
Our inner child is a part of ourselves that’s been present ever since we were conceived, through utero and all the developing years after where we were young and developing into tender selves: baby, infant, toddler, young child and middle school year.
The inner child can often recall good experiences as well as childhood fears, traumas, abandonment, neglect, or significant loss. It can be hard to pinpoint the exact event that is tugging at us, but we can start to notice our patterns and internal landscape that have left us a subconscious “bread crumb trails” when we start to explore our inner world.
Each one of us has an “inner child” part of self.
You have an inner child. I have an inner child. We all do. Your “inner child” is a part of your subconscious that has been picking up messages way before it was able to fully process what was going on (mentally and emotionally). It holds emotions, memories and beliefs from the past as well as hopes and dreams for the future.
How can we identify our Inner Child parts?
- Our inner child is the one that remembers that sweet smell of grandma and her loving presence.
- Our inner child remembers feeling invited to a friend’s birthday party and feeling so happy to be with friends.
- Our inner child is also the one who felt the salty tears run down our cheeks when mama left the house in a rush to go say goodbye to her dad when he was dying.
- Our inner child remembers being ignored and bullied on the bus on the first day of school.
- Our inner child remembers feeling dumb when the teacher scoffed or when we didn’t have the answer to a “seemingly easy” question.
- Our inner child is present when we are teenagers, wanting so badly to belong.
- Our inner child is inside of us when we go on a quest to find love, or to find social groups to belong to.
- It’s the part that feels understood, calm, warm and fuzzy when we have good times with others.
- It’s also the part that feels crushed and betrayed when we are hurt, ignored or lied to.
Our inner child is always communicating with us… we just need to learn to listen.
Now, our inner child can be calm and content (for the most part), or it can act out and make things a bit rumbly inside, standing in the way of maintaining a balanced and healthy relationship, organization skills and self regulation. Our inner child can either make it or break it when it comes to being a productive member of society…or steps to finding happiness.
If you’re feeling frustrated or stuck in some aspect of your life, it could be that your inner child is needing some attention. Stuck points can look like difficulty liking or loving yourself, difficulty in relationships work, parenting, finding or keeping love, deepening relationships or setting boundaries.
When the inner child runs the show
You may notice that you’re experiencing fear, perfectionism, anxiety or are avoiding certain people, places or experiences. These are all ways that your inner child is attempting to feel safe. When the inner child is running the show, it’ll choose behaviors, choices and and thoughts based on unconscious beliefs or memories from the past, and based on what the inner self would need to feel safe. Often, the inner child does not have access to the adult “self” reality and may not know about how life is different now, or how things have changed. Childhood emotional wounds can make you feel like you’re walking around with a ton of bricks on your back.
If your inner child is walking around with 50 lbs of pain, you may feel like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. If your inner child lived with instability, uncertainty or danger, it may hold you back from making changes. You may notice a fearful part, afraid of you trying new things, however, if you are wanting to move on with life you’ll probably feel torn.
Why we get stuck
When one part seeks safety and consistency and another part seeks possibility, connection and adventure. You can find a middle ground and become “unstuck” so that you can move past blockages. To cultivate the balance of creativity, flexibility, responsibility, connectivity and consistency, it is important for your adult self and child self to meet and get to know each other.
The bottom line
When needs for love, recognition, praise and other types of emotional support go unmet in childhood, the wound that results cans last well into your adult life.
It is never to late to heal. By learning to nurture this part of self you can validate needs, learn to express emotions in healthy ways and increase self compassion and self love.