How to Heal Inner Child Wounds

Are you looking for how to heal inner child wounds?

Well, you’ve come to the right place!

Here I will show you key points you need to know to heal your inner child wounds.

But first, we need to go over a few things.

What is the Inner Child?

Your inner child, similar to your shadow, is part of your unconscious mind.

The inner child is the true, uncontaminated essence of who we are; that which is spirited, creative, authentic, and accepting.

Your wounded inner child is a part of yourself that’s stuck in a time where you didn’t fully process your emotions.

This wounding typically involves learning to disown a part of yourself and leaving it behind.

Family and culture make you embrace some parts of your Self, while completely abandoning others.

This happens when a child idealizes her parents and follows arbitrary rules for survival.

These rules implicitly embed the child with the unconscious idea that she is “bad”—which is a typical childhood experience.

When the child sees that some of her feelings and thoughts are unacceptable, she chooses to get rid of them.

(This creates the child’s “inner parent”, which encourages obedience at the cost of being whole.)

Then the rules and unconscious beliefs you learned as a child evolve and are carried into adulthood.

What is Inner Child Work?

Inner child work, or inner child healing, is becoming aware of what aspects of yourself you’ve denied and redeeming them via conscious integration.

It’s doing the griefwork to digest and process emotions that you carry from the past.

While becoming conscious of the underlying beliefs that have been driving your existence.

By doing this, you become more emotionally mature and experience universal Love.

You can also do inner child healing through shadow work prompts.

How to Heal Inner Child Wounds

Compassion, acceptance, truth, unconditional love

Approach yourself the same way you’d approach a friend who needs support.

Be willing to accept yourself with all your perceived flaws and love yourself enough to be as honest as possible with yourself.

Everybody is deserving of love and is perfect just as they are. But it’s the way we measure people up to some arbitrary ideal that causes us suffering.

Check out 8 Shadow Work Side Effects

Become aware of how you feel and willingly take 100% responsibility for mending your pain and understanding your feelings

One of the hardest things to admit is that you have a deep-rooted problem.

For example, I’ve suffered depression for several years before doing anything about it.

My suicidal ideation grew more and more as time went on.

But here’s the thing:

I knew that I could go to a healthcare professional to get help. I just never did it.

It’s not that I enjoyed wallowing in pain, but it’s that I never thought to myself-

“Hey, this could actually be what’s best for me.”

It never clicked that I should take responsibility for this inner pain. The idea that I should do what might be best for me never occurred until I hit rock bottom.

Getting help for myself, taking responsibility, never even appeared in my mind as an option.

The most important thing you will learn from self-love is that the person who can fulfill all your own needs the best—

Is You.

Check out Can shadow work help with depression?

Stop judging yourself and admit the pain you deny carrying

Judging has always been self-sabotage.

When you demonize or dehumanize another person for a quality they have or express, you are indirectly telling your mind “that is not me”.

For example, if you judge fat people to be disgusting. One day you might find yourself to be fat and live in shame of your prior judgments.

Life is long and it’s foolish to think you won’t experience what the people you judge go through.

Another aspect you must take note are the conditions you put upon yourself to be happy.

When you tell yourself, “I must accomplish these things to be happy”, you are judging yourself as unworthy of being happy.

Your judgments of how things sHOuLd bE are the very attachments that cause you suffering.

Admitting the suffering you cause yourself is the first step to self-forgiveness.

Check out Shadow work for trauma, anxiety, and fear

Choose to feel your pain so you are no longer a victim to it

You feel that you are a victim when life sends you an obstacle that is not by your design.

To stop being a victim you must choose to feel this pain.

The best example I can come up with relates to excessive codependency or “needy” people.

They fear self-confrontation and being alone. Yet in actuality, being alone and spending time with only themselves is exactly what they need.

How do you get over the fear of being alone?

Gradually, and by choice.

You can’t be victim to a circumstance you willingly and consciously chose to experience with your own personal power.

Check out Shadow work for Relationships

The bigger this inner pain, the larger the discrepancy you have with your true nature

Every person is only a small part of a bigger whole.

People with inner wounds have learned to self-abandon. In turn, they’ve learned to abandon “God’s plan”.

I’m NOT trying to be religious right now.

What I’m telling you is that there is something in you that guides you on your personal path in this world.

It’s inexplicable.

But it’s the same unseen force that guides you to your interests.

Can you explain your interests? Can you explain why you like what you like?

You can’t.

This same unseen, higher power, is your connection with the whole. The Universe, Love, God, etc.

Having inner child wounds causes you to lack self-love. This creates distance between you and your intuitive ability to listen to the higher guidance that resides within you.

Otherwise known as the “Transcendent Function”.

People who have healthy upbringings will naturally have an easier time because they’ve grown into their lives letting this transcendent function guide them.

People who have had rough upbringings will struggle because they are too far from their inner guidance.

This is why healing your inner child wounds and learning self-love is crucial.

Because a mended inner child is the bridge to your higher self.

Check out Does shadow work help with manifestation?

Generally the feeling of pain is meant to guide you away from what’s not good for you. Ignoring your pain means you will continue to cause your own pain; typically addictions

People who were abused have learned self-abandonment.

This means that they’ve tolerated so much pain that they have become emotionally numb.

Somewhere along their life’s journey, they were taught to keep their hand in the fire, even if it hurt (or else).

Personally, I grew up in an abusive household. I got so used to maltreatment that I didn’t know any better when I joined the “real world”.

My first job was full of shitty people and there was a lot of mistreatment. The only reason I stayed was that I figured, “I’ve dealt with much worse”.

This was foolish.

I was too young and inexperienced to know any better at the time. But I was allowing my self-esteem and self-love to crumble every single day.

My psyche became absolutely distorted. My shadow grew incredibly dense.

In retrospect, I see how I caused my own pain. The only excuse I have is that I didn’t know how it was like to be treated with a semblance of respect, or even decency, until much later.

If you are in an environment that makes you think less of yourself, or think badly of humanity as a whole—

Leave.

Understand that you can’t grow a good soul in a bad environment.

Check out How long does shadow work last & does it last forever?

Pay attention to the feelings that lead up to acting on your addictive behaviors

What feelings do you have before you start acting on your addiction? Explore them.

Some people have trained themselves to masturbate as soon as they start feeling lonely.

Others eat mindlessly when they feel their lives need variety and excitement.

Many people start drinking because they feel helpless over the actions of others.

There’s a lot of self-reflecting you need to do here.

Whether you need to soothe yourself, accept the way people are, or become more self-aware of how your being wants to live.

Check out Shadow Work Prompts for Healing the Inner Child, Self-Love, and Relationships

If you don’t want to accept full responsibility for your feelings, ask yourself why you think someone else can manage your feelings better than yourself? Do you think your ability to do so is inadequate?

This point is very self-explanatory.

When you are a child, it’s possible for the validation of others to be sufficiently fulfilling.

As an adult, the only person who is fully capable of fulfilling you is yourself.

Sure, others can help. But you’re the only person who can do it best.

Check out Best Books on Shadow Work & Unconscious Mind

Honor your inner child’s wants by listening and following through on your promises, or else it won’t feel heard

This is best done with Active Imagination (a conscious effort at the Transcendent Function).

You do this by meditating in a private and comfortable place and envisioning yourself talking to your inner child.

From there you ask your inner child questions such as:

What am I doing that is making you feel [feeling]
How do you feel when I indulge in [addiction]
When you feel bad, what can I do to make you feel better and not worse

There are many great resources to help you get in touch with your inner child.

Some people prefer shadow work prompts, but I personally think everyone should learn self-love and being (since it builds compassion for yourself and others).

Here are some resources I recommend:

A Light Among Shadows is a guide to self-love and being that helps you overcome negative self-talk, instill genuine self-acceptance, and overcome self-hate and resentment by making sense of people’s level of consciousness and your spirituality.

Shadow Work for Beginners Series helps you beat negative patterns and beliefs, integrate your shadow, heal your inner child, reclaim your projections, build emotional maturity, and take back your life by becoming whole.

Shadow Work for Relationship Series helps you heal your attachment style, navigate relationship issues, and build a healthy, mature relationship.

Advanced Shadow Work is an ongoing publication with continued in-depth insight and practical advice you won’t find anywhere else on the internet for practicing shadow work, self-awareness, inner healing, spiritual development, and more!

Approved Tools

Tarot Cards (incl. Manifestation Manual ebook) provide insight and intuitive guidance for personal growth and decision-making.

Chakra Crystals (incl. Ancestral Healing ebook) can bring balance and harmony to your mind, body, and spirit.

Book of Shadows (incl. Shadow Work Journal) is your own special journal that you fill up with your energetic intentions as you scribe your own inner practices to be passed down to others.

Subliminal Bundle uses different hypnosis tracks to subconsciously improve your health, love life, motivation, self-love and much more.

These products are not affiliate links, we do not get a commission when you purchase these tools. We are supportive of our partnership with Sinful Goods for offering small websites a chance to promote their brands.

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