What you experienced during your childhood is the one that will establish the tone for the way you think, feel, and behave once you reach adulthood. The problem is that the quality of your childhood and most parts of it are beyond your control. This is the reason why some look for inner child activities to heal from their negative experiences when they were still young.
You can do the same, especially if you feel like your inner child is not in the best place now. If that’s the case, you need to do some work and try healing and recovering from the negative effects of your childhood. That way, you can see yourself finally becoming genuinely happy.
Inner Child Defined and How to Tell If It is Wounded?
Your inner child plays a huge part in who you are regardless of your age. It is a vital part of your subconscious mind, holding the beliefs, memories, and emotions from your past and your wishes and hopes for your future. With that said, it is also safe to define it as a free-spirited part of you, which still has child-like experiences.
Everyone has this inner child, including you, and you need to look for the connection so you can deal with any part of it that needs healing. Now, how can you tell if you have a wounded inner child? Then you have to look out for the following signs:
- Hypersensitivity to negative situations, feelings, and even constructive criticisms
- Chronic desire to please people to the point that you are already sacrificing yourself
- A constant search for heavy validation by showing off your achievements, work, and productivity – In most cases, you tie your worth to such things.
- Numbness or avoidance of feelings
- Anti-confrontational attitude – In other words, you exert a lot of effort in preventing yourself from having conflicts with anyone
- Difficulty in setting boundaries and sticking to them in your relationships – This is whether romantic or family relationships or between friends.
If you experienced at least one of the mentioned signs, it is crucial to start soothing your inner child. Fortunately, there are several inner child activities that you can easily integrate into your daily routines.
Entertain your Inner Child with the Right Activities
With the correct activities, you can entertain and heal your inner child. Once healed, you get to connect with your inner child and nurture it, bringing it back to life. To give you some ideas, here are some of the things you can do to heal your inner child:
Do some mirror work
Negative constructs, like those statements that degrade yourself (ex. “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t matter”), usually stem from the abuse or mistreatment you felt during your childhood years. You can recover from such negative narratives with the help of mirror work.
The goal of this activity is to exert an effort to develop a loving relationship and connection with your own self. This means you should start looking and reflecting deeply on yourself as you look in the mirror every day. You should then make positively powerful healing statements while doing so.
A few examples of such statements are the following:
- “I matter.”
- “I am good enough.”
- “My wants matter.”
- “My voice deserves to be heard.”
Develop a self-compassionate attitude
Another thing you can do is to be more self-compassionate. You have to be kinder to yourself and stop giving yourself harsh judgments. By practicing self-compassion, you get to connect with yourself better and improve your relationship.
By being more self-compassionate, you can also prevent yourself from constantly experiencing stress, depression, and anxiety. Fortunately, there are several exercises that you can do to develop this attitude. Some examples are self-compassionate journaling, meditation, positive self-talk, and facing your inner critic head-on.
Reread a favorite book from your childhood
This particular activity can definitely help you unlock some of your happy memories when you were still a child. This means that your memory will no longer be just consumed by negative experiences. Your favorite childhood books may remind you that the time when you were still a child also comes with happy memories, no matter how few.
In addition to books, you may also want to start rewatching your favorite TV shows and movies. This can bring a fresh hit of nostalgia, which is a big help in nurturing your younger inner child.
Create a gratitude journal
I’m sure you are already familiar with what a gratitude journal is. It is a journal, which allows you to write down all the things you are thankful for each day. You can actually complete your gratitude journal through useful prompts, especially those that wish you to connect with and embrace your inner child, like the following:
- Things that you are thankful for today
- Your past learnings that you feel are useful for you at present
- People who supported you in the past who also gained benefits for you at present
- Past difficult situations in the past that helped you beat your present obstacles
Give art therapy a try
You will also find expressive art therapy extremely healing since it can reach certain parts of your brain inside your limbic system that words can’t seem to reach. The main reason is your brain’s left side connects language to you while your brain’s right side stores your emotions.
Art therapy for your inner child is actually effective in soothing and relaxing your childhood. One version of this therapy starts by getting some crayons and one piece of paper and requires you to relax as you take several deep breaths.
With your eyes closed, you can start using your mind to see your inner child. Observe your inner child’s hair color, clothing, demeanor, and posture. If you feel like your inner child is sad, frightened, or angry, do not judge right away.
What you have to do, instead, is to welcome your inner child and their genuine feelings and emotions. Use your non-dominant hand in drawing your inner child’s picture while allowing it to express itself.
You should then use the crayons to color all body areas where your inner child feels discomfort and hurt. Use colors linked to that sensation. For instance, use orange or red in case what it wants to show is a burning sensation. Once done, you should thank your inner child for their willingness to share these things with you.
Rewrite old memories
One thing you should remember about your mind is that it seems to be incapable of differentiating imagination from reality. As an example, imagine yourself being in a situation that provokes anxiety, like a scheduled job interview. This imagined scenario will turn out to be just as anxiety-provoking as the actual interview.
It is a good thing actually since it means you are allowed to use your imagination in rewriting your painful memories in the past. One way to do this is to remind yourself of a childhood memory, which represents your inner child’s negative beliefs. Recall that incident that does not cause hard feelings to the point that it already overwhelms you.
For instance, if your childhood has memories of your dad physically abusing you, you can actually just imagine him raising his hand., You can then stop from there. Experience this kind of recollection based on the perspective of your inner child.
In other words, you should work on feeling what your inner child felt at that time, though, it is not recommended to let yourself immerse completely in such feelings. To remain present, it helps to use an anchor, like your breath. You may also just keep your eyes open, so you can focus on the object in front while recalling the incident.
You should then imagine a helper showing up to rescue you. It could be a fictional character or a real person.
Conclusion
You can give yourself the support you need during your entire healing journey through the inner child activities mentioned here. This is when you realize that there are indeed several things you can do to achieve genuine healing. Note, though, that to heal your inner child on your own may cause you to get overwhelmed.
This is true especially if you repressed your emotional turmoil for such a long period. If you feel like the inner child activities you are doing are still not enough, consider doing those as you also work with a therapist. That way, you will get the right professional support for your journey to healing.