What is the inner child? Explaining the symptoms, benefits of healing, and ways to heal
Daftar Isi
Have you ever heard the term “inner child”? It refers to a psychological and emotional concept representing the childlike aspects of an individual’s personality, emotions, memories, and experiences that persist into adulthood. It encompasses the idea that the emotions, needs, and unresolved issues from one’s childhood continue to influence one’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses in adulthood.
What is an inner child?
It means “the child inside the heart” and refers to the memories and feelings of childhood. There are many ways to look at it, but it may be easier to understand if you imagine it as a child living in your heart.
Our memories and experiences from childhood to adolescence greatly influence our lives later on. Depending on the environment they are placed in during this period (such as being constantly scolded by their parents, being ignored at school, etc.), their inner child may be damaged. It is believed that if it remains hurt and unstable, it will harm later in life.
Inner Child Symptoms
- Lack of self-confidence
- Easily feeling lonely
- Easily feeling lonely
- Difficulty in interpersonal relationships
- Denying yourself and being unable to love yourself
These are just some symptoms that appear when the inner child is hurt. However, providing “healing” is believed to improve your life if you are emotionally injured.
Relationship with Adult Children
Adult children are people who experienced problems in their families when they were children, such as fights or divorce between their parents, and have become adults with trauma.
Healing the inner child is considered one of the ways to heal adult children. Even those who feel they are adult children will benefit from healing their inner child.
Benefits of healing your inner child
If you do not heal your inner child, you will be stuck in the past and will find it difficult to live freely, making it difficult to live. On the other hand, when you heal your inner child, you can focus on the future and not get stuck in the past.
Specifically, you will be able to let go of suppressed emotions, biased emotions, and self-limitations due to assumptions and be able to accept yourself. You will also be able to stop the negative chain of events that can affect your children.
When you heal your inner child, you will feel like you have regained your true self, making your life easier and positively impacting your work and love life.
What are the benefits of healing your inner child?
- Can release suppressed emotions
By healing your inner child, you will be able to release emotions that have been suppressed until now, and you will be able to live freely. If you can release your feelings of “wanting to be loved” and “wanting to be pampered,” you will no longer have to lie about your feelings, and you will be able to express your feelings freely without feeling guilty.
- Can stop the negative chain
Some people with painful childhood memories repeat the same unpleasant things their parents did to their children. Even if you think, “I can’t believe you would do something like that,” if you are tied down to a wounded inner child, you may do something unexpected. Healing your inner child will stop the negative cycle of passing on your damaged inner child to your children.
- Become able to recognize oneself.
There are probably some things that everyone thinks they should do, but if you go back to your childhood memories and find out why you came to think that way, you’ll realize that it was a biased way of thinking forced on you by someone. You’ll notice. When you heal with it, you will be able to get rid of the biased feelings of “I should do this” and accept yourself as you are, “I want to do this.” You will be able to live more freely.
- freed from self-limitation
Some of the things we believe we cannot do may be self-limited by our inner child. For example, if you are limited by the idea that “I can’t be happy,” it will be difficult to take actions that will make you happy or even feel happy. By healing your inner child, you can release self-limitations caused by beliefs and discover possibilities you could not see before.
Disadvantages of healing your inner child
There are also disadvantages of it. Having to face painful memories can be a huge burden on yourself. Your mental protective instinct may make you forget, so try not to force yourself to remember.
Another disadvantage is that your behavior may change drastically as a reaction to healing your inner child, causing trouble to others. Avoiding unreasonableness and extremes will be the key to avoiding disadvantages.
How to heal your inner child
There are ways to heal your inner child by moving your body and writing things down in a notebook, and you can do it yourself without relying on a professional. We will introduce some methods below, so please try to find one that seems easy.
- Playback to childhood.
A simple way to heal is to play with your child again. It might be a good idea to go back to the playground you used to play as a child or buy some candy or toys for adults you wanted but couldn’t buy. As you do this, you will realize that you can now do things you thought you couldn’t do. When you do something, do it as hard as you can, and once you’re satisfied to a certain extent, stop there.
- Consult a psychological counselor.
Another option is to seek psychological counseling to heal your inner child. Even if you have tried methods you can do on your own but have had no results, you may be able to find a solution by consulting a psychological counselor who is an expert in supporting mental worries and problems.
It’s important to note that recognizing a wounded inner child is the first step toward healing and personal growth. Identify with several of these signs and feel that your inner child may be wounded. Seeking the support of a qualified therapist or counselor specializing in trauma therapy can be a valuable step toward addressing and healing these wounds. Therapy provides a safe and supportive environment to explore and heal past emotional experiences and promote emotional well-being.
