatever you want to say. Ask him what can make him happy, so that he is loved and confident. Listen to his answer.
Say goodbye to your child. Finally, repeat that you love him, forgive him and accept him as he is.
Leave the room, do not rush. Head back down the dark corridor. The numbers on the door plates are in ascending order: 7 ... 9 ... 12 ... 18 ... Keep going until you reach the plate with your age.

Meditation, like any exercise, requires regular repetition. Only then will you achieve a visible result. Start with small workouts of 5-10 minutes. Over time, you will be able to drive away extraneous thoughts and focus on the main thing.

More examples of meditations in the book "Being a Real Woman: Magical Psychology" by Dasha Gorod. In it, a popular blogger tells how to truly love yourself, reveal your femininity, find the right man and follow the wisdom of your ancestors in the modern world.

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