“In the adult there is hidden a child, an eternal child, something that is still in formation and will never be finished, something that will need permanent care, attention, and education. This is the part of the human personality that should develop until it reaches wholeness” (Jung, 1934/1986)
The inner child is a part of our mind that has experienced life and adapted to certain behaviors and patterns to survive. It represents an unconscious part of our mind, where we carry our unmet needs, repressed childhood emotions, our creativity, intuition, and capacity to play. The inner child is the part of us that manifests itself and whose experiences have not yet “gone away.” Often, we still see the world through the eyes of our inner child.
The relationship we had with our parents during our childhood shapes every relationship we have in adulthood. As children, we need to learn to express ourselves, to say how we feel. We need an adult figure to guide us through the “big emotions” experienced during this phase. We want and need to be seen and heard by our parents. But most of us are born to parents who carry their own unresolved traumas, inherited from their own parents. Therefore, it is also difficult for them to know how to regulate their own emotions, and thus, they cannot handle ours well.
So, we seek to deal with this reality by adapting. For most of us, this means pleasing our parents in order to become what they expect us to be. The general tendency in this quest to please our parents is to behave in the way they value and see as “good,” and to reject the parts of ourselves that are seen by them as shameful or “bad.”
The Wounded Inner Child
All unresolved emotions, unmet needs, and painful situations in which we felt scared or violated do not simply disappear. They exist within us, creating a lens through which we see the world. A wounded inner child causes us:
- Low self-esteem
- Distorted body image
- Fear of criticism
- Resistance to change
- Deep fear of abandonment in relationships
These experiences in our childhood can cause our childhood fantasies to become recurring and surface in different situations in our adult life. The fantasies of the inner child function as teachers, allowing us to see where we need healing. We need to honor the part of ourselves that did not get what it needed at a very important stage of our development.
The “Truths” We Were Told
In general, children take everything they are told as truth, especially if these words are spoken by parents, teachers, grandparents, or other people the child understands as important or as a reference in their lives. However, not everything we hear at this stage of our lives was positive, and this, unfortunately, can leave us confused, scared, and even disconnected from our childlike nature. Some common examples of statements understood by the child as “truth” are:
- “You are too…” (annoying, weak, serious, loud, stupid, etc.)
- “You are not good enough at…” (math, sports, making friends, etc.)
- “You have no manners”
- “You should be like…” (your brother, your classmate, your cousin)
- “This way, you will never have…” (friends, a job, a love)
- “It’s your fault if I…” (yelled, hit you, got angry)
Signs Your Inner Child May Be Wounded
- Fear of receiving criticism
- Fear or shame of expressing yourself in some situations
- Tendency to wait for others to speak first to know what is “right” to do or say, or how to position yourself
- Putting yourself in situations where you try to help or “save” someone
- Difficulty saying “no”
- Feeling responsible for other people’s emotions
These are just a few examples of how the wounded inner child expresses itself.
What happens most of the time is that we do not give due attention to these signs. Our tendency is to dismiss or invalidate these emotions, as our father or mother did in the past. In this way, we keep the cycle going, and our inner child remains unheard, manifesting itself in moments of our adult life when we are confronted with experiences that remind us of a previously lived situation.
How to Embrace and Deal with Our Inner Child?
At this exact moment, our inner child is experiencing uncertainty, fear, and confusion. When I began to embrace my inner child, I realized how many times I denied my own reality. How much doubt and fear I carried. Starting to validate (listen to and see) the inner child as a loving and wise parent may seem strange or silly at first. Do not be alarmed; it is perfectly normal. The ego will resist this work because it is always seeking to protect the inner child. The ego will say things like “this is nonsense” or “what a waste of time.” Just observe, as this is part of the process.
Working with the inner child generates empathy for ourselves, for our parents, and even for others because, often, from the healing of our child, we can feel the inner child of others manifesting in front of some situation.
Accessing Our Inner Child
There are many techniques that help us access our inner child, and many emotions will arise as this “contact” happens. Here are some exercises you can use to start a process of rescuing your inner child. Then repeat the following phrases to your inner child:
- “I am safe being myself.”
- “You are safe now.”
- “It’s okay to feel afraid; I am here, I understand your fears, and I protect you.”
- “You don’t need to be what you’re not to please others, and I don’t need to be that way either.”
- “Our parents are wounded human beings too, who may have unconsciously projected their traumas onto us. It’s important to forgive them.”
- “I love you, I love myself. We are safe now.”
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