Hello, and welcome back to my new blog, where I will be discussing how to heal your inner child and build emotional maturity. Before moving forward, let us understand what the inner child?
In psychology, the inner child refers to the vulnerable and hidden childlike part of a person, with playfulness and creativity, but also accompanied by anger, hurt, and fear from early childhood experiences with the caregiver. Basically, it is a part of our personality that carries the emotional experiences, needs, and patterns formed during childhood. The theoretical origin of this term comes from Carl Jung; according to Jung, the concept of the inner child is all the hidden past ages within a person’s life journey, consisting of memory and emotional layers from each stage of development that influence the formation of identity.
Many psychologists have explored the effect of childhood trauma on adulthood and how past emotions and experiences shape an individual. After much exploration, psychologists have concluded that overwhelming or suppressed emotional experiences in early childhood can shape present-day emotional functioning and relational patterns while remaining outside conscious awareness. Even Sigmund Freud has stressed the term past suppressed emotions and its effect on adult life. And finally, John Bradshaw emphasizes the importance of understanding the inner child; by acknowledging his/her inner child, an individual can awaken their true self and heal past emotional wounds.
We have learned what the inner child refers to and its importance in Psychology and trauma healing; now we will try to understand the reason behind this strong association of the inner child with an individual’s personality.
How is this thing so strong that it decides the personality of an individual? What impact does it have on our mind? Let us try to understand the possible reason for this.
From the above discussion, we have understood that childhood trauma is not something on the surface level; it is deep within us, and it is a deciding factor of our present personality and behavior. So, what happens when we are kids is that we are like a blank canvas on which only certain types of painting can be made, and this painting continues till adulthood if it is not erased by some breakthrough.
We can understand it like this the type of work a child is involved in he/she develops the same types of potential, for example those who play outdoor games develop good physic, those who play mind game like chess develop intelligence those who are given so much love develop as a loving and compassionate adult those who are in trauma develop as a scared adult who is doing things to protect himself, so basically it is not he/she is a bad person but he/she is just so vulnerable that anything can scare him and make him feel uncomfortable, hence a sudden threat come into mind and the person respond in a certain way which does not seems ethical.
So basically no person is good or bad for a fixed identity it is their past experiences who is giving them this identity and that inner child himself is not born with that identity it was his surrounding, society or maybe parenting which made him like this, the problem is no one was even aware that what will happen to this child if he is left alone in night scared and shaking with cold but eventually that small repetitive act will make the child defensive towards things, which will look inappropriate to the society.
Why this happen, why a child develop such mechanism, so basically we all human are having this survival instinct and will, this is also quite explained in the evolution the type of environment we are put in we develop mechanism to cope-up with that, hence as a child when we are given silent treatment we develop the same, when we are not trusted enough we develop the same and many more.
Now the question is how to identify our inner child and decide its trauma, because once we can identify the potential reason for our adult personality, then it will be easier to make improvements if it is needed.
Depending on your own personal triggers and past experiences our inner child can manifest in a few different ways mainly if it is wounded, there are many external signs which is seen in case of wounded inner child few of them are: negative self belief or self talk, low self esteem, fear of abandonment, difficulty setting boundaries, people pleasing, increased feeling of guilt or regret, addiction, anxiety, depression etc. Once any or a few of these syndromes seem to prevail in you or people around you, it can be interpreted that the person is having a wounded child. Once this identification is done, it is easier to heal.
Learn more about emotional health, childhood development, and evidence-based psychological practices.https://www.apa.org/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
How to heal wounded inner Child
Healing your inner child is all about learning how to move forward, rediscovering what you need, recapturing what you have lost, and re-parenting your younger self. It is the process of acknowledging, understanding, and healing the wounds of your inner child. We will discuss in detail what can be done to heal our inner child as an adult and what should be done in day-to-day life.
First of all it is very important to identify your emotional triggers, come to term with your regret or guilt and allow yourself to be a kid again, becoming a kid again will let you live your child life and will make your inner child feel secure and it will develop a sense that you and your inner child are not different, your inner child will feel secure that now he is in hand of a secure and mature person who will not let him emotion hurt this way your inner child will start healing. Other than this,
there are a few steps which can help heal your inner child.
- Acknowledge your Childhood trauma: When you acknowledge your inner child, you are allowing and validating any feeling you may have. As a child, you might have thought to suppress any feeling you get,t but as an adult, it is very important to revisit any feeling you are getting and validate it. For example, as an adult, you are not able to take constructive criticism, and you feel a sudden surge of shame at this moment. It is very important to pause and revisit your inner child, and you will learn that it is not the adult you, but your inner child, who is afraid of judgment. After identifying, just console your inner child that it is completely okay to fail and get criticism; this simple practice will build a lot of confidence in the adult you because now your inner child is secure.
- Write down your day’s experience; It is very helpful if we can keep a trace of when our inner child pops up and when we lose control, what type of emotion we show, and what made it happen. This simple exercise can help you understand your inner child and its fears in a better way.
- Day wise activities for your inner child: Is is very simple but interesting exercise and very helpful as a child we all had something we used to look for maybe our favourite food, activities or person, plan once a twice in week to do all these things and make your inner child feel safe and loved, you make make your favourite food from childhood, you may do your childhood favourite activity for example as a child I used to love swimming hence I go for swimming in nearest lake every weekend or whenever I get time, as a child my favourite food used to be gee mixed with sugar with chapati once or twice a week I eat that in dinner and it feels so good.
- Write a letter to your inner child: Try to write letter to your inner kid on certime interval it will give you love, compassion and security that was missing in your inner child and in return you can also write letters to your adult self on the behalf of your inner child, it will help you to see the wounds of your inner child where it is locating possible reason and why it is popping.
- Remind the positive side to your inner child: It is very important to explore both the positive and negative side of your inner kid, only focusing on the wound will show you the negative part of your inner kid which will hide the positive side there must be incident of your young age when you were happy and playful which helped you develop the sense of world, cultivated love, kindness and compassion within you and these are the strength which can sail you beyond any storms.
- Try some new activity: The main purpose of this exercise is to keep the child alive and full of life and curiosity. Most of the above are about exploring and understanding the inner child, but at the same time it is also important to keep the inner child full of curiosity who wants to learn new things, who wants to try new things.
- Be like a child: To understand or awaken your inner child it is very important to feel like a child because it will help you to connect with your inner child and will let you life your childhood again but in a different better way as per your wish, now this child can do whatever he likes he can eat any candy, he can go to any ark, he can play any sports.
Conclusion
After so much detail about inner child it’s impact on our adult personality, the reason for the wound and it’s responses and finally the way to heal these all are more than enough to understated and heal your inner child, it is the time to give the re-parenting to your inner child which it missed and it is completely normal to do so because everyone has the right to live the best life irrespective of the fact how his/her childhood was, and for the wound of our inner child no one is to blame.
It is just the situation that makes things go in a certain way. Let’s say you, as a parent, are not in a good mental state yourself- in depression or anxiety because you yourself have not healed your inner child, and it will continue to your child because, somehow unintentionally, you will not be able to give the parenting that is needed to make the child feel the best, and so no wound is created on it.
Hence, we must take care of our inner child and heal it as early as possible because it will not only impact our current life, but it will continue into the ages.
You can also read Forgiveness Algorithm: 6 Steps to Release Resentment & Heal. https://zenalgorithms.com/forgiveness-algorithm-release-resentment/