Holistic healing

How to heal your inner child

Connecting to our inner-child can help to heal past traumas and improve our emotional wellbeing

We all suffer with low-ebb days from timeto- time, but if you’re perpetually exhausted and your sensitivity is on a hare trigger, it might be that your inner-child needs some help. “The inner child is the most authentic, trusting, present, wide eyed, aspect of our psyche,” explains Dawn Breslin, psychologist, life coach and founder of the Harmonising Emotional Wellbeing Coaching Academy (dawnbreslin.com). “It’s playful, creative, inquisitive and spontaneous. It’s full of innocence and wonder. When we feel connected to this aspect of ourselves, we feel a sense of freedom and we feel excited, inspired and energised about life.” However, when we lose that connection, things can start to feel a little ‘off’, manifesting in anything from low self-esteem, repressed emotions and anxiety to fear of expressing strong emotions, addictions, selfharm, OCD or even suicidal feelings.

So, where does our inner-child come from? You guessed it, our inner-child is who we were, and how we experienced life as a child. Growing up, if a child feels safe within their family and their home; if their physical and emotional needs are met and they are accepted for their true self, they will grow up feeling secure. However, if the opposite is true, and if parents or caregivers are physically or emotionally abusive or absent, trauma arises in the child’s mind and body, impacting the way they experience adult life, and many of us can believe that is ‘just how life is’.

When it comes to starting the healing process, awareness can be the first step, “When individuals realise that their adult behaviours may be linked to childhood traumas, that is when they can start to take the necessary steps to heal themselves,” says Dawn. “I would suggest you seek help from a professional psychotherapist or a counsellor, however, you can do some work by yourself (such as my exercise below). Everyone will have a unique experience, for some it may be difficult, it can be painful, but going through this process means you can have a completely different experience of life.“

Tune in

Try Dawn’s exercise to help you connect to your inner-child

Find a selection of photographs from when you were a child and lay them on a table or floor in front of you. Imagine a time when you were really happy. Reconnect with those memories.
It might be that your memories are not with primary caregivers, it could be with grandparents, it could be with cousins; it could be away from home or it could be with friends. While thinking of this, ask yourself, what did you really love doing at that age?
Remember who you used to look up to as a small child and why they were important to you.
Remember your favourite sweets, toys and activities; and consider what gave you joy. What came easily to you? What we are beginning to do here is create a window back into the essence of who you are.
The chances are, if you appreciated these things as a small child there will still be aspects of them you embrace as an adult. One of the first things to do to nurture your inner child is to start to introduce those things that you really loved to do when you were younger into your life as an adult.