Inner Child Healing Techniques for Emotional Wounds - Rachel Devine

Life has its ups and downs and peaks and valleys. It’s all part of the journey. However, when life becomes more of a burden than a joy, it’s time to take back your life. The center of our adversity often lies in the fact that we have some unfinished business from the past. This unfinished business can creep into our lives in unexpected ways. It usually comes in the form of anger, fear, or mistrust towards a situation or people in our lives. The inner child is usually at the center of the negative emotions that comes out when we least expect it.

There are many negative emotions that come out of childhood. However, let’s take a look at these 3 prominent emotions and see how we can connect them to the inner child healing techniques:

Inner child anger

Inner-child anger is when you have unresolved anger from childhood. This can stem from your parents not being there for you emotionally, or perhaps from getting shamed or bullied. Some people carry around resentments and anger for years from their inner child wounds. Unfortunately, the anger is lying dormant until it is activated by a trigger. A trigger is an emotion come from a past memory and reminds us of a childhood wound. All of a sudden, out of the blue, the anger erupts like a pandora’s box from the past just flipped open. All of this is done on an unconscious level, since our locked emotions are in the subconscious mind, where we don’t have conscious access to.

Inner Child Fear

Inner child fear works in the same way anger does. There is some fear from childhood that was unresolved, and it sits dormant in our subconscious mind. During a trigger, fear erupts. I will give you an example from my own situation when a trigger brought on intense fear.

When I was 7 years old, my grandmother suddenly died. We went to the funeral, and her coffin was open. I remember my mother and her siblings going past the coffin and kissing my grandmother. My mother motioned for me to come to the coffin. I stood in the back of the church, alone and feeling petrified from fear. I was so afraid I would be forced to go up to the coffin. Now, fast forward to 2018, when my beloved and best friend, Luke, who was my Siberian husky, died. His death triggered the incident in the church with my grandmother, and I was filled with fear—the same petrified fear I felt as I stood alone in the back of the church as my mother was beckoning me to go up to the coffin. That was an unresolved fear from childhood that was buried in my subconscious mind, which suddenly erupted when my dog passed away. Thankfully, I was able to work through the intense fear with a very knowledgeable therapist.

Inner Child Mistrust

Again, the same premise applies to inner child mistrust. When a child is in a situation where they were perhaps sexually abused, had parents who were addicts who were not present, or just parents who could not provide a safe living space, this all creates a mistrusting nature. Additionally, it brings on the other two emotions of anger and fear. This can cause havoc in all forms of relationships, from romantic to friendships.

Let’s explore the following 7 inner child healing techniques:

Recognize your inner child through journaling

In order to heal the inner child wounds from the past, the first step is to recognize your inner child as a real part of your life. It is also important to recognize the patterns and what transpired in your childhood. Try to look back on your childhood and identify areas where you may have developed anger, fear, or mistrust. I suggest you look at any issues in your present life and look back on your childhood and journal about any patterns you find. Then, when you have the pattern in place, do some more journaling on how you felt in the past and how you feel now. Trying to recognize a pattern from an incident in childhood that relates to an incident in adulthood is a good starting point. Journaling is a great way to get in touch with your feelings.

Go back to your childhood

The second inner child technique is to go back to an incident in your childhood where your inner child needed support and love. You can go back in time through your imagination and visualization. You can visualize on a time in your life when you really needed someone to be there for you during times of anger, fear, or mistrust. Just sit and put yourself in the scene of what transpired, and be the parent to your inner child. You can speak soothing words to your inner child or hug your inner child in your imagination. This will bring amazing healing and comfort to your inner child. The more you comfort your inner child, the fewer the triggers will be in the future. If you can do this often, you will find some peace with your past.

Feel the feelings

You have to sit with the feelings. It doesn’t feel good to get wrapped up in anger or fear from the past, but it’s crucial to healing. When you sit with your inner child, embrace the emotions. It will help you heal. The only way to heal is to feel the pain from the past and then let it go. It’s a natural process of letting go. You can envision putting the emotion in a balloon and watching it drift away into the sky. Or handing the emotion over to God or your Higher Power.

Lean on your faith

Lean on your Higher Power, or God. It’s important to have a spiritual entity you trust and love to be there with you through this healing process. Stay in prayer, meditate, or light some candles, and stay in faith. Faith is important when one is feeling uneasy. Faith is a guiding light that comforts us in times of vulnerability.

Inner Child Affirmations

Use positive affirmations like "I am worthy of love" or "I deserve to feel safe" or “You are safe and I will take care of you.” This will help to reprogram limiting beliefs from childhood. Visualize the words sinking into your inner child’s heart. Using positive affirmations is a great way to reprogram the subconscious mind to a positive state. It’s also a great way to reparent your inner child.

Inner Child props

Use drawings, photos, or objects to symbolize and interact with your inner child in an experiential reparenting process. You can put a picture of yourself as a child where you can see it daily. Use the picture to tell your inner child how loved he/she is and how much you are going to be there for him or her.

Seek professional help

It is important to get professional help from a therapist or a life coach who specializes in inner child healing. Having someone to bounce off emotions is crucial since unlocking the anger and fear from childhood can be overwhelming. It’s imperative to get a good therapist to help you with this journey. The benefits will far outweigh the emotional pain you may feel from unlocking the inner child. Trauma is usually at the core of our inner child wounds. There are several techniques a good therapist can use to help you.

Many types of therapy are useful for trauma. Some examples of trauma therapy include:

• Brainspotting

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)

These different techniques can help you with inner child pain in one session. For instance, brainspotting can unlock different negative emotions and trauma from the subconscious mind. Once the trauma is cleared, the fear or anger associated with it also dissipates. However, there are usually layers to unlock, like peeling an onion, so be patient with the process.

In closing, I want to emphasize that these inner child techniques are just suggestions and do not replace professional therapy; they enhance professional therapy. I have used these techniques, and they do work. I have also used therapy to help with inner child wounds. Remember, inner child work is emotionally messy, and you may feel more angry or fearful, but with patience and continued work, you will come out on the other side with a liberated emotional state of happiness and joy.

Rachel Devine is the author of, Discover the Power of the Secret Within - Healing the Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams.

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How to Overcome the Loss of a Pet: Free Video on Grief - Rachel Devine

Losing a pet is one of the most devastating traumas one can go through. The pain can be unbearable. You might ask yourself, Why is it so painful? Believe it or not, the answer lies in your childhood. Your pet, for the most part, has typically been the most unconditionally loving part of one’s life. Let’s face it, not too many people are capable of loving unconditionally. A loving dog or cat loves totally unconditionally, and that kind of soul-to-soul love is very rare. So where does our childhood factor come into play? When our inner child needs are not met from birth to age 7, we grow up yearning to have that void filled. Our pet is quite amazing when it comes to filling our void within with unconditional love, and our inner child is thrilled. Of course, all of this is done on a subconscious level. So it stands to reason that when your loving pet dies, part of the inner child dies along with it, and this leaves one in an extremely vulnerable state with an incredible amount of pain and sorrow. The pain can be devastating. Inner healing is crucial to overcoming any type of grief. It is also crucial to grieve the loss of the pet in order to heal.

You must process grief, when it is happening, for it to be eradicated from your life. If you don’t, it will come back to haunt you in the future without warning. This happened to me when my dog Luke died in 2018. I was devastated by the loss. I didn’t realize fully the dynamics of my inner child dying along with my dog Luke at the time. Consequently, I was hit with a devastating emotional trigger that came out of left field regarding the death of my grandmother at the age of 7. I was brought emotionally back to her funeral and the terror I felt. The trigger was overwhelming and filled me with fear. Luckily, I was able to recognize what was happening and get help. It’s crucial to have someone to talk it out with that totally understands the problem. My experience taught me so much about the inner child factor and grief.

It’s imperative to process grief when it happens, on any level, so it doesn’t hit you in the future like a runaway bullet. Processing grief is the single most loving thing you can do for yourself when a pet or a loved one dies. This applies to any kind of grief. You can also look at your inner child and recognize aspects that are in pain. When you heal your inner child, you heal your life as an adult and it lessens the odds of being hit with an emotional trigger from the past. Grieving the loss of anyone is a crucial part of inner healing.

My free online video, How to Overcome the Loss of a Pet, gives you a step by step guide in getting to the root of the pain from childhood and helping one process the grief of losing your pet and part of your inner child.The awareness you will receive from my video on pet grief will put you in the right direction of healing from the pain and moving on. The video is absolutely free, so take advantage of this opportunity, or pass it along to a friend who is grieving the loss of a pet.

I wish you much peace on your inner healing journey from grief and loss. If you need help with processing your grief, in any form, please contact me. I offer life coaching support.

Rachel Devine is the author of, Discover the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams.

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Inner Child Therapy Techniques for Healing Rachel Devine

Inner child therapy is a form of psychotherapy that aims to heal the wounds and trauma experienced in childhood. It is based on the belief that everyone has an "inner child" within them that stores all the emotions, fears, beliefs, and memories from childhood. Addressing and healing the inner child can lead to profound changes in one's emotional wellbeing and ability to have healthy relationships. Research has shown that inner child pain is lodged in the body in a physical and emotional way. It makes sense, at a certain point, to address the pain and release it from the body.

Let’s explore different therapies for inner child wounds.

Inner child therapy techniques

Inner child therapy uses a range of techniques to access memories, feelings, and beliefs stored in the inner child. These include guided visualization, journaling, drawing, role-playing, and dialogues between one's adult self and inner child self.

The therapist helps the client tune into repressed or suppressed emotions from childhood and express them in a safe, contained way. This allows the client to address core childhood wounds such as neglect, abuse, loss, criticism, and worthlessness that may still be negatively impacting them today. Expressing the feelings and needs of the inner child that were not met in childhood is profoundly cathartic. Many addictions stem from the inner child void within, that gets addictively filled with either food, alcohol, drugs, working long hours, etc. Inner child therapy is imperative to get to the root of the problem and bring it out into the open where it can lose its hold on you.

The therapist then helps the client nurture and care for the inner child through love, validation, understanding, and reassurance. This helps re-parent and heal the inner child of old shame, fears, or distorted beliefs. Clients discover how to meet their inner child's unmet needs from within themselves. They learn to cultivate self-love, self-acceptance, and healthy boundaries.

Brainspotting

Brainspotting is an experienced technique that brings past emotions and trauma from the subconscious mind to the surface and then it releases the trauma from the body. This is a very effective technique for inner child healing. Additionally, it takes very little time to clear out destructive childhood thoughts that get embedded in the subconscious mind. You can learn more about brainspotting on this link.

Effectiveness of Inner Child Therapy

Research shows that inner child therapy can lead to significant reductions in anxiety, depression, interpersonal difficulties, and insecure attachment. Clients report increased self-esteem, self-compassion, emotional resilience, and the ability to have intimate relationships after inner child healing.

Inner child therapy allows people to rewrite limiting beliefs, detach from the pain of the past, and develop a strong, self-centered sense of self. Transformational personal growth can occur as people peel away layers of protective armor built around the wounded inner child. It is possible to transform your life.

Finding an Inner Child Therapist

It is important to find an inner child therapist who utilizes a holistic, gentle approach. Look for those trained in attachment theory, brainspotting, gestalt therapy, or psychedelic integration. Avoid therapies that force clients to relive trauma in an abrupt manner without adequate support.

Group therapy with other inner child healing clients can provide additional support. However, one-on-one therapy forms the core foundation for safely uncovering deep wounds before group sharing. Research different options and read client testimonials to find the right fit.

The inner child lives within all of us, waiting to be healed. Inner child therapy facilitates this profound healing, allowing people to live with much greater freedom, joy, and authenticity. It takes courage to face your inner wounds, but it can lead to incredible self-awareness and personal transformation.

Rachel Devine is the author of a new inner child book called, Discover the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams. This book is available now on Amazon.

Devine Intervention - Inner Healing Center.

If you have any questions, please contact Rachel Devine.

Connect with your Inner Child through a Guided Meditation - Rachel Devine

If you want to connect with your inner child, the best way to do that is through meditation. John Bradshaw, an expert in the field of the inner child, boldly suggests we go back to our childhood home to connect with our inner child. I was fascinated with the idea of going back to my childhood home. I did a ton of research into this concept and was really able to connect with my inner child through meditation. Not only did I connect with my inner child, but I was able to connect in a way that brought my inner child a lot of joy and healing. I share my experience with you, along with a guided meditation, in order for you to connect with your inner child.

I remember the first time I went back to my childhood home. I was filled with joy and sadness. I remember the tears streaming down my face, but nonetheless, the joy of being in my home, in my meditation, felt as if I were really back in time. And for all I know, I was back in time, in a space that was very real for me.

If you would like to connect with your inner child, the most profound way to do it is by going back to your childhood home.

Below is a meditation that gently guides you back to your childhood home in order to connect with your inner child. This is an easy-flow type of meditation, so don’t think about it; just go with the flow. This meditation is a great way to connect with your inner child. And please note, there is no right or wrong way to do this.

Before you do this meditation, make sure you have a friend or therapist in your life that you can talk to about inner child healing. Inner child wounds sometimes run deep and having a support system is highly recommended.

Rachel Devine is the author of, Discover the Power of the Secret Within, Healing the Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams. It’s on Amazon now.

The information contained in this blog and meditation is intended for educational and not for diagnosis, or treatment of any health disorders. Although every precaution has been taken, the author takes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages from use of the information contained herein. The author does not dispense emotional or physical advice without recommending the advice of a physician, mental health doctor or therapist. The intent of the author is to offer general information of self-development, and in the event you use any of the information in this blog or meditation the author, assumes no responsibility for your actions or the outcome.

7 Ways to Heal Your Inner Child Wounds

Our inner child represents the emotional part of us that developed in infancy, childhood, and adolescence. These were vulnerable times when we experienced life as a child. Lots of different feelings developed from experiences and possible traumas. Many of us developed inner child wounds. Inner child work means going back to understand, validate, and heal your childhood wounds. As psychologist Carl Jung put it this way, “The inner child carries the burden of being our past and future." Those are very critical words to describe exactly what the inner child carries around for us.

Let’s look into the inner child wounds from the past and see where we can heal the inner child.

Validate your past

It’s so important to not only connect with what happened to you as a child, but to validate your feelings. If you experienced trauma or grief, it’s important to try recognize and to feel those feelings. Any repressed inner child feelings will only erupt during anxiety, fearful, angry or stressful times and cause havoc in adulthood. It would be like opening a Pandora’s box of horrors. Getting in touch with those feelings will be the best thing you can do to combat adult disruptions. Once you are in touch with those feelings, you can release them. One way to release them is to speak about it out loud, even if just to yourself.

Identify any neglect or trauma

It’s important to recognize any neglect you may have experienced as a child or trauma. Bringing out our dark secrets from the past into the light of day helps it lose it’s power over us. Just speaking it out loud is a great start. Try to acknowledge the neglect to a friend or therapist.

Look for patterns

Our lives are a series of patterns from childhood emotions that seep into adulthood. Our anger issues that get out of control, are usually from past childhood anger that come out of left field during a heated argument. Recognizing any pattern from childhood is a great start to healing. An example of a relationship pattern from childhood would be having anger issues over your father not coming to your little league games. Now, as an adult, you take that anger out on your wife if she can’t be there for you in a certain situation. The anger would be intense and out of proportion to a minor situation with your wife. This is just one example of a pattern of anger from childhood.

Feel your feelings

Suppressed emotions manifest in other unhealthy ways. Make space to feel sadness, anger, and fear fully. It is imperative to feel your feelings.

Write a letter to your inner child. Assure your younger self that they did nothing to deserve mistreatment. Remind them of their talents and intrinsic beauty. Also list any hurt feelings or anger in your letter. Also identify any feelings of emotional or physical abandonment issues. Looking back on your childhood and writing about hurtful times is imperative to healing. Getting it all out on paper will serve as a great way to alleviate the fears and anger from the past. It might feel uncomfortable, but that will pass and you will start to feel healed. You can also do daily journaling on past experiences as an inner child. Journaling is a sure way to bring to light inner child wounds and help heal them. Remember, every time you remember an inner child wound, and write it out, you are releasing it to the universe.

Speak encouraging mantras

Combat an inner critic with loving wisdom. Tell yourself often, “I am enough. I matter. I am worthy of love. I am loveable” Create new neural pathways with affirmative language. Using words of affirmation will help you feel more positive and in turn happier. Speak words of affirmations daily to yourself, and do it over and over again until it resonates for you.

Meet unmet needs

Make a list of activities that would comfort your inner child’s fears and longings. Do you like to play music? Create art? Engage with spirituality to really heighten the experience, if you choose to. Enjoying life is part of self-care. Self-care is putting total focus on yourself and doing things that make you happy. As Audre Lorde wrote, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence; it is self-preservation.” Take that vacation you always wanted. Get out a coloring book and be creative. Go to a park and enjoy the swings. Walk barefoot on the beach. Fulfill your own needs by acknowledging them and acting them out.

Cultivate a safe community

Surround yourself with people who champion all parts of you, past and present. Be around people who celebrate you, not tolerate you. Consider joining a support group to share struggles without shame and reduce isolation. 12 step programs are an excellent way towards healing. Seeing childhood wounds in friends allows empathy for what they too endure. Kindness is contagious. Be the person you need for someone else. When we help others, it helps us stay focused on our own healing as well.

In closing, it’s important to implement with patient devotion these methods in order for your inner child to feel seen, safe, and healed. You deserve to be nurtured now and always. It’s so important to recognize your inner child wounds and start the healing process. These 7 steps are a great start to healing the inner child. You want to graduate to this state of being happy, rather than fight invisible emotional wounds from the past for the rest of your life. Remember, the rest of your life starts today. You have the power to change the things you can.

If you feel like you need help, I offer life coaching, and can help you with reparenting your inner child and other areas you may be struggling with in your life. I offer a free coaching session.

Rachel Devine is the author of a new inner child book called, Discover the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams. This book is available now on Amazon.

Devine Intervention - Inner Healing Center.

If you have any questions, please contact Rachel Devine.

What does ‘Inner Child’ Mean? Understanding and Healing Your Inner Child.

You might hear about the inner child and see a blog and decide to pass over it. You may have a false image of what the inner child actually means. The reality is, we all have an inner child. Inner child is not some far out concept from the 90s, it’s a very real part of everyone’s life. It’s not something you can ignore forever, because it has a great impact and power over your life, whether you realize it or not. If you keep the pandora’s box of the inner child long enough, it will eventually cause untold conflict. So, the question begs, what is the inner child?

The inner child refers to the vulnerable, emotional part of one's personality that forms in early childhood. It contains our core feelings, needs, desires, fears, anger, and memories from the first years of life. Even as adults, this childlike part of us will emerge at times, especially when we feel threatened, anxious, or afraid. Recognizing and nurturing this inner child is key to our emotional wellbeing.

First step is connect with your inner child.

How to Connect with Your Inner Child

• Noticing intense emotions: Strong feelings like excessive anger, sadness, or shame often represent "tantrums" of an aching inner child. Pay close attention when this happens.

• Identifying childlike desires: Cravings, especially for comforts like sweet or fried foods, can indicate the inner child is seeking to be nurtured. Another tell-tale sign of the inner child coming out in your life and why most of us can’t keep the weight off.

• Being aware of regressive behaviors: Do you become especially needy around certain people or situations? This suggests the inner child feels endangered.

• Intense anger for small infractions is tied to the inner child. If you get angry easily, at the slightest thing, you can pretty much bet it is coming from a past situation from childhood that is being triggered by the person or situation you are angry about.

• Feelings of fears of abandonment in adult relationships are also a sign of triggers from past childhood wounds. If your partner is going away on a business trip and you feel fearful, that is from an old childhood wound.

• Considering what "age" you feel: Specific situations may trigger memories of when you were 5, 10, or 15 years old. Pay attention to any pattern of anger or abandonment issues and when you first felt that way.

By stopping when big feelings surface and asking, "How old does this make me feel?" you can connect to this child part. These are all ways to recognize how your inner child causes havoc in your life. The goal is to heal the inner child.

How to soothe and comfort your inner child.

How to Soothe and Comfort Your Inner Child

Ways to nurture the inner child when painful emotions arise include:

• Offer understanding through inner dialogue. Validate how the inner child might feel frightened, rejected, unseen, angry or unloved. Say, “You’re not alone. I hear you, and I’m here for you now.” Being there to reparent your inner child is a comfort.

• Provide physical comfort: rock gently, wrap arms around yourself, or let hands rest protectively over your heart.

• Engage the senses: hold a soft blanket or stuffed animal, sip warm herbal tea, or play soothing music. Allow your mind and body to relax.

• Supply emotional support. Cradle the inner child in compassion, empathy, and patience. Say aloud reassuring statements like “You are so precious to me” or “You deserved better, and you have me now.”

Self-love equals self-care, especially for healing the inner child

Self-Care techniques

Self-care is essential to form a loving friendship with your inner child. Taking care of your adult needs is crucial.

Some of those self-care needs are simple:

• Love

• Companionship

• Nourishment

• Exercise

• Rest and vacation time

• Affirming words of comfort

• Healthy meals

• Hot bath or spa day

• Having quiet time

Make a concerted effort for one full month to do extra special things for yourself and see how much that makes you feel loved and cared for.

The Power is in the Moment

The power of the moment

Most importantly, commit to showing up wholeheartedly for yourself, flaws and all. Living in the moment is crucial to being there for yourself. When you think about it, this moment is all we have. Shining this light of presence into the darkest recesses of your inner world illuminates pain built up over a lifetime. It can initiate so much inner child healing. With time, consistency, and courage, genuine self-care heals old wounds. Gradually, the fierce outbursts of an indignant inner child give way to the peaceful presence of your authentic self, emotional maturity, and personal power. You want to graduate to this state of being happy, rather than fight invisible emotional wounds from the past.

If you feel like you need help, I offer life coaching, and can help you with reparenting your inner child and other areas.

Rachel Devine is the author of a new inner child book called, Discover the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams. This book is available now on Amazon.

Devine Intervention - Inner Healing Center.

If you have any questions, please contact Rachel Devine.

My New Book will Transform your Life: ‘Discover the Power of the Secret Within’ Rachel Devine

I am excited about my new book, Discover the Power of the Secret WIthin, that is now on Amazon and other online outlets.

“I give this book a 10 out of a 10 ! I recommend it highly! I think it is a treasure, trove of knowledge that will change a lot of lives!” Dawn K (Amazon review)

Let me tell you a little about my new book.

This book is about creating yourself anew. It is about discovering the power of the secret within, which is elusive and mysterious. The power within you is a well-kept secret. Most people will not learn about it in their lifetime. It has positively transformed millions of lives. Those who discover the power of the secret within will be richer than any successful billionaire in the world. Therefore, let’s dive into this intriguing notion in detail.

Do you have long-forgotten dreams that you want to make a reality? Do you want to lose weight, start a business, find your soulmate, get a promotion, get healthy, or end an addiction? Well, now is the time to move forward and make your dreams a reality. I will show you exactly how to do this. Make no mistake about it, you have this miraculous power within to create your destiny. 

However, there can be blocks to realizing your dreams. There is another power called the subconscious mind that is in charge of almost every decision, every move, and every thought you make in life.  Most people have no idea why they have a chip on their shoulder, or why they keep meeting the same type of dysfunctional romantic partner, or why they have issues at work, or why they have deep-rooted resentments, and the answer lies within. Discovering this aspect of yourself with awareness will empower you to transform your life in a positive way.

Your inner child is part of the power of your subconscious mind, that has been picking up messages way before it was able to fully process what was going on (mentally and emotionally). The subconscious mind holds all your emotions, memories, experiences, traumas, and beliefs from the past. This dual force, the subconscious mind and inner child, drives your life 95% of the time! This is an incredible revelation. I will explore this dual action-packed power in one of my chapters. 

I will also link a distinct pattern with our addictions to early childhood interactions and show you why it plays a big factor in determining perhaps your own addictions, or as I call them, vices. I will also show you ways to heal from these vices.

We all have choices. One choice is to continue to go about your life in a way that is oblivious to the power of the inner workings, whereas you can just continue to live in an unconscious state of daily routine, accepting limitations in intimate relationships, as well as in your career and other areas, and perhaps allowing fears to dictate what direction your life goes in.

Or, you can become acutely aware of what is going on with your inner child, and your subconscious mind, each a driving force, and actually change the course of your journey in life.

My goal is to help you move forward in areas of your life you thought were not possible. 

In closing, I want to tell you I am so excited about getting my book published. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears, but I did it! I self-published my book on KDP, which means I did everything to make this happen! The message is important, especially for those that are struggling in life. The few people that read my book already have been impacted positively by the powerful message.

Embrace this moment, the only one we have, and get a copy of my book so you will be among those fortunate people who learn the valuable secret of the power within! 

Healing your inner child book - Discover the Power of the Secret Within - Rachel Devine

“The book really got deep on how our subconscious mind works and how important it is to not fall into the negativities and train yourself to think positive always . I really enjoyed it and it was very inspirational and really broadened my knowledge of how our minds work. I really recommend it !” Tina K (Amazon review)

“The book was a blessing in awaking my issues and helping me solve them. Extraordinary.” Neia (Amazon review)

Get your copy today on Amazon! Discover the Power of the Secret Within: Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams

Healing Your Inner Child: A Path to Awareness Rachel Devine

Inner child dynamics can be confusing and complicated. It’s important to break it down to size in order to start the inner child healing process. Our inner child represents the part of us that holds childhood memories, emotional needs, trauma, and subconscious beliefs formed in our early years. Most of us carry over our childhood dysfunctions into adulthood. This dysfunction can range from addictions, to anger issues, insecurities, low self-esteem and other social issues. Healing the inner child leads to greater wellbeing and happiness.

Inner child healing

Defining the Inner Child

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

According to psychology expert John Bradshaw, “The inner child dwells within all adults. It’s the part that feels emotions and carries our intuitions, creativity, spontaneity, and playfulness.”

The inner child develops in childhood as a means to adapt to our environment. But if traumatic, it creates core wounds, driving dysfunction.

Bradshaw stated, “The healthy inner child brings forth wonder, joy, playfulness, and creativity.” However, the unhealthy inner child brings out the worst in us. Exploring the inner child can feel like opening up a Pandora’s box, but it is crucial to find healing.

What is the Inner Child in adulthood?

The following are signs of the inner child coming out in adulthood.

• Hypersensitivity to perceived rejection or exclusion

• Reacting defensively or impulsively when criticized

• Craving nourishment, affection, or praise from others

• Struggling with boundaries or priorities

• Fearing abandonment or loss in relationships

• Defaulting to shame or inadequacy when struggling

• Intense anger issues

These are just some issues that indicate an inner child issue has reared its ugly head in your adult life.

Ways to Heal Your Inner Child

1. Open a caring dialogue with your inner child by connecting to your feelings. Give your inner child permission to freely communicate its buried feelings and needs.

2. Validate inner emotions and pains with empathy. Offer the unconditional love you craved but didn’t receive growing up.

3. Set healthy boundaries if your behaviors are destructive. For example, provide comfort when sad, but limit tantrums or acting out with anger.

4. Reassure your inner child’s worthiness and intrinsic goodness. Replace old negative self-beliefs with positive truths. Always use positive affirmations towards yourself.

5. Healing your inner child meditation. Go back to a time when your inner child was in pain in a meditation and reparent your inner child with love and safety.

6. Inner child healing therapy is a great way to find healing. Find a good therapist that is right for you.

7. Speak encouragingly and affirm their strengths. Foster their self-confidence. And use self-loving words to your inner child.

8. Comfort your inner child when you’re feeling upset using visualizations, stuffed animal hugs, or consoling letters.

9. Indulge in play, creativity, and joy through art and other creative ways; this nourishes the inner child’s spirit.

10. Get a picture of yourself as a child and say often to the picture, “I love you.” It will make a difference.

11. Enlist a good life-coach to help.

With consistent loving care, your inner child transforms from a hindrance in your adult life into a source of vitality, wisdom, and strength. The more you embrace this part of yourself, the more healthy your relationships will be at home, at work and with friends. Feeding your inner child with love and compassion is the greatest gift you can give yourself.

Rachel Devine is the author of a new inner child book, Discovering the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams.

Devine Intervention - Inner Healing Center.

Let me Introduce You to Your Inner Child-Rachel Devine

The inner child represents the part of your psyche that holds childhood memories, feelings, wounds, personality traits, and unmet developmental needs. Becoming aware of this aspect of yourself is crucial to healing the inner child. We all have an inner child with issues, whether you realize it or not. By raising awareness of this subconscious inner child, you can start the healing process through inner child work, that will allow you to move forward in life in an easier fashion. So what is inner child healing? Let’s explore this aspect of inner child. Let’s look at ways to recognize and do some inner child work.

Inner child healing by understanding the inner child

Recognizing your inner child

Some signs your inner child is active include:

• Hypersensitivity to perceived rejection or exclusion

• Reacting defensively or impulsively when criticized

• Craving nourishment, affection, or praise from others

• Struggling with boundaries or priorities

• Fearing abandonment or loss in relationships

• Defaulting to shame or inadequacy when struggling

• Intense anger issues

These are just a few of the signs that your inner child is emerging, usually during stressful times or times of emotional trigger. Emotional triggering happens when we are confronted with an event that subconsciously brings us back to childhood event that was upsetting or traumatizing, and the intense emotions come out of left field. Inner child channels are raw, vulnerable emotions and instincts. Notice when excessive moodiness, neediness, or insecurity arise, often revealing your inner child’s outsized influence.

A very telling time is during road rage. If you become intensely angry during road rage, chances are that is your inner child raging from within.

What is your Inner Child and Connecting to it?

Let’s introduce yourself to your inner child. You can become increasingly aware of your inner child through the following:

• Journaling: Dialogue with your inner child in writing to uncover their feelings.

• Visualization: Use your imagination to picture your inner child. What do they look like? How do they feel?

• Body sensations: Notice where you hold stress physically when upset. These body clues reflect the inner child.

• Childhood reflections: Review memories and influences from your upbringing for insights.

• Inner child healing meditation: Go back into your childhood and meditate on a time of distress and be with your inner child. See what he or she is telling you about their feelings.

Honoring the Inner Child

You can start integrating your inner child through:

• Speaking to your inner child internally with compassion is very rewarding. Thank your inner child for being there and bring as much love as you can to your child.

• Spending time doing activities your inner child enjoys, like dancing, coloring, or playing is rewarding.

• Allowing yourself to cry or feel sadness with self-kindness rather than dismissing it.

• Displaying old childhood mementos and pictures can invoke fond feelings. Get a picture of yourself as a child and tell that child how much you love him or her daily.

• Doing your best to provide for the inner child’s needs—whether play, connection, validation, nourishment, or rest is so important. Practice self-care in all areas and be aware of your needs and wants.

Gaining awareness of your inner child allows you to update harmful programmed beliefs and consciously respond to your inner needs with wisdom, understanding and love. Inner child work leads to wholeness, self love and releasing old wounds and dysfunctional patterns.

Rachel Devine is the author of a new inner child book, Discovering the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams.

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7-Step Guide to Inner Child Healing Techniques- Rachel Devine

If you are having anger issues, or stuck in a mediocre job, or having relationship issues, or struggling with an addiction, the solution lies in the inner child. Many of us do not want to open up a pandora’s box of past feelings. However, that is exactly what will help you address any issues you have in life that are not manageable. Addressing unresolved childhood wounds through inner child work can facilitate deep healing, self-love, and actualization. Various therapeutic techniques help you reconcile with your inner child to transform pain into wisdom. You will have an opportunity to be friends with your inner child, rather than to deny what is a very real part of you. It will bring you much liberation from the chains of the inner child wounds.

Let’s look at some inner child healing techniques.

Inner Child Healing Meditation

Sitting in quiet meditation while visualizing and conversing with your inner child fosters connection with compassion. Imagine going into a sanctuary. Visualize everything you can about yourself as a child. Visually embrace and comfort your inner child. Listen as they share untouched pains and unfulfilled needs. Provide validation and nourishment through words of affirmation, a visual hug or an acknowledgement of past feelings.

Inner Child Healing Journaling

Through journaling, give your inner child a voice by writing down their feelings and perspectives. Respond back with understanding and care. Explore past challenges and their lingering impacts through this written dialogue while reparenting their hurts. Being able to get in touch with your feelings as a child in writing and addressing those feelings is the most validating loving thing you can do for yourself. You can also write out some affirmations for the inner child, that you can say out loud on a regular basis.

Brainspotting Therapy

Brainspotting is for a wide variety of emotional conditions. Brainspotting is particularly effective with trauma-based situations, helping to identify and heal underlying trauma that contributes to anxiety, depression and other behavioral conditions. Brainspotting gives the therapist access to both brain and body processes. Its goal is to bypass the conscious, neocortical thinking to access the deeper, subcortical emotional and body-based parts of the brain in order to release past inner child trauma. It is very effective and worth looking into.

Inner Child Art Therapy

Expressive arts like painting, drawing, or molding clay help give shape to formless feelings locked in your inner child. The nonverbal outlet accesses subconscious aspects. Examine the themes depicted visually. Try your hand at art and expressing your inner child’s feelings. A life-coach can be a great help with inner child healing.

Energy Healing

Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping), breathwork, and somatic therapy aimed at releasing trapped fight-or-flight energy from past trauma help restore inner child wholeness. The body remembers what the mind has buried.

Toy/Keepsake Inner Child Rituals

Inner child rituals are effective too. Hold a favorite childhood memento like a stuffed animal or a doll when dialoguing internally with your inner child. Keep it nearby as a touchstone. You can use positive words of love, comfort and validation for your inner child to the doll that represents yourself as a child. Let it represent your commitment to embracing your inner child with care, love and compassion.

Inner Child Healing Therapy

Inner child healing therapy is priceless, if you find a good therapist. Working with a therapist will give you much insight into your past inner child wounds and help you heal. It’s especially helpful for those who have addictions, or constant anger issues, or perhaps low self-esteem. Whatever the situation you are facing today, I can safely say it is wrapped up in past traumas or wounds. A good therapist can help you.

There are many avenues to reconnect with your inner essence in a healing way. Try different practices to discover what modalities resonate most deeply for you. This will give you an opportunity to recover from old wounds that still influence behaviors and beliefs as an adult. Be patient and let reconciliation unfold, one insight at a time. It’s like peeling an onion. Each layer brings you closer to inner healing and in turn to better adult experiences.

Rachel Devine is the author of, Discovering the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams.

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I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I can! It All Starts with Your Inner World! Rachel Devine

I love that children’s book, The Little Engine that Could by, Watty Piper. The big phrase in the book is the little blue engine says repeatedly, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. It’s such a positive affirmation of hope in achieving the little engines goal of going over the big mountain. Many of us also have mountains we want to climb over in life. Some are goals and other mountains are obstacles.

We all are capable of unimaginable success and climbing over mountains, if we realize that our inner world is a big factor in determining how we progress in life. Most of us are oblivious to this crucial part of our lives that dictates almost every decision we make and we wind up in a circular driveway, going nowhere fast.

The wounded inner child, carrying baggage from childhood wounds, abandonments, or critical messages, can undermine our success in life through self-doubt, excessive need for external validation, perfectionism, feeling unworthy, and other limiting patterns and beliefs. By understanding and healing this part of ourselves, our inner child transforms from foe to friend. This transformation helps one to be successful in any endeavor they undertake including, losing weight, running a successful business, becoming a writer, an actress, giving up an addiction, making lots of money, finding your soulmate, etc.

Let’s look at this in a comprehensive way.

Identifying Inner Child Sabotage

Unconscious ways your inner child may sabotage success include the following:

• Needing others’ approval before acting on inspiration.

• Abandoning projects when you hit roadblocks.

• Talking down to yourself with criticism.

• Only feeling worthy with perfect outcomes.

• Isolating when feeling overwhelmed or depressed.

• Self-medicating the empty void with food, alcohol, or drugs.

• Staying stuck, envisioning the worst-case scenarios.

• Low self-esteem.

• A feeling of unworthiness.

The inner child operates behind the scenes by distorting thinking around present-day goals based on old conditioning. Those negative thoughts that come out of left field and invade your mind are the dialogue of the inner child from the past. This negative dialogue is a block to good relationships, family connections, success in business and so much more.

Transforming Inner Dialogue

Bring conscious awareness to times when you undermine progress through harsh self-judgment, doubt, isolation, unworthiness, or seeking excessive reassurance. Pause and identify this as the inner child’s fearful influence. If you want to start a project or move towards a long-awaited goal and you can’t get past self-doubt, it’s time to really look at the inner child and your thoughts.

Rather than reacting the same old way to negative self-talk, consciously respond with compassion towards yourself. Provide the unconditional love and affirmation your inner child craves to heal old wounds. Forgive perceived imperfections. Turn negative dialogue into positive ones. Create a self-loving environment. Build on your own self-esteem by giving to yourself in a nurturing and generous way. When you direct your own love toward yourself, you are building a strong relationship with the most important person in your life, and this will carry over to every area you want to succeed in.

Positive affirmations

Positive affirmations are positive phrases, or statements that are used to offset negative thoughts. You can use them to motivate, encourage positive changes in your life, or boost your self-esteem. Affirmations also penetrate the subconscious mind, if said with enough feeling, and this in turn will help your life move in a positive direction.

You can build positive affirmations by writing them out and saying them out loud as often as you can. Some ideas are, I am worthy, I am loved, I am confident, I am successful, I found my soulmate, I am healthy, and I am making lots of money. Or you can make positive statements, such as, I now express health, happiness, prosperity, and peace of mind.

Gradually, this positive self-parenting transforms your inner voice from sabotage to an uplifting cheerleader. The light of awareness dispels unconscious shadows and you might find yourself succeeding in areas you thought were not possible.

Replacing negative patterns

As dysfunctional patterns loosen through inner child healing, proactively build positive habits that serve your goals, like consistent practice in moving towards your goal, dividing tasks into manageable steps, and celebrating small wins. You can also journal with positive affirmations and replace any negative intrusion of thoughts immediately to positive ones. This alone can help you transform to new heights. By building positive habits that serve your goal, you are on your way to succeeding in the goal you choose. Additionally, a “To do list” will keep you on track in moving in the direction of your goal.

Louise Hay, founder of Hay House Publishing and author and teacher says this about the inner child:

“Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”

Picture your words as being in an echo chamber. What you say comes back like an echo. This is the law of attraction working, as like attracts like. Changing dialogue to a positive state will move your life in a positive direction.

Remember, it’s so important to let your inner mentor emerge to help manifest dreams rather than allow past pain to dictate your present moments. Befriending your inner child removes blocks to claiming your joy and success. Be the parent to your inner child that will help you grow into the person you were meant to be. Remember, if you think you can, then you can do it. Stay positive and focused and your dreams will manifest into reality.

Rachel Devine is the author of, Discovering the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams.

My new event is January 31, 2024 7:30 pm on Zoom, “Master the Power of Manifestation. Turn your Dreams into Reality.” Click on this link for more information.

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Inner Child Healing Meditation - Rachel Devine

Inner-child healing is essential to living a life filled with happiness and contentment. Most of us do not realize the impact the inner child has on us. We are preprogrammed emotionally in early childhood, and this carries over to our adult lives. If you have constant issues in life with family, friends, or work, Or if you have a really bad temper or have fears. Perhaps you have trouble losing weight or finding a soulmate who is compatible. All of these issues stem from the inner child. However, don’t despair; with a little knowledge and some inner child healing techniques, you can heal the inner child.

Subconscious mind example

Our subconscious mind is in control of 95% of our lives. Since we were born, the subconscious mind has been fed different information in the form of feelings. The inner child is part of the subconscious. It’s a scary notion to realize our lives are pretty much dictated by our past fears, angers, traumas, and experiences. The way to clear some of this out of our subconscious and replace it with positive feelings is through meditation. Meditation is a way to resonate with feelings that will get penetrated by the subconscious, thus helping us change the course of our lives!

Inner child healing meditation

John Bradshaw was a pioneer in the inner-child world. He wrote an inner child book called Homecoming that was very successful in the 1990s. He boldly suggests we peer into our childhood home and connect with that inner child.

In my book, Discover the Power of the Secret Within: Healing Your Inner Child to Manifest Your Dreams, I guide you into a meditation for healing the inner child since this is one surefire way to heal the inner child.

My inner child book excerpt: Inner child healing meditation

So, let’s start the process of going back to our childhood. We are going to do this in a more defined way. At this point, I ask you to please keep an open mind. You see, the problem is in the mind; therefore, the solution is also in the mind, and we will be tapping into the subconscious mind, which is where the imprint of your personality has been created.

We are going to imagine going back to our childhood home and seeing our child. Once you determine the feelings of pain, hurt, fear, or perhaps all of these, it is time to go back to that time in your life. Sit with your eyes closed and remember that time in your life when something happened and you needed support. Try to remember a time in your life that you felt particularity alone, hurt, or unloved, perhaps shamed, ridiculed, or a feeling of alienation or abuse. It’s okay if you don’t remember a negative time in your life as a child. You can just go back to a calm time too. Go back to that time and see everything you can. Can you remember the smells or sensations of cold or hot? Look at the colors, and try to put yourself in that space and time. Look at the furniture in the room and the light peering in from the window. Perhaps you are in your backyard and see flowers and swings. Try to remember everything about your childhood home. See your inner child and imagine what he or she is wearing. What does your child look like? See every aspect of your inner child. Take your time with this.

I suggest you close your eyes and imagine yourself as an adult approaching your little child and comforting him or her as a parent would. Tell your child all the things you need to hear to feel comforted and loved. Imagine yourself as an adult sitting with your child and actually parenting the child with love and feelings of safety and concern. Hug your child if you like. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Do it in a way that is comfortable for you and, at the same time, comforting and loving for the child. Really concentrate on the feelings of love.

When you have made that connection with your child and nurture and love your inner child, something will change in your subconscious mind to a positive feeling. If you were fearful at the time as a child, that fear will be offset by love, which is a stronger emotion. Or if the feeling was one of shame, that will also decrease in your subconscious mind as an adult. If it is a feeling of not being loved, loving your child will make you feel more loved as an adult and enable you to not be so needy when it comes to relationships. It could also help one curb their addiction because you are filling the hole in the soul or that void from not getting your childhood needs met with your own self-love.

End of the excerpt.

The key in this meditation is to resonate with the feelings and try to overcome negative feelings with positive feelings of love, comfort, security, courage, self-esteem, etc.

Our inner child is yearning for love, comfort, and support. Recognizing this aspect of yourself and nurturing your inner child with daily words of affirmation, meditations, and visuals, you will begin healing the inner child. The more the inner child heals, the more healing our adult selves will feel, and our relationships with family, friends, and work will improve.

 Discover the Power of the Secret Within - Inner Child Healing to Manifest your Dreams - Get your copy on Amazon or you can get an instant ebook download.

For more information on inner child healing, please visit my website, Devine Intervention-Inner Healing Center.

Wake-up the Sleeping Giant: To Heal the Wounded Inner Child - Rachel Devine

Make no mistake about it; the inner child is alive and well and dwells in each one of us. This sleeping giant is powerful, and some would rather let it sleep. However, letting the sleeping giant lie dormant can cause intermittent havoc in one’s life. It can cause fear when you want to exit a relationship. Or uncontrollable anger towards a loved one. And it can cause rage during car incidents and, in some severe cases, cause people to be violent. It will rear its ugly head in times of stress, trouble, grief, and anxiety. The way to arrest these unexpected tantrums of the wounded inner child is to understand them and tame them.

Carl Jung advocated that it was this inside part of all of us that influenced all we do and the decisions that we make. Inner children were a part of us when we were kids that never grew up. They are who hold all the memories and emotions, good or bad, that we experienced.

Let’s look at some inner child healing techniques and ways to reparent yourself.

Awareness of the wounded inner child

The wounded inner child is part of your subconscious mind, and both, in unison, direct your life 95% of the time. When you get up each day and have breakfast, check your emails, brush your teeth, and get ready for work, this is all orchestrated by this dual force. You don’t think about it; it’s an automatic response to your daily routine. Well, 95% of your decisions are made with your subconscious/inner child mind. The question is, what are the inner contents that are driving your life? Are they good contents or bad ones, or a little bit of both?

My inner child is screaming

The first step is to look for patterns in your life that erupt unexpectedly and are screaming for your attention. Are you reactive during arguments? Do you get enraged during car incidents, like when someone cuts you off? Are you violent toward people in times of stress? Are you filled with fear at the idea of dating? Do you have addictions? These are just some clues as to your wounded inner child screaming for help. What is inside you will erupt during stressful times, so these are clues for you to look for so you have awareness of what is bubbling up inside. You want to have this awareness to stop it from continuing.

Self-love

Believe it or not, some of the anger and even fears stem from the fact that most of us did not get our fundamental needs met as children, and we hide the repressed anger deep within us from those times. Additionally, carrying around deep resentments from years of anger can also be what is within. Self-love is one of the keys to filling that inner void that was not filled in childhood. Let’s face it, we are all humans, especially our parents, who did the best they could under the circumstances of their lives. However, the outcome is usually that an adult will have some sort of issue that came out of childhood. Look in the mirror daily and say, “I love you.” Even if you don’t mean it, this exercise will change your inner emotions around to more love.

Inner child meditation

Another form of inner-child healing is meditation. Sit in a quiet room and imagine yourself as a child. Picture what you look like, what you are wearing, and what room in your childhood home you are in. Just picture everything you can. Then, in the meditation, you will approach your inner child as an adult parent and sit with your child. Give your child words of encouragement, perhaps a hug, and reassurance that you are there for them and will always love and support them. Be as loving as you can in this meditation. There is no right or wrong way to do this, or time-frame, just go with your instincts. The more you do this meditation the more inner child healing you will receive.

Affirmations

Affirmations act as a way of penetrating the subconscious, so you put positive words and feelings in there to offset the negative ones from the past. You can say things like, I am here for you, I will support you, I am loved, I am confident, I am worthy, I am beautiful, etc. You can write these affirmations out on sticky notes and post them where you can see them daily as a reminder to say them out loud.

Wake-up call

It’s okay to wake up the inner giant so you can heal. Inner child healing is necessary to eradicate our weaknesses that hold us back in life. Too many of us have anger issues or bitterness from the past, that we want to get rid of. The key to inner healing is through awareness and inner child work. Remember what lies dormant is just waiting to erupt, like a pandora’s box of horrors. You really want to tame that inner child. It will be worth the effort when you start to see your life transform before your very eyes.

Rachel Devine is the author of her new inner child book, Discover the Power of the Secret Within, along with The Third Road and Lessons from the Needle in a Haystack, all on Amazon.

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Ways to Recognize when your Inner Child Sabotages your Relationships-Rachel Devine

The wounded inner child, carrying baggage from past hurts or abandonments, often undermines romantic relationships unconsciously. This is a very scary notion that there are aspects of each and every one of us that we are not aware of, which can destroy a relationship. By understanding your inner child’s dynamics and the way it acts out, you can heal its pain and break free of relationship-destroying patterns. But only when you can understand it, can you really heal its fury and live a happy life. Inner child healing starts with you. And make no mistake about it, we all have an inner child that causes havoc from time to time. Furthermore, those who are just ‘unlucky in love,’ might see a pattern from childhood to adult relationships that explains this dilemma. If you are dating and meeting the same type of dysfunctional person, with a different face, it’s time to look at the inner child. Awareness is the key to solving any issue. Let’s explore all of this together.

Defining the Inner Child

According to psychology pioneer Carl Jung, the inner child represents our instincts, vulnerabilities, feelings, and unmet needs from childhood. John Bradshaw, an expert in the inner child and author of Homecoming, further defines it as “the accumulation of all unmet childhood needs and wants that make up the childhood energies still expressing themselves in our adult lives.” John Bradshaw was an advocate for reparenting our inner child.

This inner child dwells in the subconscious mind, influencing behaviors independent of adult awareness. Our reactions to romantic partners frequently reflect the inner child’s projections. To be clear, the subconscious mind is like a vast memory bank holding all of our past traumas, experiences, and feelings from our inner child. During times of stress or triggers, the subconscious mind or inner child lashes out in very unexpected ways that are often unexplainable.

Inner Child Dynamics

The inner child dynamics are not complicated. There are 4 stages of infancy development. Let’s look at these stages:

The first stage is the infancy stage. This is the co-dependent stage from 0 to 2 years old, where we are completely dependent on our parents for survival. This is the stage where we need a lot of care, nurturing, and love. It’s a time in our lives when we depend solely on our parents for survival.

The preschool age from 2 to 4 years old is the stage of counter-dependence. This stage is often referred to as “the terrible twos.” This is a time when the child wants and needs to assert their ability to interact with their environment. The child is gaining his or her autonomy through co-dependence.

From 4 to 7 years old, there is the independence stage. At this time, a child is becoming independent and doesn’t need his or her parents to do everything, and the child becomes more independent of them.

At seven years old, the child is at an inter-dependence stage of being, which is much more independent from their parents than previous years, and pretty much can do most things for themselves.

All these developmental stages are a crucial time in a child’s life, and if a child does not get their fundamental needs met, there will be issues that develop later on in adulthood.

How we learned to love from birth to seven years old in our family of origin will determine our subconscious imprint that gets embedded in our brain. These imprints will determine who we connect with as a partner. When we get into adulthood, we attract those people who fulfill our innermost subconscious needs. This imprint from childhood is what we subconsciously navigate with when seeking out a partner in life. This is why it’s important to understand that we attract what we are resonating with. Additionally, this is the reason why most people marry a clone of their mother or father!

Recognizing Inner Child Havoc

Some signs your inner child is sabotaging your relationships include the following. These are all reactions to triggers, which would be a stimulus that elicits a reaction stemming from a negative childhood experience.

• Extreme defensiveness or mistrust of your partner’s intentions

• Severe jealousy about harmless interactions

• Constant need for validation and reassurance

• Major mood swings or emotional sensitivity

• Fear of enmeshment or losing yourself

• Panic when feeling alone or abandoned

• Difficulty with true intimacy and vulnerability

• Inability to keep a healthy relationship

• Extreme anger issues or fears

John Bradshaw explains: “The wounded inner child inside many people can destroy loving relationships. Your childhood wounds affect your relationships.” These wounds stem from the inner child’s neediness. This is due to not getting your fundamental needs met as a child, from infant to 7 years old. It is a good idea to explore this time in your life and what transpired. The patterns in our family of origin are usually what we bring into our relationships, friendships and work environment.

Healing your inner child

To short-circuit destructive inner child responses, self-awareness of the triggers through mindful observations of your emotions and reactions is key. The first step is to be aware of the problem and not ignore it. Then intentionally reframe your self-talk. It’s hard to do this in the heat of the moment, but reflecting back on the conflict you had with your partner is key to awareness because you can look at it during a calm time and adjust your actions in the future.

As an example, if abandonment wounds cause you to interpret your partner’s business trip as intentional neglect, remind yourself, “This is my inner child projecting past fears of abandonment. My partner loves me and is coming back.” Recognizing a pattern from childhood that correlates with the adult situation is the first step to healing.

For instance, if your father was working all the time when you were a child, you may have developed fears of abandonment, so your partner going on a business trip could trigger these painful feelings from childhood. Remember, all of your traumas and experiences are locked away in your subconscious mind and will get triggered when stressful events happen that jolt those inner child feelings. When you identify a pattern, you can go back to the time of the trauma from childhood and comfort and love your inner child in a meditation. John Bradshaw boldly suggests we go back to your childhood home and visualize your inner child in pain and comfort him or her. It is the most loving thing you can do for yourself.

Self-love

Self-love is crucial to having a healthy inner child. Cultivating secure relationships also involves reprogramming core relationship beliefs in your subconscious mind—for example, that you are worthy and loveable. Visualization, affirmations, and therapy can help instill self-reliance, regardless of your partner’s proximity or validation. It all starts with a firm, loving foundation in your relationship with yourself. Healing the inner child is crucial, and so is this inner child work. You have to be the one who is strong in your own skin, and it’s important to develop a good-loving, secure relationship with yourself. You can do this with daily affirmations and visuals of being strong alone, so when you are alone, your subconscious will draw on the visualization. I used to do a meditation where I would sit on my higher power’s lap as a child. In my case, I proudly call my higher power God. In this meditation, God would instill in me that I am worthy and loved, and I can never be abandoned because His spirit dwells within me. Of course, you have to use the higher power of your choice. Just imagine your higher power telling you how valued and loved you are, and give you assurance that you can never be abandoned.

Positive Affirmations

These positive affirmations are a good start to changing the negative subconscious to a positive one:

I am happy.

I am loved.

I am strong.

I am secure in my own skin.

I am at peace.

I am a child of God.

The more compassion, understanding, love, and stability you extend to your inner child directly, the less it will act up unconsciously in your relationships. It is like reparenting yourself with much love. You deserve that peace and stability. Using positive affirmations daily is a good start.

In closing, the inner child is a multifaceted issue and really does demand your attention. It is important to explore your inner child, who is very real and a very big part of your life, and try to see the patterns of self-sabotage when they happen. It will help your relationship become happier. Remember, awareness is the key to overcoming any obstacles in life. Having a loving relationship with yourself is the single most important thing you can do to heal the inner child.

Rachel Devine’s new book, Discover the Power of the Secret within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams, is on Amazon now.

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Inner Child: A Pandora's Box of Addictions! (FREE Video - Get it now, instant download) Rachel Devine

(Get your FREE video on Inner Child: A Pandora’s Box of Addictions. Details at the end of this article)

The inner child might sound like a far-fetched notion of a Freudian era 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.

What is the inner child?

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

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 our childhood. It’s a little scary to realize a child is directing our path. This revelation is enough to get anyone’s attention, as it is vital information on why your life is where it is today. The real crucial part of inner child dilemma is with addiction. If you tried to lose weight, stop smoking, drinking, gambling, or working long hours, and you can’t do it, it’s time to look at the inner child where the secret lies in curbing your addiction.

Your inner child is part of the power of your subconscious mind, that has been picking up messages way before it was able to fully process what was going on. The subconscious mind holds most of your emotions, experiences, traumas, and beliefs from the past.

This dual force, the subconscious mind and inner child, drives your life 95% of the time! This is an incredible revelation, which is explored in the video.

There is a fascinating link between addictions and early childhood interactions. However, there are solutions to overcome addictions, which are also explored in the video.

We all have choices. One choice is to continue to go about your life in a way that is oblivious to the power of the inner workings, whereas you can just continue to live in an unconscious state of daily routine, vices, accepting limitations in intimate relationships, as well as in your career and other areas, and perhaps allowing fears to dictate what direction your life goes in.

Or, you can become acutely aware of what is going on with your inner child, and your subconscious mind, each a driving force, and actually change the course of the direction your life is going in. And in turn, transform your life!

Get your instant download today. This is a free digital video that will help you come to solutions with your inner child dilemma and possible addictions. When you can tie the two together, you have a game-plan for healing.  Download my free video instantly - just add to the cart. This is a $10 value.

Another great resource is my new book on Amazon, Discover the Power of the Secret Within - Healing your Inner Child to Manifest your Dreams.

Devine Intervention - Inner Healing Center

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.

Devine Intervention - Inner Healing Center

Inner child coaching

Ways to Recognize when your Inner Child Sabotages Your Relationships - Rachel Devine

Our relationships are precious. The wounded inner child, carrying baggage from past hurts or abandonments, often undermines romantic partnerships unconsciously. This is a very scary notion that there are aspects of each and every one of us that we are not aware of. By understanding your inner child’s dynamics and the way it acts out, you can heal its pain and break free of relationship-destroying patterns. But only when you can understand it, can you really heal its fury and live a happy life. Inner child healing starts with you. Furthermore, those who are just ‘unlucky in love,’ or can’t meet the right partner, might come to see a pattern from childhood to adult relationships. Let’s explore all of this together.

Defining the Inner Child

According to psychology pioneer Carl Jung, the inner child represents our instincts, vulnerabilities, feelings, and unmet needs from childhood. John Bradshaw, an expert in the inner child and author of Homecoming, further defines it as “the accumulation of all unmet childhood needs and wants that make up the childhood energies still expressing themselves in our adult lives.” John Bradshaw was an advocate for reparenting our inner child.

This inner child dwells in the subconscious mind, influencing behaviors independent of adult awareness. Our reactions to romantic partners frequently reflect the inner child’s projections. To be clear, the subconscious mind is like a vast memory bank holding all of our past traumas, experiences, and feelings from our inner child. During times of stress or triggers, the subconscious mind, or inner child, lashes out in very unexpected ways that are often unexplainable.

Inner Child Dynamics

The inner child dynamics are not complicated. From birth to 7 years old is a crucial time a child has to get their needs met, and if they don't, they grow up to be needy adults.

How we learned to love from birth to seven years old in our family of origin will determine our subconscious imprint that gets embedded in our brain. These imprints will determine who we connect with as a partner. When we get into adulthood, we attract those people who fulfill our innermost subconscious needs. This imprint from childhood is what we subconsciously navigate with when seeking out a partner in life. This is why it’s important to understand that we attract what we are resonating with. Additionally, this is the reason why most people marry a clone of their mother or father! It’s another way to get our childhood needs met with a partner that resembles our parents.

Recognizing Inner Child Havoc

Some signs your inner child is sabotaging your relationships include the following: These are all reactions to triggers, which would be a stimulus that elicits a reaction stemming from a negative childhood experience.

• Severe jealousy about harmless interactions

• Constant need for validation and reassurance

• Major mood swings or emotional sensitivity

• Fear of enmeshment or losing yourself

• Panic when feeling alone or abandoned

• Difficulty with true intimacy and vulnerability

• Inability to keep a healthy relationship

• Extreme anger issues or fears

John Bradshaw explains: “The wounded inner child inside many people can destroy loving relationships. Your childhood wounds affect your relationships.” These wounds stem from the inner child’s neediness. To reiterate, this is due to not getting your fundamental needs met as a child, from infant to 7 years old. It is a good idea to explore this time in your life and what transpired. The patterns in our family of origin are usually what we bring into our relationships, friendships, and work environment.

Healing your inner child

To stop destructive inner child responses, self-awareness of the triggers through mindful observations of your emotions and reactions is key. The first step is to be aware of the problem and not ignore it. Then intentionally reframe your self-talk. It’s hard to do this in the heat of the moment, but reflecting back on the conflict you had with your partner is key to awareness because you can look at it during a calm time and adjust your actions in the future.

As an example, if abandonment wounds cause you to interpret your partner’s business trip as intentional neglect, remind yourself, “This is my inner child projecting past fears of abandonment. My partner loves me and is coming back.” Recognizing a pattern from childhood that correlates with the adult situation is the first step to healing.

For instance, if your father was working all the time when you were a child, you may have developed fears of abandonment, so your partner going on a business trip could trigger these painful feelings from childhood. Remember, all of your traumas and experiences are locked away in your subconscious mind and will get triggered when stressful events happen that jolt those inner child feelings. When you identify a pattern, you can go back to the time of the trauma from childhood and comfort and love your inner child in a meditation. John Bradshaw boldly suggests we go back to your childhood home, visualize your inner child in pain, and comfort him or her. It is the most loving thing you can do for yourself.

If you are dating and can’t meet a compatible partner, it’s really time to look at the patterns from childhood, how you learned to love, and how that correlates with your adult relationships. The answers lie with the inner child dilemma.

Self-love

Self-love is crucial to having a healthy inner child. Cultivating secure relationships also involves reprogramming core relationship beliefs in your subconscious mind—for example, that you are worthy and loveable. Visualization, affirmations, and therapy can help instill self-reliance, regardless of your partner’s proximity or validation. It all starts with a firm, loving foundation in your relationship with yourself. Healing the inner child is crucial, and so is this inner child work. You have to be the one who is strong in your own skin, and it’s important to develop a good-loving, secure relationship with yourself. You can do this with daily affirmations and visuals of being strong alone, so when you are alone, your subconscious will draw on the visualization. Just visualize a positive feeling of safety and love.

Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are a good start to changing the negative subconscious into a positive one.

I am happy.

I am loved.

I am strong.

I am secure in my own skin.

I am at peace.

I am a child of God.

The more compassion, understanding, love, and stability you extend to your inner child directly, the less it will act up unconsciously in your relationships.

In closing, the inner child is a multifaceted issue and really does demand your attention. It is important to explore your inner child, who is very real and a big part of your life, and try to see the patterns of self-sabotage when they happen. It will help your relationship become happier. Remember, awareness is the key to overcoming any obstacles in life. Having a loving relationship with yourself is the single most important thing you can do to heal your inner child.

Rachel Devine’s new book, Discover the Power of the Secret Within: Healing Your Inner Child to Manifest Your Dreams, is on Amazon now.

Devine Intervention: Inner Healing Center

How to Heal your Inner Child: Awareness is key - Rachel Devine

Do you have long-forgotten dreams that you want to make a reality? Do you want to lose weight, start a business, find your soulmate, or get a promotion? Well, now is the time to move forward and make your dreams a reality. Make no mistake about it; you have this miraculous power within you to create your destiny.

However, there can be blocks to realizing your dreams. There is another power called the subconscious mind that is in charge of every decision, every move, and every thought you make in life. Most people have no idea why they have a chip on their shoulder, why they keep meeting the same type of dysfunctional romantic partner, why they have issues at work, or why they have deep-rooted resentments, and the answer lies within. Discovering this aspect of yourself with awareness will empower you to transform your life in a positive way.

Inner Child

Your inner child is your feelings, traumas, and anger that are part of the power of your subconscious mind, which has been picking up messages way before it was able to fully process what was going on (mentally and emotionally). Your inner child usually didn’t get their needs met as a baby, and this plays havoc in adulthood in so many ways.

Subconscious mind

The subconscious mind holds all your emotions, memories, experiences, traumas, and beliefs from the past. This dual force, the subconscious mind and inner child, drives your life 95% of the time! This is an astounding fact, and yet most people have no idea what is going on inside. Therefore, your actions, 95% of the time, are driven by your subconscious mind. Just to bring this down to simple terms: When you get up each morning and, as a routine, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, and check your emails, this is all done by the subconscious mind. Most of your decisions are also dictated by your subconscious mind.

Healthy or unhealthy

The big question now is: Is your inner child healthy or unhealthy? If you didn’t get your primary needs met between the infant stage and 7 years old, then your subconscious mind is not well. This means you could have relationship, work, or family issues. Having this awareness and awakening the inner child is the first step to healing. Once you can recognize what transpired in childhood, you will start to see patterns in your adult decisions and experiences.

Healing

Healing is possible if you change some of the negativity of the subconscious mind to one of positivity. It stands to reason that if you had any trauma from the past, it will get imbedded in your subconscious mind as an imprint and will unleash itself at different times of trigger in your life.

As an example, you may have grown up with some abandonment issues from a parent who was not there for you during little league games and other important events in your life. You may not have gotten the love you deserved. The child becomes angry but usually can’t get in touch with the anger, so it gets repressed. It sits in the body and subconscious mind. Now, as an adult, this person drinks alcohol and becomes violent towards his partner because the repressed anger is unleashed during drunken episodes.

Solutions

It’s possible to heal the subconscious mind by getting therapy from an inner child expert who will help you get in touch with repressed anger. There are also fear issues that are imbedded in the subconscious in various forms. Again, a therapist can help with this as well. Also, listening to some videos that help replace fears with love or those that help release repressed anger can also help. However, one thing is very clear: if you have anger issues or fears, they usually stem from the inner child’s past experiences. Even clearing one issue can transform your life for the better.

Manifesting for healing

A gentle and easy way to heal from inner child wounds is manifestation. It is a way to clear the subconscious mind of anger or fears. Manifestation before you fall asleep is a power technique because the mind is at its most powerful just as you are falling asleep. What you feed it can change the subconscious mind because you are going from a conscious to an unconscious state when you are asleep. This is the most powerful time. Your mind has 8 hours to resonate with what you put in it. You want to feed it with feelings of love if you want to overcome hate or courage to overcome fear. Whatever the adult emotional problem, you want to offset it with the positive opposite emotion. Manifesting is powerful.

Just picture an image of the positive emotion you want to inject into your subconscious mind and fall asleep with the positive feelings of the emotion. If you want to invoke love into your subconscious mind, perhaps fall asleep to an image of a heart and resonate with loving feelings. It is a way to change one layer of the subconscious mind so you will be able to reach your life goals of losing weight, being successful, or having good relationships.

In closing, awareness is the key to helping you clear up some inner child issues that can be causing havoc in your adult life. Once you have the awareness, you have choices on healing, from a therapist to perhaps a life coach to manifesting techniques. I suggest you don’t just walk away from this awareness. Rather, embrace it and start healing your inner child today so you can live the life of your dreams.

Rachel Devine is the author of The Third Road and Lessons from the Needle in a Haystack, and she has a new book coming out very soon on the inner child.

Devine Intervention: The Inner Healing Center