Curious about what is inner child work? Dive into the profound practice of nurturing your inner self and discover the transformative healing power it holds.
After years of focusing on mindset work, affirmations, and visualizations, I realized that it wasn’t always enough to make me feel better. I needed something more – inner child work.
This work allowed me to address deep emotional wounds and unresolved traumas. This work brought profound healing and growth. It wasn’t just about intellectual understanding; it was about integrating that knowledge emotionally. Incorporating it into my journey has been transformative.
In this blog post, we explore the meaning of inner child work, its significance for change makers and how to proceed so you can add the practice to your own routines.
What is Inner Child Work?
Inner child work refers to the practice of reconnecting with and healing our inner child—the essence of who we were before the world shaped us. The inner child represents the childlike aspects of our personalities, including our emotions, needs, creativity, playfulness, and curiosity.
Engaging in this work involves acknowledging, understanding, and addressing the unresolved wounds and unmet needs that might still affect our adult lives.
The benefits of inner child work
Healing Childhood Wounds
Childhood experiences, both positive and negative, play a vital role in shaping our personalities and emotional well-being as adults. Inner child work focuses on identifying and healing the wounds that might have originated from difficult or traumatic events during our formative years. By revisiting these past experiences, we can bring light to suppressed emotions, release old patterns, and foster healing and growth.
Reconnecting with Our Authentic Self
Engaging in inner child work allows us to reconnect with our authentic self—the part of us that is pure, spontaneous, and full of wonder. As we tap into the wisdom and innocence of our inner child, we gain a deeper understanding of our true desires, passions, and needs. This reconnection empowers us to make conscious choices aligned with our authentic selves, leading to a more fulfilling and joyful life.
Unleashing Creativity and Playfulness
One of the most beautiful aspects of inner child work is the rediscovery of our innate creativity and playfulness. Children approach life with a sense of curiosity, imagination, and wonder. By reawakening these qualities within ourselves, we can break free from the limitations and rigidity of adulthood. Engaging in creative pursuits, exploring hobbies, and incorporating play into our lives can bring immense joy and rejuvenation.
Healing Relationships
Our inner child significantly influences our relationships with others. Unresolved childhood wounds can impact our ability to trust, form healthy attachments, and communicate effectively. Inner child work offers an opportunity to address these issues and foster healthier connections. By nurturing and healing our inner child, we can develop greater compassion, empathy, and understanding towards ourselves and others, leading to more fulfilling and harmonious relationships.
The Significance of Inner Child Work for Change makers
As a changemaker, you are driven by a passion to create positive change in the world. However, the path to making a difference can often be challenging and triggering. This is where inner child work becomes essential. By understanding and healing our childhood wounds, changemakers can navigate difficult conversations, develop compassion, handle rejection, embrace joy, and protect their emotional well-being.
Navigating Difficult Conversations
Changemakers often find themselves in situations that require starting difficult conversations. These conversations can trigger childhood wounds, especially if there is a fear of conflict that was learned in our early years.
Inner child work provides a framework for understanding and healing these wounds, allowing changemakers to approach conversations peacefully and with emotional resilience.
Developing Compassion thanks to inner child work
Compassion is an invaluable trait for changemakers, especially when engaging with individuals who may disagree with their ideas. Inner child work supports the development of greater compassion by allowing changemakers to understand the worldviews of others. This understanding becomes a powerful tool in bridging gaps and fostering meaningful dialogue to bring about change.
Handling Rejection
Creating change often involves reaching out to people and advocating for new behaviors or beliefs. However, this process can come with a lot of rejection, which can be emotionally challenging.
Inner child work equips changemakers with the tools to address their fear of rejection, heal past wounds where their need for love and connection went unmet, and become more resilient in the face of rejection. This resilience empowers them to persevere and continue making a positive impact.
Learn more about how you can be a happier change maker here.
Embracing Joy and Rejuvenation
Changemakers often dedicate their lives to causes they deeply care about. However, this level of commitment can sometimes lead to burnout and a lack of joy in their personal lives.
Inner child work encourages the incorporation of play and joy, reconnecting changemakers with their inner child’s sense of wonder and creativity. By embracing these aspects, changemakers can experience renewed energy, inspiration, and a sustainable passion for their work.
Embracing and Expressing Emotions
In the pursuit of a brighter future, changemakers may encounter situations that trigger suppressed emotions. For instance, growing up in an environment where expressing anger was discouraged can lead to unresolved anger in adulthood. Inner child work provides a safe space for acknowledging and processing these emotions, protecting the emotional and mental well-being of changemakers.
By allowing themselves to feel and express their emotions, changemakers can maintain their mental health and become even more effective in their activism.
How to do inner child work?
- Stay still, eyes closed, deep breath
- Tune into your emotion, give it a voice
- Speak it out loud or in your mind, journal (write freely)
- Notice if any memories that might come up (no need to force it if nothing comes up)
- Listen to your younger self’s voice (or your current emotion’s voice). What did you need then? What do you need now? What did you need to hear or receive?
- Bring your most loving and empowered self and meet yourself. Let the two parts of you (younger self / empowered self) have a conversation.
- Give to yourself now exactly what you needed back then.
Inner child work is a transformative journey that allows us to reconnect with our authentic selves, heal childhood wounds, and unlock the joy and creativity of our inner child.
It is a vital tool for changemakers, enabling them to navigate difficult conversations, develop compassion, handle rejection, embrace joy, and protect their emotional well-being.
By healing and reconnecting with their inner child, changemakers can cultivate a stronger foundation for creating impactful change in the world. Through this transformative journey, changemakers can truly make a difference while staying true to themselves.
Wanna go further?
Would you like me to support you in the process of uncovering what keeps you stuck in places you do not enjoy and bringing more happiness into your life? Learn more about my work as a life coach for changemakers or join my email community here.
Blog post by Marine Leclerc, founder of Attitude Organic
Photo de Taisiia Stupak sur Unsplash
