Re-parenting yourself and healing your inner child may seem the tough work but you can surely do this. Most of us believe that we are broken and we need to be fixed. However, you don’t need to fix yourself; you just have to heal this inner child within. This inner child of ours needs some reprogramming and assurance that you’re always there.
As life moves on, we tend to forget and disconnect from our childhood while totally focusing on fixing the adult. We believe that all our problems and difficulties are because of our adulthood and we try every single possible way to fix it.
But have you wondered why you always carry such beliefs in your life? Why do you keep living your life on some pre-decided rules? Why you are always in the circle of criticizing and blaming yourself for everything happening in your life? You self-sabotage yourself and make the decision out of compulsion.
We all have our inner child inside of us even when we grow up and this inner child is always neglected or avoided because we don’t know it actually exists.
How am I healing my inner child?
When I was young, I had some beliefs rooted in my brains that in order to be loved you need to be successful, and hence, I always pushed myself hard to get all ‘A’s so as to be loved.
My inner child failed to differentiate love and success as something independent of each other. It took me five whole years to understand that success doesn’t define my worth and nor does my income.
I then pivoted my career, it was a huge leap of faith but this inner voice yelled to take that big step. In this journey of traveling the path less traveled, I was challenged by many conventional beliefs and doubts came encircling me. I had to learn to silence this voice of self-doubt and start re-parenting myself in order to heal my inner child.
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When I started re-parenting my inner child, I realized there were many unaddressed wounds that needed my attention. Since then, I made this a ritual to heal my inner child every single day by the art of journaling. I mother myself on these pages and give it all the love that my inner child always deserved regardless of being successful.
There were certain patterns and signs that I discovered which convinced me that my inner child is wounded and it needs re-parenting and healing. I guess, if you’re reading this, you too may be in this process of healing your inner child. Trust me, this is the best gift you can give to yourself and you’re not alone in this journey.
Here are the signs that made me realize that my inner child was wounded and I needed to re-parent my inner child.
Signs that your inner child is wounded and it needs re-parenting:
We are always provided with the signs but at times we fail to hear them deep. These signs are actually our daily patterns that need to be broken in order to heal our inner child.
You may not resonate with all these signs but I’m sure, majority of these will feel so connected. These are the signs and sirens that you need to start re-parenting your inner child now!!
- You always feel low about yourself
- You’re a people pleaser
- You find it hard trusting your guts and inner voice
- You are always pouring yourself in the cups that fail to contain you
- You cannot trust other people or connect with them
- You feel like carrying the burden on your shoulder
- You have the feeling of jealousy when you see someone getting what you want
- You don’t consider yourself capable enough of doing certain things
- You always have to work hard to earn love
- You feel ashamed of the things that happened in your past
- You cannot make decisions and when you do, you doubt them
- You find it difficult to present your opinion
- You have a bad relationship with food
- You always blame yourself for everything happening in your life
- You feel anxious trying out something new
- You don’t feel true to yourself
- You have difficulty in letting go of things and people
You may have felt these signs in your daily routine but failed to realize them as the signal to start healing your inner child.
Why do you need to heal your inner child?
After learning these signs which strongly urges you the need to heal your inner child, we need to understand why we need this healing and what it is all about. Healing your inner child means being your own parent. Just think of your inner child as an actual child who needs your care, love, and support.
How are you going to be there for your inner child? What are you going to say to this little one when the whole of your life you doubted him/her? The first step towards healing your inner child and representing yourself is accepting the harsh truth that your inner child is wounded.
When you realize that this little being within you needs healing, you can actually move forward to the path of light. The next thing is to understand that you were not responsible for all this and render forgiveness to yourself. Forgive yourself for not being there for your inner child or not knowing that it needs healing.
Many times, instead of giving love, attention, and support to our inner child, we have always criticized it for not being enough. Remember the time when you stood in front of the mirror feeling bad for those extra pounds or calling out yourself as not so beautiful or lovable?
We make ourselves miserable by saying such words or having negative pep-talk. We always feel ourselves not quite enough or never ready for something huge in our lives. We fall in the trap of negative thoughts of being worthless and we literally tell these to ourselves.
It’s high time now, let’s break this chain of negativity and stop self-sabotaging ourselves for not being ‘ENOUGH’.
These are the things your inner child wants to hear instead:
7 things your inner child needs to hear you say:
- You’re loved, always
Remember my story when I said how hard it was to earn love!! Well, you want to make sure that you don’t repeat this with your inner child. When you are re-parenting your inner child, you need to make sure that he/she knows that they’re loved.
Say, ‘I LOVE YOU’ to yourself frequently in front of the mirror or even write a letter to your younger self. We may not have parents who always told this to us but we can surely tell this to ourselves now. You don’t have to be successful to be loved.
- I’m there for you, champ
Some of us may not have the privilege of having parents around while growing up. They may be physically present but emotionally unavailable. At times, our parents don’t know what we’re struggling with and they never seem to notice that from our behaviors or actions.
I’m not blaming them for they might have been raised in that certain way. But we can change this now when we have a chance. Assure your inner child that you will always be there no matter what. A child can only love you when he/she trusts you and by being there you are gaining the lost trust of your inner child. While re-parenting your inner child, make sure that you are truly there, emotionally + mentally.
- I’m sorry
I had always considered working hard as the only way to be successful. The idea of rest has always been so terrifying. I never use to be mindful or enjoy the moment, this is when I felt this strong urge of breaking the chain and apologizing my inner child for pushing myself so hard.
You may have different beliefs due to which your inner child would have suffered, apologize for all those things. Your inner child deserves to know that you realize your mistake and that you’re sorry for all that happened.
- You didn’t deserve this
As a child, we always believe that we deserved a certain kind of punishment if we failed at something. Some of us might have experienced mental or physical abuse and treated it as something we deserve. But now as we grew up, we realize that we never deserved to be treated in such a manner.
Maybe our parents would have unhealed wounds of their past which got reflected in their parenthood. Now that we know, we need to make sure that our inner child is treated well and he/she knows that they didn’t deserve all those things.
- I forgive you
Being a child, I always strived hard to be perfect and do everything that would make me a perfect child. I had so many wrong beliefs that I kept on inserting inside my head which drained me mentally. I had to realize that it was not my fault for not being someone whom my parents always wanted me to be. I was different and if this difference was imperfect, I’m proud to be one.
I didn’t realize all these things while growing up but now when I finally know, I forgive myself for not knowing these things back then. I forgive myself for making myself feel low just because I failed to be ‘same’ as others. This feeling is so liberating and your inner child will feel so free once you render forgiveness.
Re-parenting yourself and healing your inner child will demand love and forgiveness, do not be hesitant to render it.
- You’re doing your best
Growing up, I always needed someone to pick me up while I fail and to assure me that I was doing my best. Some things are out of our capacity and that not everyone is the same. It’s not always our fault when we fail to accomplish something.
We may have given our best and yet failed, it’s okay because at least we tried. Instead of mocking around about our failures, all we need is someone supporting our journey and giving us the ray of hope. Tell this to your inner child quite often. You’re doing your best and I’m so proud of you.
- I hear you
How many times during childhood did you feel like you were unheard as if there was no one around to hear your cries or your thoughts!! You need to hear those cries of your inner child to heal yourself.
There are these wounds that we tried hard to bury as we enter our adulthood but these wounds need your heart to pay attention to, to listen to. Assure your inner child that he/she is now heard and instead of suppressing your inner voice, tell yourself, I hear you and we will work on this together.
Healing your inner child – conclusion
When you’ll start saying these words of assurance to your inner child, you will notice a deep connection within. Words have a great impact on our minds and your inner child is wounded who really needs to hear these out loud.
Make a morning routine and start practicing these re-assuring words while in your journal. I heal myself on these pages while re-parenting and healing my inner child. This may seem overwhelming and a lot of work, but trust me when you start practicing it daily, it won’t seem so difficult.
To help you out, here’s a piece on how to re-parent your inner child and love yourself back. I have listed some beautiful tips that you’ll surely love. I would love to have you inside our Soothe Thy Soul community, click here to join.
I hope that this piece would have inspired you enough to start re-parenting yourself and heal your inner child, the only thing you have to now begin with the inner work.
Do drop your views on re-parenting in the comments below. I love connecting with like-minds.
Also, know that you’re not alone and this is a safe place for you to share your thoughts.
