The Importance of Inner Child Work
Working with our inner child is probably some of the most important healing work we can do. Childhood trauma looks different for everyone and it occurs at different stages of development. The younger it occurs, the more powerless you are and often the less tools you have to deal with it and if no one helps you process your feelings, and the damage is just swept under the rug, it remains entrenched in our bodies and psyches until we deal with it.
I experienced abandonment at a very young age which deeply affected me and still affects me to this day (although its less and less the more healing work I do). My ego likes to think that I am completely past that, but it's trying to protect my inner child who still to this day can feel vulnerable and alone. This isn’t how I live day-to-day, but it’s still somewhere within me that surfaces every once and a while and I have to give her grace.
The truth is our childhood wounds, if never fully processed, will always remain somewhere inside of us. The process of healing is like peeling back an onion—there are always more layers to peel on the way to the core. Some people choose to never pull back the first layer, afraid of the pain they may find, and continue on in their blustery ego, while others courageously pull back one layer at time when life triggers them into it. Thank you, life 😄 The ironic thing is just when you think you are so much more healed and doing great, up pops your inner child to say, hello, 👋 👋🏾 I’m still here, and I’m not fully healed.
Recently I pulled out pictures of myself at the age before my childhood trauma occurred. I was fun, exuberant, the life of the party. After trauma, I was shyer, more reserved, and frankly scared (but trying not showing it). Over time, as life stabilized, I became more my more confident, positive, but it wasn’t my whole self.
Lately I’ve been seeking out ways to let my inner child play, to let loose, to recapture my soul essence, which feels so good; however, as I do this type of healing work, the wounded child is also surfacing too. It makes complete sense why she would, and thank God! The more I recapture the happy child, the sorrowful one raises her hand for attention too because that girl/boy is one in the same.
The best remedy, among many, is simply to process the emotions and cry. Recently, my wounded inner child came to the surface, and I literally felt like I stepped back into time and space, but what I was really doing was remembering a highly emotional state of being that was literally trapped in my (body) consciousness; if it weren't, it could be released like the thousands of experiences I've easily let go. However, because that state of being was highly charged AND highly ignored, it's more powerful, more underground, and harder to release.
When this occurs, and I'm literally back in 1982, it illustrates to me that there is no such thing as time, and all our states and experience co-exist simultaneously. When we look at it that way, we can honor that upsetting, traumatic experience, but also free ourselves from it, recognizing that that’s all that it was—just an experience. It’s not our identity (unless we let it be). If we refuse to acknowledge it, however, then it will become our subconscious identity, and what goes unacknowledged is what stays around. Our egos want to protect us from pain, but we must bypass it and drop into our inner child once in a while to do this important work. We owe it ourselves and all those we love and will encounter in the future.
So, what are you doing to work on your inner child, to let it play but also heal? Play is often the best antidote for pain, and it’s the most important healing work we can ever do. Who in your life allows you to be silly and playful? Hang out with them more, and find ways to do this on your own as well.
Soul-Prompt: Am I acknowledging my inner child that was wounded during childhood? Can I drop into the experience of pain and hurt and release those old emotions? Can I make time for more play and joy in my present moment to bring about more of this healing work?
