The Wounded Child

Healing Trauma Makes the World Feel Safer

Your inner child is the most sensitive, creative and spontaneous you. Sometimes they come looking for love and acceptance. When wounded, your inner child can reach out to you through tantrums, micromanagement, justification, rationalization or by overexplaining. You might also experience a fear of abandonment, wobbly boundaries or self-doubt. When any of these indicators arise, your inner child wants to be listened to and cared for. Become your inner parent by comforting, protecting and standing up for your wounded child. This self-nurture will foster a sense of security for your vulnerability, innocence and softness. Ask your wounded child what they need and listen with an open heart. You will learn something new about yourself and gain wisdom and guidance. Go gently. Avoid pushing your ideas on them or trying to make them grow up. Rather, have fun with them. The safer and more loved they feel, the more they can heal. Practice seeing everything and everyone through the eyes of your healed child. You are free to create joy and fulfilment from their view of curiosity and wonder.

Shadow Mastery Class: Be the Parent You Always Wanted

Meditation

Place your hand on the card. Gently close your eyes. Sense your body and concentrate on your breathing. Follow your breath inward. Hold for five seconds and relax. Breathe out and release all tension. Focus on the middle of your chest.

In front of you, a golden staircase descends into the earth. Relax as you walk down the ten healing steps to a magical, amethyst crystal cave. With each step, you feel yourself being drawn closer to your heart of fun and joy. Step into the amethyst cave and greet your shadow. In front of you, a bright rainbow rises through the cave. Steps form in the rainbow. Follow them to the top, where a luminous heart materializes in front of you.

Step into the heart. You are safe and cared for. The heart shows you something from your childhood that wants to be healed. As an adult, you have the power to change outcomes. You are magical. Use your superpower of imagination to see the situation or experience playing out differently. See your inner child nurtured, strengthened and healed. From the center of the healing heart, your inner child skips or runs towards you. Open your arms and embrace them. Whisper into their ear that you will always make a safe space for them to create, play and enjoy. They melt into your arms and then deeper into your heart.

Step out of the heart to the other side of the rainbow, which has turned into a slide. Jump on and begin your slide back to the amethyst cave. Wind rushes past you, and you laugh as you are unceremoniously dumped into the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow slide.

Climb out of the pot of gold and return to the golden staircase. As you ascend, hope, joy and creativity rise within you. Thank your shadow for tending to your childhood wounds until you were ready to heal them. At the top of the stairs, take two deep breaths in and out and open your eyes to spontaneity and fun.

Inspired Insights, Reflections and Actions

You are responsible for being an unconditionally loving parent to your inner child and creating a safe, psychological inner space. Inner child work helps you to understand the foundations that informed your development and any childhood wounds you may have. As an adult, you can deliberately and consciously reshape yourself.

Exercise: Observe younger generations. How are they teaching you to have a better relationship with your inner child?

Once a week, do something you enjoyed as a child, such as eating ice cream, playing a board or video game, coloring in, drawing or writing. You are not being childish but allowing the fun, imaginative inner child to merge with your adult self to create your dream life.

Journal Work

Describe what your inner child looks like with words or drawings. Then invite them to share their wounds. After 24 hours, ask your inner child what you can do or provide to help them heal. This exercise is not about looking for blame in the past but about healing in the now. The environment we grew up in may have included parents, adults or a society that carried wounds they inadvertently pushed upon children. You cannot change what happened, but you can give your inner child the love, care, resources, encouragement and whatever else it needs to grow strong now.