UNDERSTANDING YOUR INNER CHILD

Understanding the story of our inner child can be helpful when we want to know ourselves more deeply, heal old patterns, and experience greater peace and freedom.

It begins with a simple story.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, we were a child, learning how to eat, sleep, speak, explore, and make our way through the world.

We didn't yet have the ability to meet our basic survival needs on our own. We relied upon belonging to a family or group for the safety, care, and connection we needed. When our belonging felt safe and secure, so did we. When our connection to the group felt threatened, we felt hurt or afraid.

Our connection with others was managed, in part, through our self-expression. We learned very early which ways of expressing ourselves were welcomed and which were met with disapproval, anger, withdrawal, or rejection.

We began to learn what was okay and what wasn't, which parts of ourselves brought about pleasant experiences and which created problems. When something about our natural expression wasn't received well, we sometimes chose to put that part of ourselves away.

Perhaps it was our laughter, our tears, our imagination, our opinions, our sensitivity, our creativity, or our desire to be seen. We were learning how to belong because our survival depended on it, and sometimes that meant learning how to become a little less of ourselves and more like what the group expected.

The Inner Child's Act of Love & Protection

It can be easy to look back at these early adaptations and wish they had never happened. Especially when we fully understand how they’ve been impacting our lives. But what if we looked at our younger selves with compassion instead?

Our inner child was protective of us. When a particular expression of ourselves seemed to threaten our belonging, putting that expression away may have felt like the safest choice available.

The child wasn't thinking about what this might mean decades later. The child was simply trying to stay connected, safe, loved, and accepted.

So perhaps the walls we placed around certain parts of ourselves weren't created because something was wrong with us. Perhaps they were created because, at the time, they were helping us survive.

The child never wanted to remain incomplete or only express certain aspects of self but was protecting us from the hurt we felt when our belonging and survival were threatened.

This is why I believe we can approach the inner child with love rather than judgment. The protection itself is not necessarily the problem. It was an adaptation and an act of love toward ourselves with the understanding and resources we had at the time.

We must first understand that this is natural and that we have this opportunity to heal this inner child and set ourselves free of natural cycle of self-abandonment we experienced when we were small.

When Protection Becomes a Pattern

The restriction of self-expression or the adoption of characteristics and behaviours that do not align with who we are we supposed to be a temporary solution to our survival challenges as a child. We were never meant to continue the process of losing our individuation and freedom of self expression.

As adults, we become increasingly capable of meeting our own needs, making our own decisions, choosing our relationships, and creating our own lives. But we don't always go back inside ourselves to release the protective patterns we created as children and to return the parts of ourselves that we put away in those hurtful times.

The circumstances change. The child grows up. But the protection and wall around our expression can remain and if they do, they create patterns in our adult behaviour and our lives.

What once helped us belong can become a familiar way of moving through the world. We may find ourselves saying yes when we want to say no, making ourselves smaller so someone else remains comfortable, becoming quiet when we want to speak, holding something back, or putting everyone else needs before our own.

Because these responses have become familiar, we may stop seeing them as protective patterns at all.

We may simply think: “This is just who I am”

And that is where something important begins to happen.

When a Pattern Becomes an Identity

A pattern repeated over many years can become part of the way we understand ourselves.

We don't necessarily say, “I learned to put everyone else first”. We might say, “I'm just a giving person”.

We don't necessarily say, “I learned to avoid conflict because disagreement once felt unsafe”. We might say, “I'm just a peaceful person”.

We don't necessarily say, “I learned to stay quiet because expressing myself wasn't always welcomed”. We might say, “I'm just quiet”.

There is nothing wrong with being giving, peaceful, quiet, kind, or supportive. The question is whether we are freely choosing these qualities and when they are expressed or whether they have become patterns that control and direct us.

Sometimes a pattern becomes so familiar that it becomes an identity. And once we identify with the pattern, we can begin protecting the identity itself.

This is where things can become difficult to see. This is when we feel out of alignment but don’t know why. This is how we become disconnected with who we truly are and this continued “self abandonment” creates unpleasant feelings and circumstances within our lives.

When We Protect the Identity

This is where protective patterns can become particularly difficult to recognize.

If I believe that being the person who always gives is who I am, then choosing myself can feel selfish. If I believe that being agreeable is who I am, saying no can feel mean. If I believe that being strong means never needing anything from anyone, allowing myself to be vulnerable or asking for help can feel uncomfortable.

The virtue itself isn't the problem.

Giving can be beautiful. Kindness can be beautiful. Strength can be beautiful. Peacefulness can be beautiful.

But to free our authentic selves we must look a little deeper.

Am I freely choosing this expression of myself, or has it become a way of protecting an old pattern? Can I give without abandoning myself? Can I be kind while still having boundaries? Can I be peaceful without silencing myself? Can I be strong and still allow myself to be vulnerable?

Sometimes the things we have come to value most can also make it difficult to recognize the patterns underneath them.

This is where awareness begins to give us a different kind of choice.

REFLECTION

Shining Our Light of Awareness

We don't need to change anything yet. We can simply become curious.

Think back to the younger version of yourself. What came naturally to you as a child that you don't allow yourself to express as much today?

Were you playful, creative, sensitive, loud, curious, imaginative, or expressive? Were there moments when some part of that expression made you feel unsafe or threatened your sense of belonging?

You don't need to force yourself to remember something painful. Simply notice what comes to mind. The purpose isn't to blame the past. It is to begin seeing yourself more clearly.

There is nothing to do and nothing fix during our reflection. We approach ourselves with kindness, compassion, honesty and love. We are simply here to observe.

HEALING

Healing the Inner Child

Once we begin to recognize these patterns, we can begin to meet the younger parts of ourselves with something they may not have had access to at the time: our adult understanding, compassion, and love.

We can acknowledge that our younger self was doing the best they could with what they understood. We can offer reassurance and remind that part of ourselves that they are safe, loved, and going to be okay.

We can begin to welcome back the parts of ourselves that were placed away for the sake of belonging—the laughter, tears, imagination, creativity, vulnerability, voice, and freedom to express ourselves.

Healing the inner child isn't about becoming that child again. It is about allowing those parts of ourselves to have a place in our lives again, as adults. As the complete and whole being we are meant to be.

It is also about learning a new way of speaking to ourselves.

Instead of asking, What's wrong with me? we might ask, what does this tell me about my most authentic self?

Instead of judging ourselves for who we’ve become, we can be curious about the version of ourselves feels more aligned to us. We can focus on what is underneath these patterns of protection and self abandonment.

Once we begin to let go of the identities that we are not, this authentic version of self begins to shine through and if we can begin to align our thoughts, word, and actions to this version of self we begin to feel the difference of being in alignment with ourselves.

As we become whole, we become healed.

EMBODIMENT

Choosing Freedom

Awareness gives us the opportunity to see. Love gives us the opportunity to heal. Choice gives us the opportunity to become free.

What do you choose the next time you want to say no? What do you choose when you feel yourself beginning to shrink down? What do you choose when you have something to say but feel yourself holding it back?

Perhaps this time, you choose differently. You speak. You say no. You trust yourself. You allow yourself to be seen. You express something that once felt unsafe to express. You move through the wall that was placed up and into the fear you once felt.

It may feel uncomfortable at first. The mind may rush in to remind you of the dangers. Your body may freeze up.

Choosing yourself can feel unfamiliar when you have spent years seeking safety through the approval or comfort of others. But something begins to change when you start to choose for you. You begin to feel what it is like when…

I am there for myself.

By using love to guide us through the fear of making a choice that is more aligned with ourselves we begin to break the patterns and set ourselves free.

Not because fear disappears. Not because everyone approves of us. But because we begin to discover that our safety, our expression, and our sense of who we are do not have to depend entirely on how others respond to us.

It is something we develop and feel by being there for ourselves. We are the ones we have been looking for, waiting for, and needing the most.

The Gift of the Inner Child

Perhaps our inner child still there in the quiet shadows, waiting for us to return to ourselves again.

The laughter, tears, imagination, creativity, vulnerability, and courage to express ourselves that may have been placed away can begin to have a place in our lives again.

Our younger selves learned how to protect us.

Now we have an opportunity to meet that protection with understanding, love, and a new kind of choice. We have the opportunity to heal and become our true selves again.

We can remember the parts of ourselves we tucked away. We can meet them with compassion. And we can begin giving ourselves permission to express more fully who we are.

Perhaps the freedom we have been searching for isn't something we need to find somewhere outside ourselves. Perhaps it is simply something we can learn to offer ourselves from within.

You have the power to heal yourself.

Continue Your Freedom Journey

Understanding the Inner Child is only the beginning.

When we begin to recognize how our early protective responses can become patterns—and how those patterns can become identities—we can start to see how they continue to influence the way we live today.

In the next part of the Freedom Series, we will explore those protective patterns more deeply.

Next: Break Free from Your Protective Patterns →

Learning to uncover who we truly are by letting go of who we're not.

Experience It: Healing the Inner Child →
Explore the accompanying healing experience on YouTube.

Go Deeper: Freedom Series Workshop →
Experience the complete Reflection | Healing | Embodiment journey through the Freedom Series workshop.