15 Powerful Inner Child Healing Exercises to Help You Take Back Control of Your Life
If we don’t take the time to heal our inner child, he/she ends up running and ruining our lives. Triggers, traumas, anger, bullying, it will all come to the surface if you don’t heal all that and more. I believe these powerful inner child healing exercises will help you understand your inner child on a deeper level and also help you deal with and heal from the trauma so you can improve personal relationships and finally begin to enjoy life experiences without the triggers.
Acknowledge Her
Please don’t ignore her or brush her under the rug. She doesn’t show up for no reason. In case you haven’t noticed, triggers happen when we have unresolved or unhealed trauma. Identify your inner child’s beliefs, fears, and emotional needs. Honestly, I think this alone is the most powerful of the inner child healing exercises.
It’s a lot of hard work to deal with and heal from trauma, but it’s necessary if you want to live a life free of emotional pain. Sorry. You need to heal. Give her a name – she doesn’t have to have the same name as you, and give her her own identity. Make her feel heard and special.
Talk to Her
She’s shown up for a reason. Find out why. Have an open and honest conversation with her. You just might be surprised by what you hear if you listen carefully.
The best way to do that is to quiet your mind and call her by name. Greet her, let her know you see her, hear her, and you’re here for her right now.
Maybe ask her the following questions and listen carefully to her answers. This inner child healing exercise will bring you closer to her.
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- What’s wrong?
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- Are you sad/angry/hurt/confused/etc.?
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- What do you want to do right now?
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- Do you need love/attention or a chat?
Listen Carefully
I mean, really listen. I know you probably don’t want to hear all the answers, and you may even get defensive or be in denial, but you won’t heal your inner child’s wounds if you are too stubborn to face them.
Do your adult self a favor. Listen. If you have trouble hearing the first time, just take a deep breath and try again in a little while. You’ll eventually hear her.
Be a Loving Parent
She’s the child, you’re the parent. What did you need as a child? Love, attention, affection, support, encouragement. Guess what? She needs all that, too.
When she shows up, be a loving parent for her. Nurture your child! Calm her anxiety and fear. Calm her down if she’s angry. Just be there for her. You need to reparent your inner child.
Write it Out
Take a few minutes to write out what you heard her tell you. Keep in mind, chances are, you will be writing out some pretty disturbing childhood wounds. Obviously, they haven’t been healed yet.
Write out all the trauma, go through each experience, and name all the people involved, this is where it gets hard but good, and then go back to that time, feel the feels, and tell yourself that this person was hurt themselves and hurt people hurt people.
What they did to me had absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with the unhealed part of them.
Deal With Your Trauma
This is the hard part because you need to re-live what you went through 30 or 40 years ago (or however many years ago it was). This part is ugly, messy, and exhausting but so rewarding when you’re done.
Because of all the trauma I suffered, I deal with the following:
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- low self-esteem
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- low self-confidence/ no self-worth
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- trust issues
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- attract toxic people
Once you start digging deep and dealing with (and healing from) all those ugly wounds, things finally change for the better.
If you feel you need someone to talk to who totally gets you, please reach out to me for some intensive one on one coaching.
Breath Work
I don’t know about you, but when I get a trigger from my past, I also get a little anxious and feel like I’m having a panic attack, and those are brutal to deal with.
Next time you have a trigger and feel an anxiety attack coming on, sit down and do some breathing work. Don’t hyperventilate! Just nice, easy breathing to calm yourself down. I love this as one of the inner child healing exercises because it really grounds you and brings you to the present moment.
Meditate
I get that meditation can be hard, but trust me when I tell you, it does a world of good! There are a million guided meditations online, specifically inner child healing exercises. Find them. Listen to them. Feel them in your heart and soul.
Meditating doesn’t have to be long and drawn out and take hours and hours. You can meditate even for 5 or 10 minutes if you can quiet your mind long enough to listen to it.
Spend Time With Close Friends and Family Members
Spend time with people who you can talk to, who understand you, understand what you’re going through, and who can offer support and maybe even encouragement. It really does help to talk out our feelings with people we love and trust. Their perspective can help us see things differently, too!
Chances are, your family members went through the same thing you did and can offer more emotional support, which is super important to your healing. You can both do some inner child healing exercises together and grow at the same time!
Have a Self Care Day
When was the last time you were really nice and loving to yourself? When was the last time you treated yourself to something nice, took yourself out on a date, bought yourself some lovely flowers, or whatever?
When was the last time you did any of that? Take a day just for you and your inner child, and play, have fun, have a ‘we/me day,’ and fall in love with yourself. A playdate, if you will!
Write Yourself a Love Letter
You read that right, write yourself a love letter, and then read it back to yourself when you’re done. Your unconscious mind will take it all in and remember it. I am a huge fan of writing; I think it’s very therapeutic and one of the most powerful ways to heal any trauma. It’s a great way to release all that built-up toxic stuff buried deep inside of us. If we don’t talk about or write about all the things that are bottled up inside of us, they will just grow and fester and eat away at us.
Write Your Inner Child a Love Letter
Write that little girl a love letter. Remind her how amazing, beautiful, and awesome she is. Pour love all over that piece of paper! You’ve taken the time to acknowledge her, name her, talk to her, and listen to her, but did you reassure her of your love? This is one of those inner child healing exercises that will probably make you cry—a lot. Keep the tissues close by when you do this.
Get Out in Nature
Go for a walk, a bike ride, a swim, hiking, blueberry picking, sit by a pond and feed swans or chase butterflies. Pick something and get outside. We all already know how great fresh air is to clear our minds and even boost our serotonin – the feel-good part of your brain. Tell your inner child you guys are going out, ask her where she wants to go and listen. And then go there. Trust me, you’ll love this.
It’s OK to Cry
We already know bottling stuff up is terrible, and I’ve also given you a few different methods to let it all out, but I forgot one: crying. It’s no secret that crying, just like writing, is very therapeutic. I say it’s like all the toxicity comes out in our tears, leaving us fresh and invigorated. Remember how you felt after you had a good cry? So, cry. Have a good bawl fest.
Worksheets and Journal Prompts
The internet is a goldmine of tools and resources to help you heal from and deal with all kinds of mental health issues. If you do a quick Google search, I’m fairly certain you will find some great sites that offer free worksheets and journal prompts to help you heal your inner child.
Conclusion
It’s so important, and I can’t stress this enough, to heal your inner child. Until we heal the demons from the past, nothing in our lives will change. We will still feel and carry hurt, pain, shame, anger, frustration, and so much more. And we will bleed all over those who didn’t cut us. Do yourself a favor today, heal that wounded child now.
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