Healing the Inner Child: Reclaiming Your Whole Self
There’s a younger version of you still living inside—one who remembers how it felt to be overlooked, silenced, misunderstood, or shamed. This part of you didn’t just disappear. They’re still there, still carrying the emotions they weren’t allowed to express then. And they’re waiting for you to come back and get them.
Inner child work is the process of reconnecting with this younger version of yourself, the part of you who was wounded and left without the tools or permission to process the pain. It’s not about wallowing in the past. It’s about returning to the root so healing can finally happen.
But why would we do this? Why return to those painful moments? Unacknowledged wounds don’t go away. They get buried. They fester. They inform our self-worth, boundaries, relationships, and ability to feel joy.
Why We Reconnect with the Inner Child
Psychologist Carl Jung referred to the “divine child” as a core archetype in the human psyche—symbolizing our original self before expectations and conditioning shaped it. That child is still within you. When you ignore them, you ignore part of yourself. When you listen, you begin to integrate.
In Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, Dr. John Bradshaw writes that the inner child carries our unmet needs and suppressed emotions. Until we acknowledge these needs and validate these feelings, we remain stuck in cycles of self-sabotage, fear, or perfectionism (Bradshaw, 1990).
This isn’t about blame—it’s about truth.
Someone hurt you.
Someone ignored your needs.
Someone taught you to hide the very parts of yourself that made you… you.
The Steps to Healing
Name the Error
What did you internalize that wasn’t true? That you were too sensitive? Too needy? Not enough? Too much?
Naming the lie is powerful. It tells your nervous system: “That was never about me.”
It was about someone else’s limitations.
Name the Feeling
There’s almost always a feeling underneath. Anger. Grief. Shame. Abandonment.
When we name the feeling, we invite it to speak instead of scream. Neuroscientist Dan Siegel puts it simply: “Name it to tame it” (Siegel, 2010). Emotions are biological events that want recognition—not rejection.
Acknowledge
Let yourself say: “That happened. It hurt. And it mattered.”
Even if no one else sees it. Even if it feels small.
The act of acknowledgment is the first step to integration.
Accept
This doesn’t mean you approve of what happened—it means you stop denying it.
Acceptance isn’t weakness. It’s the moment you stop running.
The moment you say, “Yes. That’s part of my story. And it shaped me.”
Embrace
Can you hold all of it? The joy, the mess, the brilliance, the fear?
When you embrace your inner child, you stop rejecting yourself.
You stop repeating old stories that were written by other people’s pain.
You Were Always Meant to Be You
You are not broken. You are someone who survived. Someone who adapted to an environment that didn’t make space for your full self. The parts of you that were pushed down or told they were “too much” are not your weaknesses—they are your deepest strengths.
And yes, people tried to take something from you. But every time you show up in truth, every time you allow yourself to feel and not collapse, to speak and not apologize—you reclaim what was yours all along.
In the words of Bessel van der Kolk, “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health” (The Body Keeps the Score, 2014). That safety begins with you. With your own inner child. With the willingness to return and say: I’m here now. I see you. I’ve got you.
You are not too late. You are not too broken. You are becoming whole. One brave breath at a time.
Sources:
Bradshaw, J. (1990). Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child.
Siegel, D. J. (2010). The Whole-Brain Child.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.
Jung, C. G. (1959). The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.