Working With Your Inner Child

Many of us struggling with addictions and mental health issues experienced trauma during childhood. Our emotional responses to our trauma get stored within us, and sometimes we continue to feel their effects years later. As we are working to heal our pain and fears, one healing technique we can use is communicating with our inner child.

Focus your attention on bringing forth memories of yourself as a child. It can help to look at any photos you might have. Ask yourself questions and begin to try to answer them. What pain did you experience? What losses did you sustain? What grief were you carrying? How did the people around you hurt you? How did this trauma make you feel? What are the effects you’re feeling now, as a result of this trauma?

As we’re asking ourselves these difficult questions, we might struggle with revisiting our childhood. Some of us bury our pain so deep and suppress our memories so much we have a hard time remembering. Some even block things out and retain no memory of their trauma. For some of us, it can feel too painful and too frightening to face. Some of us feel confusion around our memories and struggle to know the truth about our experiences. With the help of a therapist, mentor or spiritual guide, we can work to recall memories we may have suppressed and try to sort them out.

Whether or not you can remember details of your childhood trauma, you can work with your inner child to help heal your pain. Take your childhood photo if you have one, or hold an image of yourself in your mind. Talk to this child, your inner child, and say things like “I’m so sorry for your suffering. You didn’t deserve the pain you experienced, and it wasn’t your fault. You are perfect. You are safe.”

Offer the compassion to your inner child that you may not have received when you were younger. Offer yourself comforting and soothing words. If you are still struggling with residual shame from the mistakes and wrongs you committed as a child, tell your inner child, “You can forgive yourself. You are forgiven.”

Much of what we struggle with as adults comes from what we experienced as children. When we can connect and communicate with our inner child, we can provide ourselves with a powerful source of healing.

Healing from addictions and mental health challenges means healing mind, body and spirit. The community at Enlightened Solutions is here to help. Call (833) 801-LIVE