The Inner Child

In the previous post, we looked at how emotions can reveal our unmet needs, and noted that often the emotions and needs we encounter in ourselves mirror the things we felt and needed as children:  to feel safe, to be loved, to be treated as important.  Even though we can’t remember it, we experienced these same emotions and needs from the moment we were born, and how those needs were met helped shape us into the adults we eventually became.  But even though we’ve grown up, there are still parts of us that respond to the world the same way we did when we were children—and these parts of us still carry any needs we didn’t get met at that time.  When people talk about an “inner child”, this may be what they’re referring to; but what do we do with this “inner child”?

Unfiltered Emotion

Just like raising a child isn’t easy, dealing with our own inner child isn’t easy.  The child parts of us haven’t necessarily learned the rules for how society expects us to behave, or the techniques we use as we grow to keep our impulses in check.  This means our child self can be impulsive and chaotic; if it wants something, it wants that thing NOW.  If it feels hurt, it lashes out to destroy whatever hurt it, or retreats and shuts down to stay safe.  The child self doesn’t care if its emotional reactions seem proportionate to what caused them, or whether it “makes sense” to feel a certain way.  It just has feelings, raw and unfiltered, the way all children do.

This can be hard to contain and understand, but there is a strength to this part of us as well:  it is honest.  Unlike our adult selves, the child self doesn’t live in denial or suppress how it feels.  It just feels, and as we discussed previously, those feelings tell us about what we need.  The first step in dealing with the child self, then, is accepting the honest emotions it shows us and understanding what they’re telling us.

For example, imagine someone who feels lonely and wishes to be in a relationship, who then finds out that a friend is getting married.  Their immediate, unfiltered emotion might be jealousy or anger, as the child self lashes out:  “I want that!  Why do they get it and not me?”  Then the adult self might take over, and say “what a bad friend I am—I should be happy when others find happiness, not jealous”.  But that message from the child self, as contrary as it may be to the rules of polite society, is telling that person something important.  They want to be loved, and it hurts to see others getting what this person wishes they had.  Instead of pushing this feeling away, the person could recognise and accept the message from the inner child:  we want to be loved, and it’s okay to be sad and angry when we don’t get what we want.

Re-Parenting

So, if we’ve accepted what the inner child is telling us, what then?  In the above example, it would obviously be inappropriate for the person to act angry and jealous towards their friend, just because their friend got something that person wanted.  But if we’re not suppressing the emotion, and we’re not expressing it in a raw, unfiltered way, what options does that leave?

Consider the role a parent plays in a child’s life:  ideally, the parent doesn’t let the child do whatever they want—because that would be dangerous and unhealthy—but they also don’t try to suppress or smother the child.  The ideal path for a parent, as tricky as this can be to navigate, is to acknowledge the child’s desires and feelings without letting those things be in control, and direct the child towards appropriate outlets for those feelings.  For instance, a parent won’t let the child climb the bookshelf, because that’s dangerous, but they could take the child to the park where they can climb on play equipment.  By doing this, the parent sends the message:  “It’s okay that you want to climb, as long as you only climb in safe ways”.  The child isn’t shamed or punished for having that desire, just redirected towards the most appropriate outlet.

This is the same kind of relationship we can have with our inner child.  Instead of saying “I’m a bad friend for being jealous”, we acknowledge “it’s okay to be sad and angry when we don’t get what we want”.  Then, we find appropriate outlets for those emotions, to treat them as valid while still not letting them be completely in charge.  For instance, we might write those feelings in a journal or express them through art.  We might channel our frustration into exercise or physical work, or just let ourselves have a good cry, then give ourselves something soothing like a bath or a walk.  Or we might talk to someone supportive about our emotions—perhaps even the person who triggered them, if it seems appropriate and not likely to cause harm. 

In this way, we give our child self the kind of gentle but boundaried parenting it needs, teaching ourselves that there is nothing wrong with having our feelings as long as we direct those in appropriate ways.  Through repeated practice, this kind of “re-parenting” can help us address the needs of our inner child and allow it to have a voice, so that it can be treated as valid and important, the way all children should be.

Healing the Inner Child

We’ve discussed what “ideal parenting” looks like, but of course in reality all parenting is not ideal.  No parent, regardless of how good their intentions might be, can be perfect, and all parents at some point or another leave some need of their child unmet.  And, of course, in some cases children grow up with parents who do actual harm, who are abusive or neglectful or experiencing their own challenges and limitations, and all of this has an impact on the child as they grow.

Which means that everyone, whether their childhood was supportive or harmful, has experienced unmet needs that their child self still carries.  When those needs manifest in our adult lives, they can show up as strong emotions, as described above:  anger, jealous, fear, and so on.  In the moment, those emotions can confuse us, because they don’t seem proportionate to the thing causing them.  But if we investigate those strong emotions instead of rejection or suppressing them, it can lead us back to their source—the unmet needs from our childhood.

For example, consider the person described above who feels jealous when they learn of a friend’s marriage.  They might ask themselves, “why am I reacting so strongly to this?”  And when they explore the source of those feelings, they remember times as a child when they wanted to feel loved and appreciated, but instead felt rejected or ignored.  The needs that didn’t get met during childhood are now manifesting as hurt and anger in their adult life.

In a situation like this, there is an opportunity to help that inner child heal from the wounds caused by those unmet needs.  When we look inside ourselves and see that child self through the emotions it’s experiencing, we can direct our caring and compassion towards that part of ourselves.  We can tell ourselves, “it’s okay that you’re feeling hurt and angry, because you wanted and deserved to be recognised and valued, and you weren’t”.  Then, we can give that child self exactly what it needed at the time:  love, recognition, compassion, validation.  We can tell ourselves, “I was always worthy of love—the fault lies in the people who should have given it to me, and didn’t, not in me”. 

We may encounter resistance when we try to engage in this inner child healing.  We might feel like we don’t deserve that kind of love and compassion, or that it only matters when others give it to us and not when we give it to ourselves.  But imagine that it was an actual child who was needing this care—would you say that this child doesn’t deserve love?  Would you say it’s the responsibility of others to care for it, and not you?  Of course you wouldn’t, because all children deserve love.  The children those adults grow into deserve love as well, and giving yourself that love is the work that healing your inner child requires.

From Hurt to Healing

The process of acknowledging, understanding, and healing our inner child is not always simple, but if we’re willing to put in that work, the end result is a better relationship with ourself and a healthier way of coping with our own emotional needs.  As the inner child heals, the raw, chaotic emotion it expresses might soften, and our ability to respond to and manage those emotional outbursts improves.  Instead of rejecting our genuine emotions or punishing ourselves for them, we can understand their origins, recognise their validity, and meet the needs they reveal to us.  When we have compassion for all the parts of us, including our child selves, we improve our own inner lives and make it that much easier to thrive in the world.