5 Things to Know About Your Inner Child and How It Leads to Self-Love and Compassion
5 Things to Know About Your Inner Child and How Inner Child Healing After Childhood Trauma Leads to Self-Love
***Childhood Trauma Trigger Warning
Self-care, real true self-care is not facials, and shopping sprees, it’s crying in therapy, it’s looking inward at yourself, it’s healing your deepest darkest wounds. It’s growth from within, the kind of growth deep down you know you need, but you also know, it might be painful.
Last week, we discussed EFT tapping. Often times EFT tapping can accompany other types of meditation, exercises or various forms of therapy. One of these healing methods is called inner child healing.
Inner child healing can be done several ways. When a person has an unsafe, unstable or abusive childhood, they can often lash out, react or behave as a child would, even onto their adult years. To hear a great explanation of how our inner child takes control in times of stress click HERE.
Inner child healing combines guided meditations with visualization where a person imagines they are with a younger version of themselves and they talk to them, comfort them and care for them in a multitude of ways.
This week, on the podcast we have Heather French teaching us about inner child healing and how we can love ourselves after trauma. To listen to the whole episode, click HERE.
Heather French is a Self-Love & Soul Alchemist and Alchemy Coach. Her mission is to empower heart-centered healers and empaths to break the cycle of toxic relationships, prioritize their needs and cultivate love from within so they can align with their souls true calling. She helps women show up for others while continuing to protect their energy and avoid burnout. She is a certified life coach, rapid manifestation method coach, and Reiki master.
Heather explains that our subconscious brain develops around age 7 and during that development, if we have trauma, neglect or parents who struggle with addiction, abusive relationships, mental health disorders etc. those things are engrains into our subconscious. She says that for her this looked like getting triggered and yelling, freaking out at other people, then withdrawing into her room and beating herself up about how to she “over-reacted”. Our reactions are a result of our subconscious programing so it’s really our inner child lashing out that creates this reaction.
Heather started inner child healing every morning and when she feels triggered. She starts her day, by wrapping her arms around herself, she imagines her inner child before school, she cooks her breakfast, tells her to have a great day, and tells her that she is loved, smart, and worthy of good things.
When she feels triggered she pictures her inner child and walks with her for a while, colors, plays outside and gives her time and space to express herself. Then she asks her what she needs, what she is missing and how can she help. I think, this is such a beautiful way to acknowledge our feelings.
Another way you can practice inner child healing is with a guided meditation.
Here is Heather’s favorite Inner Child Healing Guided Meditations:
5 Things to Know About Inner Child Healing
1. Inner child healing helps us respond, instead of react. When we feel triggered often times our inner child takes over and reacts. When we are aware of this, we can take a minute to ask our inner child what they need; why they are feeling this way, and what are they missing. Then we can respond, instead of react to any given situation.
Heather says that she experienced a lot of food insecurity growing up and that led to unhealthy eating patters and behaviors with food overall. Her inner child was afraid to be hungry again so she over-ate and chose unhealthy comfort foods. Our inner child takes control and we may not even realize it. Has this ever happened to you?
2. Inner child healing helps us be kinder and gentler with ourselves. Most people are really hard on themselves; we would never be that hard on another person, let alone an innocent child. If we can tap into our inner child and see them as scared, lacking something, feeling lonely or abandoned then it is easier to have grace with ourselves. We aren’t stupid, or lazy or crazy, our inner child is hurt, lonely, or lacking in some way.
3. Inner child healing helps us to love ourselves again. Heather explains that the biggest change she noticed after practicing inner child healing was that she was able to have grace for herself and show herself love and appreciation. After years of trauma and addiction she did not have much love, compassion or understanding for herself, but thanks to inner child healing she was able to heal the relationship with her inner voice. This has led her to more positive outcomes than she can count. It is truly remarkable the change you can see in a person who is healing their inner child, their subconscious and their relationship with themselves.
4. Inner child healing is a great way to actually go back and heal trauma from our past. It is thought to help people to love themselves again, have grace for family and potentially even re-write the subconscious programing that was damaged so long ago.
5. Inner child healing is not self-fish. Healing yourself is actually the most self-less thing you can do. Obviously healing from within is good for us, however imagine if when you got frustrated with others you handled that in a calm and respectful way. Imagine having more grace for others, being more understanding with those around us, and healing relationships we know could use some work. Healing is not self-fish. So, take the time and do what you need to do.
Although we cannot change the past, we can change how we react to it. After all, we see the world through the lens of our subconscious, what color are those lenses?
Connect with Heather French:
As a reminder, we love counseling!! Inner child healing can be very intense and getting help from a counselor is an awesome place to start if you need help. Get a free week at www.betterhelp.com
Find counselors in your area and get more information at www.psychologytoday.com
Find Inner Child Healing Guided Meditations:
Relax for a While https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2OfD00e6Tk
Michelle Chalfant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8779P4rim80
Sponsored by Goat Yoga Summer ’21 Register for class dates now at https://www.greenapplebarn.com/
Connect with Sarah Zastrow
Pinterest Page: https://www.pinterest.com/micultivatebalance/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMVcExxS1xgVghkfXQ7e
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