In every adult there lurks a child - an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the personality which wants to develop and become whole. - Carl Jung
What is the Inner Child?
Dr. Carl Jung, the renowned psychology expert who founded many theories about personality and identity, originated the term ‘inner child’ and it's now used widely as a concept to explore our challenges growing up and developing our personalities. Inner child work involves revisiting and nurturing the wounded aspects of one's past, often stemming from childhood experiences. By reconnecting with the inner child, individuals foster self-compassion and heal past traumas, breaking free from negative patterns and building healthier relationships with themselves and others.
Inner Child refers to the childlike part of our unconscious mind. Essentially, our inner child is the forgiving, free-spirited part of us that still feels and experiences life as a child. Inner children are parts of all our psyche that remains full of innocence, awe, and wonder. When our inner child is healthy, and we are connected with them, we tend to be invigorated, inspired, and excited. The inner child symbolizes joy, liveliness, trust, vitality, wonder, playfulness, imagination and curiosity.
Whether you realise it or not your relationship with your inner child can have a huge impact on your life. In fact, everything from your mental health, physical wellbeing, achievements, relationships with others and even ability to feel joy can all be affected by this younger you. This younger self (or selves) can have a big impact on how you see the world. In the words of John Bradshaw, author of Home Coming, ‘Our childhood becomes the filter through which all new experiences must pass.'
Trauma that happens in childhood lives in the body. Unhealed emotions and trauma reactions that were unsafe for our younger self to feel or express are stored in our memory and tissues. It is our inner child that remembers and is haunted by old hurts and fears. It clings to beliefs that helped us survive in a dysfunctional family. Parts of ourselves can get stuck at an earlier age and inhibit the expression of our true, authentic self. Befriending and communicating with our child self is one avenue of healing trauma. It also develops self-love and frees our true self. When you were a kid you were vulnerable and open. You didn’t have the same defense mechanisms that you have now as an adult.
What happens when our inner child is wounded from past trauma, and we are disconnected from them? When we ignore the inner child in our psyche, as adults, we feel disconnected from life, tired, empty, and unhappy. Our inner child manifests through our beliefs and actions and can have a negative influence on our thoughts, feelings, interpersonal behavior, and choices as adults. To heal trauma, we must develop a relationship with our wounded self.
When your inner child is healed and integrated this can be one of the most beneficial parts of your being. Children have this never failing hope and love that can be so healing and amazing to experience, why shouldn’t we have this energy with us when we're adults? Why wouldn’t we want to carry this energy around with us everyday, in stressful situations it should be an immediate habit to tap into that energy and keep on exerting love, hope, trust, and everything that our inner child stands for.
What Causes a Wounded Inner Child?
Your inner child is a part of your spiritual heart, the part of you as a child that was suppressed, hurt, abandoned, or traumatized. Our inner child can be hidden within layers of hurt and terror, if you had a difficult upbringing or experienced trauma, your inner child may feel alone, scared, and unworthy of love. These parts of us that are hidden away and squashed down can shape a lot of our personality and how we view things.
Words can hurt as severely as actions with some of the signals given to children leaving deep scars that can last a lifetime. Some of these statements and actions made by parents that leave open wounds are as follows:
Not allowing a child to have their own opinions
Discouragement from playing or having fun
Not allowed to display strong emotions (negative and/or positive)
Punishing for speaking up
Continuously shaming by caregivers
Not allowing spontaneity
Was not given appropriate hugs, kisses, or cuddles
The Three Common Ways Children are Made to Feel Unsafe
Children crave and deserve to have their needs met and to feel safe and loved. However many kids can feel neglected and wounded. There are three types of trauma children endure at the hands of their caregivers that cause later adult inner children injury. These include physical, emotional, and psychological neglect.
Physical Neglect. Physical safety and nourishment are basic human needs that are to be given freely from caregivers to children. However, in physical neglect, these rights are violated and are lacking. Unfortunately, physical neglect does not mean only that the child was kept from food and shelter. It also means several forms of abuse are taking place, such as sexual abuse.
The results of this type of neglect are devastating. Below are only a few of the negative impacts physical neglect has on children and the adults they become.
Low self-esteem
Eating disorders
Self-harm
Addictions
Violent behavior
Sexual dysfunction
Emotional Neglect. In this type of neglect, a child’s caregiver did not show enough interest in the child’s emotional needs for support, respect, and love. In these cases, either the caregiver does not pay attention to or condemns any emotional expressions that the child might need.
Like with physical abuse, the symptoms, and outcomes of this type of neglect are dire in adulthood.
Low self-worth
Repressing emotions
Ignoring one’s own emotional needs
Depression
Anxiety
Shunning Emotional closeness or intimacy
Psychological Neglect. This kind of neglect occurred when the child’s caregivers failed to listen, nurture, and embrace the beautiful human beings that they are. This form of neglect includes any or all the following:
Name-calling
Insults
Ridicule
Yelling
Gaslighting
Lack of privacy
Making overt threats
The symptoms that occur when the inner child endures this type of neglect and inhabit adults can be:
Deep-seated feelings of anger
Inability to love themselves
The development of low self-esteem
Addictions
Neuroses
Psychological illnesses
Physical illnesses
Showing a lack of respect for others
Problems with sustaining a healthy relationship
Some Signs You Have a Wounded Inner Child
The first step in healing your inner child is to acknowledge it is there and that he or she is wounded. The harm done to your inner child is directly correlated with the ways you feel unsafe in the world. Below are some signals that you have a wounded inner child.
A deep feeling that there is something wrong with you
Being a people-pleaser
Being a rebel and feel alive when in conflict with someone else
Being a hoarder
Not being able to let go of possessions and people
Experience anxiety with something new
Feeling guilty for setting boundaries
Driven to be a super-achiever
Being ridged and a perfectionist
Having problems starting and finishing tasks
Exhibit constant self-criticism
Feel ashamed at expressing emotions
Ashamed of your body
Having a deep distrust of anyone else
Avoiding conflict, no matter what the cost
A fear of abandonment
Ways of Healing the Inner Child
To find your inner child go into a deep meditation to tap into the inner you. You can use guided meditations to help fasilitate. There are also certain shadow work processes that can get you there or try automatic writing / inner child journaling prompts. Once you can tap into the place where you can talk to your inner child these are some of the next steps you can take.
Give your Inner Child a Voice in a Safe Place
When you are allowing the inner child to speak what it needs to say, about how they feel, Never Judge or try to solve the problem. Simply give him or her a voice and be a good listener. The child simply needs to know you have only love and compassion for what they feel. Allow the child the love and space to see they themselves are strong enough to resolve the issues you face. They need to see they have the power to voice what their needs are and in what way they want their needs to be met.
Expressing your Inner Child
This one is about reclaiming all the positive qualities of the child within. It’s becoming playful and joyful for no reason at all. It’s making silly jokes and having fun like you are a kid, carefree and present in the moment. Do activities or play games that tap you into your child like state. Dance, sing, finger paint whatever it is that you love doing and brings you joy.
A Letter From Your Inner Child
For this practice again try to meditate innerwards and channel your inner child. Your going to write as your childself a letter to your adult self. Try to allow your inner child to say whatever it wants to tell you without contolling what comes through. What does your inner child need to you or others to hear?
After the inner child says what you need to hear then you can come out of the child perspective and come up with ways to improve the relationship. The most important thing to remember while working with the inner child is to validate their feelings. Dont try to rush the child into "feeling better".
Reparenting Yourself
The idea of becoming your own parent may sound a bit out there at first. You may think of yourself as a grown-up just because you reached a certain age but actually we can be very unaware of the fact the our wounded inner child is keeping us in adolescence. As we enter the human experience, we all need two things before everything else. These are physical safety and a sense of acceptance and belonging. If parents or caregivers fail to provide that, these unmet needs may chase you along your life path, which reflects in how you react in situations.
As an adult, you can meet those needs by reparenting yourself. This is about stepping into the role of exactly the kind of parent your inner child needs.
To reparent yourself is to give your inner child what it needs on the emotional level. Some of us still try to find someone “out there” to comfort their inner child. It’s easy to believe that once you find a perfect partner, a soul mate or a spiritual community, everything will finally be alright. But this is usually a band-aid solution. Other people only comfort your inner child as long as they act according to your expectations. The moment they do something that’s not on your agenda, old wounds are brought to the surface. You go back to suffering. That’s why inner child work is so powerful. It allows you to become your own parent by consciously working with the trauma you experienced as a child. You learn to give yourself as much loving attention as you require to heal.
Three general steps to work with your inner child: connect, communicate and nurture.
First, you need to acknowledge the child within. As long as it goes unnoticed, you can’t begin the healing process.
Then, you start communicating with it. Finding a way to hear what your inner child has to tell you is key to access the source of your trauma.
Finally, you step into the role of a nurturing parent. From your adult self, you give your child self exactly what it needs.
Crystals For Inner Child Healing:
Crystal therapy works by harnessing the energy inherent within the crystal of choice. When we touch or hold a crystal, we bring its energies into our bodies and direct them towards areas of imbalance.
When we connect emotionally to a crystal, we are also able to access and clear negative energies and emotions that linger within us. By removing negative energy or fear, we can restore balance and harmony within ourselves.
Pink Tourmaline
Pink tourmaline can help release any unwanted memories from our childhoods. It also help remove anxiety and phobias stemming from childhood trauma that you may still suffer from today. Pink Tourmaline gets rid of this negative energy and works to dissolve all manner of pain and suffering. Its amazing for clearing up subconscious blocks and traumas.
Morganite
Morganite is a heart chakra stone and carries the energy of Divine love and compassion. It is an excellent stone to heal emotional trauma and ease any baggage that your carrying with you into new chapters of life. Its a stone of inner peace and can help resolve inner conflicts that you may not be facing, as well as bringing acceptance into the ones that you do.
Rose Quartz
Did you know rose quartz has been used by indigenous people for thousands of years to treat childhood trauma? It provides emotional comfort and soothes part traumas, making it easier to process and release them. Rose Quartz is also known as the stone of love so when you feel guilty or ashamed for what you went through as a kid or what you didn’t know how to process, rose quartz can help shed some light on those memories and bring in a sense of compassion and genuine love for them and for your inner child itself. Rose Quartz also promotes a feeling of reconciliation, and can help with obtaining a true sense of integration.
Black Tourmaline
Black Tourmaline will help you find the root of the traumas and work with you to come to a full resolution with those emotional wounds. If your choosing to do this inner child work within meditation then tourmaline can also keep your body in the present and help you stay grounded throughout the process. Tourmaline as many know, is a protection stone so when your feeling these vulnerable parts of your past, tourmaline can provide a sense of safety and protection thought it.
Additionally, if the traumas that are weighing your inner child down have manifested into negative habits or thought patterns, tourmaline is an excellent stone for breaking these as well as making you aware of them for future help.
Aquamarine
Aquamarine has an extreme calming energy, its water like vibration helps to calm our nerves and simply relax into the present. When it comes to healing your inner child this stone will be great for opening up that realm of clear and honest communication. While also releasing any burdens, guilt, or anxiety along with the emotional baggage.
Amethyst
Amethyst, also known as the “master healer”, can help one up your mind, body, and spirit to a higher level of consciousness which will be especially helpful if your working in meditation. Amethyst also has an extremely calming and uplifting energy. It also reduces feelings of being victimized, dispelling that negativity that you have accosted with childhood.
Smoky Quartz
Smoky Quartz can be one of the most useful stones for trauma healing, it can be a tool specifically used for healing over the emotional wound in order to not repeat the same things. It also releases fear which can help your inner child feel more safe and comfortable with releasing these memories. As well as protection it can also help realign scattered energy! When emotional trauma has been released, place this stone on or near the areas of your body associated with the trauma. Visualize the smoky quartz cauterizing the emotional scar to prevent any further damage or repetition.
Chrysocolla
Chrysocolla has a gentle, soothing energy, if during meditation, it can help flush out and heal emotional blockage, giving sufferers of heartbreak and anguish the ability to make peace with the past. Allow the healing vibrations of this stone to envelop those old wounds like a healing salve.
Sunstone
Sunstone inspires joy and stimulates the playful energy that is often suppressed in adulthood or even your childhood. Sunstone warms and stimulates the emotional body. It can help you transform anger into energy and judgement into joy. It raises the vibration of your emotional patterns.
Rhodocrosite
Rhodochrosite is the foremost ally in healing the inner child, especially where deep emotional traumas have left you unable to feel joy or express your creativity. It can help you feel more confident in using your will to create a new reality. Its a powerful stone that stimulates, clears, and activates the heart chakra – an important chakra for inner child healing. You can use Rhodonite to clear any emotional wounds and scars by promoting relaxation and wellbeing. This stone helps you overcome verbal, mental and emotional abuse by jogging your memory to say a positive affirmation any time negative thoughts from the past arise in your conscious.
Short Guided Meditation for Connecting with Your Crystal and Inner Child
1. Prepare: Choose a quiet space. Sit comfortably with your chosen crystal in hand. Close your eyes, take three deep breaths, and let go of external worries.
2. Connect with Your Crystal: Feel the crystal’s texture and temperature. Imagine its energy enveloping you in a calming light, preparing you for inner connection.
3. Visualize Your Inner Child: Picture a safe, happy place from your childhood. See your inner child there. Notice their emotions and appearance.
4. Offer Compassion: Visualize yourself approaching your inner child with a warm, open heart. Sit with them, share a smile, and offer them your crystal as a gift of love and protection.
5. Listen and Comfort: Ask your inner child how they feel or if they need anything. Listen carefully. Reassure them that you are always there to love and protect them.
6. Return: With your crystal still in hand, take three deep breaths to bring your awareness back to the present. Open your eyes when ready.
7. Reflect and Repeat: Keep the crystal close and use this meditation whenever you feel the need to nurture your inner child.
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