To the Wounded Inner Child

Give your inner child the love and validation they’ve always deserved.

When you think of a child, what do you see?

Probably innocence, laughter, the ability to express themselves freely—no responsibilities.

And when you think of yourself as a child and look back to your childhood, what do you see? What happy memories do you have? Did you feel seen and heard? Were you validated? Were you encouraged to be curious, or were you judged and shut down for it? Did you feel safe?

The inner child—the childlike part of your personality. The playful, creative, curious, and spontaneous sides of yourself—originally described by the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung. Also known as the real you. The version of yourself that’s free from the wounds given to you during childhood, that’s now covered in shadow, and the version of yourself that you were before the world told you who you should be. And it’s still there, waiting to be protected, projected into the world in your everyday life. Showing up in all the parts of your life that you were once neglected in and never recovered from.

So how do you know that you have a wounded inner child?

• A fear of abandonment

• The inability of being alone

• Feeling unworthy of love

• Pushing people away in fears of being vulnerable

• Constantly feeling guilty, from growing up always being blamed for everything

• Having a hard time setting boundaries

• Codependency

• Easily getting angry

• A constant need for external validation

• Low self-esteem

Maybe your parents didn’t allow you to express yourself freely, or you were told that you were too annoying. So you grew up hiding the real parts of yourself out of fear of being criticized for being the real you—but deep down, you wish you could.

So when you feel triggered, it brings you back to who you were when you were little: the same feelings of neglect, fear, guilt. It brings you back to the same dysregulated state. But it’s with these triggers that we can start to heal by identifying what we feel inside, letting that inner child be heard, and letting them know, “I hear you. And you’re going to be alright.”

We can start to see those triggers as mirrors back onto ourselves, realizing that what we get angry or annoyed at in other people is the parts of ourselves that we’re either neglecting or supressing. Everything that we react to—positive or negative—is simply a reflection of what’s already a part of ourselves.

Once you can identify your triggers, use them to see where you still need healing. Sit with your feelings, let your inner child know that they’re safe, and reflect on how all of this affected you as a child. You can then start to reparent yourself.

By giving new meaning to everything that happened to you, you can start to grow. And by addressing those shadows, you can start to show up as your authentic self.

You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be heard. You deserve to feel safe and to unapologetically express yourself—just as children do.

And I'm sorry if anyone led for you to believe anything differently.