How to Heal your Inner Child: 7 Step Guide Rachel Devine

The inner child, carrying emotional scars and false beliefs from childhood, drives many of our adult behaviors unconsciously. By learning to identify, listen to, and re-parent your inner child, you can heal past wounds for greater well-being. Make no mistake about it; I truly believe we all have inner child wounds that erupt during stressful, angry times in our lives. No one is immune from the terror of the inner child. The astonishing fact is that most of us are totally oblivious to the pandora’s box of horrors that resides within each and every one of us. Of course, there are different degrees of inner child fury; some are more intense than others. Let’s explore this inner child healing in more detail.

Dynamics of the Inner Child

The dynamics of our inner world are pretty intense. However, as I open up the nucleus of the inner child, you will see how easy it really is to comprehend.

What transpired in our childhood determines how we develop as adults. Some of the things that transpired in childhood will plague you as an adult with things like alcoholism, drug or food addictions, anger issues, intimacy issues, fear of abandonment, commitment issues, sexual disorders, continuous relationship failures, narcissism, fears, etc. These issues get embedded in the inner child’s psyche and carry into adulthood. This all stems from the roots that took place with the inner child and what went on in your early childhood.

So, what does it mean when I refer to the “inner child"?

The inner child is our feelings, energies, needs, vulnerabilities, experiences, and neurological imprint on our subconscious. Simply put, the inner child is part of your personality that still feels and acts like a child.

Impact of the Inner Child

“I believe that this neglected, wounded inner child of the past is the major source of human misery." John Bradshaw

John Bradshaw was a brilliant author of the inner child and extremely popular back in the 90s with his incredible book, Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child.

John knew the dynamics of the inner child because he lived it in his own childhood. The impact of the inner child is a lifetime battle, and it takes some work to get past the dysfunction. The impact can be devastating in love relationships, careers, family interactions, etc. The impact of the inner child can also become intense with adult addictions. Most of us have a void within that was not filled in childhood with love, nurturing, and security. Some of us try to fill that void with food, alcohol, drugs, etc. Some also try to numb the pain of past trauma with an addiction. This is something to be aware of in order to heal.The inner child can also cause havoc in relationships and family life. Sometimes stress can trigger events from the past of anger and fear, and a normal argument can turn into a bloody war because the inner child's pain from the past is erupting in the present.

Connecting to the Inner Child

According to psychology expert John Bradshaw, “The inner child must be welcomed, embraced, for better or for worse.” Begin communicating through journaling, recording dialogues, or meditations. Let your inner child express its pains and needs to you. The first step to healing is awareness. Become aware of this inner child that is longing for reparenting.

Bradshaw advised: “Do your best to provide the child within you what your parents couldn’t provide.” Offer soothing words, forgiveness, encouragement, and unconditional support to your inner child when it shares its hurt. Visualize cradling and nurturing your inner child.

You can also meditate on being with your inner child. John Bradshaw boldly asks us to go back to our childhood home. You can do that in a meditation and embrace your inner child with love and comfort.

Inner child therapy

Therapy is the key to healing the inner child. Brainspotting is a technique that helps clear the subcortical brain, where the trauma or past experiences live, so healing can begin. There are lawyers of embedded past experiences in the subcortical brain that is part of the subconscious mind. Therapy is a way to clear this one layer at a time. Therapy can also give you a place to talk about your inner child and be in the presence of a professional therapist who can guide you in the right direction of healing.

Subconscious mind

The subconscious mind holds all our past experiences, traumas, and feelings. We are not conscious of what is going on there, but this is where the inner child's feelings live. This is the trigger point during stressful times that unleashes the inner child fury. There are other ways to clear some negative experiences from the past and also fill the void within. The more you can clear your subconscious of past hurts, negativity, anger, and fears, the more your life will move in a positive direction. Feeding your subconscious positive affirmations also helps.

Clearing the subconscious

One way to help clear some negativity from the subconscious is through positive affirmations. Saying them often will offset the negativity from the past. Just say some positive affirmations over and over again in your day. A few examples are that I am loved, I am successful, I am beautiful, or I am happy. Visualization is another way to impact the subconscious, and the most powerful time is at bedtime because you are going from a subconscious to an unconscious state, which is powerful for penetrating the subconscious. Visualize one image of what you want to heal in your subconscious. Let’s say you are addicted to food or alcohol. You would put one image in your head of being free from alcohol, or if you want to lose weight, an image of you being slim and healthy. Fall asleep with the feeling of well-being and feeling healthy, happy, and loved. This visualization will leave positive imprints on your subconscious mind. Do this for at least 30 days and see if you feel better and stronger. You can do this with anger issues or fear. Just use the opposite positive emotion, see the image in your head, and fall asleep with positive thoughts. For instance if you want to get rid of anger, see yourself in an image of being calm, kind, loving, and peaceful. If you want to get rid of fears, see yourself feeling loved, courageous, in the loving arms of your higher power, whom I call God. Being in the presence of God will help you feel less fear, because love and fear cannot reside together and God is love.

Cultivate Self-Love

Lack of parental love creates inner emptiness. Now consciously shower yourself with self-love and positive affirmations. Build the unconditional self-love your inner child craves. Cultivating inner love for yourself is a very positive way to heal the inner child. Too often, we resonate with negative thoughts about ourselves that actually come from our childhood. Change those self-defeating thoughts to ones of love. Self-care is also crucial, so do good things for yourself daily, or at least a couple of times a week. I suggest you get a picture of yourself as a child and put that picture where you can see it and tell yourself every day, “I love you.”

John Bradshaw described inner child work as: “Learning to love yourself is the greatest gift you can give yourself.” Extending compassion and care inward dissolves old wounds, so your healthiest self can shine through.

In closing, remember that you have the power to change your inner world into one of joy. You have the power to regenerate yourself with nurturing, love, and compassion. If you start to do inner child work, you will see that your relationship with family and friends will improve. However, the most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself, and when that improves, your whole world becomes a better place to be.

Rachel Devine is the author of, The Third Road & Lessons from the Needle in a Haystack and has a new book coming out soon, Discover the Power of the Secret Within, that explores the inner child and subconscious mind for healing.

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Inner Child: A Pandora’s Box of Addictions! Rachel Devine

The inner child might sound like a far-fetched notion of a Freudian error from the past. It might conjure up pictures of your childhood—the good, the bad, and the ugly. However, the inner child is alive and well and dwells within each one of us. The inner child is in charge of steering our lives in one direction or another, depending on the emotions and experiences it was fed throughout your childhood. This revelation is enough to get anyone’s attention, as it is vital information on why your life is where it is today. The really crucial part of inner child dilemma is with addiction. If you tried to lose weight, stop smoking, drinking, or working long hours, and you can’t do it, it’s time to look at the inner child. Reparenting your inner child is key. Inner child healing is possible in order to curb addictions. Let’s explore this a little deeper.

Inner child definition

The inner child is our feelings, energies, needs, vulnerabilities, experiences, and neurological imprint. Simply put, the inner child is part of your personality that still feels and acts like a child.

The inner child that develops in each of our individual childhoods is what navigates our subconscious mind and drives our decisions in life without our realizing it. The subconscious holds all your experiences, traumas, and family interactions. The subconscious mind is the navigator of most of your life and is very powerful. In fact, the subconscious mind is in charge of 95% of your life, which includes your actions, decisions, and pretty much all that you do in a day.

When we struggle to move forward in life, to get out of a bad relationship, to start a love relationship, or to break an addiction, all of these decisions are coming from the subconscious mind of the inner child. That imprint that was embedded in our mind at different developmental stages is ingrained in our subconscious, and our adult intellect tries to reason with certain decisions we make but usually loses out to the fear or insecurity of the inner child. And most people are oblivious to this conflict that is going on within them and have no clue as to why they make certain decisions that are unhealthy for them. Make no mistake about it, when I say “subconscious mind,” it means we are totally oblivious to what is happening in that part of our psyches.

The wounded inner child

The dilemma ensues when our childhood was dysfunctional with things like alcoholism, drug addiction, abusive parents, etc. All of us have some degree of dysfunction from childhood; it is a matter of degrees. The inner child develops during the infant to 7-year-old stage. If you didn’t get your fundamental needs met at that stage, you would grow up to be a needy adult and perhaps fill that inner void with addictions such as alcohol, food, people, work, drugs, shopping, etc. This addictive behavior is to offset the void and also keep one in a numb state of having to feel our feelings. The wounded inner child wants to heal from the past. Inner child work is necessary to curb addictions.

Struggles with addiction

Most people struggle with addiction because, at the root of the problem, there is this feeling of emptiness within. I truly believe that if we fill that void with something healthy, it will help release the addiction. For instance, one can fill that void with exercise. Exercise induces endorphins, which make one feel good. When I tried to stop smoking, it was much easier when I exercised. Or you can fill the void with your own self-love. Loving yourself and parenting yourself can turn your whole world around for the better. Or you can fill that void with your Higher Power. The reason 12 step programs are so successful is because it reconnects one to their Higher Power. Being the parent of your inner child is key to releasing some of the hurt from the past. Parenting yourself is crucial to healing.

When you learn how to re-parent yourself, you will stop attempting to complete the past by setting up others to be your parents.” 
― John Bradshaw, Homecoming: Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child

Healing for the inner child

Once you can start to heal your inner child, the addictions will be more manageable. So, how do you heal the inner child? The first step would be to impress positive feelings into the subconscious mind. Remember, the subconscious mind drives your life 95% of the time. It makes sense to feed it positive feelings to offset the negativity from the past. The time to do that is just before you fall asleep at night. As you go from a subconscious to an unconscious state of sleeping, that is the most powerful time to feed the subconscious positive thoughts.

Make no mistake about it. Some of us are addicted to food, especially carbs and sugar. So, let’s say you want to lose weight. You will think about one image of yourself as slim, as if you already lost the weight, and fall asleep with that image in your head and with the feelings of how it would feel to be slim. You would feel healthy, happy, secure, etc. Those feelings will get into your subconscious mind and drive your life in the direction of losing weight.

Your story

In order to tame any addiction, your story has to align with the direction you want to go.

Here is an example of a negative story:

I have done everything, and I can’t lose weight.

What if we changed this story to a positive one?

I am willing to do anything to lose weight!

Your story must align with a positive light in the direction you want your life to go. Whether that is in business, healing, or anything you want to achieve in life.

Affirmations

Affirmations are phrases that are positive. Saying them out loud on a daily basis, consistently, will penetrate the subconscious mind. Whatever you say after the words “I am” is crucial to your inner child.

Some positive “I am” affirmations are:

I am loved.

I am beautiful.

I am successful.

I am happy.

I am a child of God.

Visualization

If you recall a time in your life when you were alone with some pain from childhood, you can change the feelings around. We all have them. Even being left out of a party can be traumatic for a little child. Just visualize that time in your life as a child and put yourself in that time frame in your visualization as an adult. Now you have a chance to comfort your inner child with words of kindness, love, and assurance. You can even give your inner child a hug. Going back to the hard times of your childhood and being a parent can heal one layer of many that would need healing. The more you do it, the more healing you will have.

In closing, it is crucial to connect with your inner child and start the healing process. You don’t want to live life in an oblivious state of not understanding the inner child factor. We all have hidden negative experiences from our childhood that cause havoc in our present world. Reparenting your inner child, with love, comfort and security is the most loving form of self-care. It will foster inner child healing and peace in your adult life. You have a choice, will you take this awareness to heart, or walk away to the same routine as yesterday.

Rachel Devine is the author of The Third Road and Lessons from the Needle in a Haystack, both on Amazon. My new book on the inner child and the subconscious mind will be out very soon.

Devine Intervention: Inner Healing Center website