HEALING YOUR INNER CHILD

HEALING YOUR INNER CHILD

WHAT IS THE ‘INNER CHILD’

The ‘Inner Child’ is a phrase coined by psychologist Carl Jung to describe the subpersonality of the childlike part of you residing in the unconscious mind; the joyful, innocent and playful aspect of you.

If someone suffers trauma in childhood, their inner child can become wounded or traumatised. This can cause many issues in adulthood, such as

• Feelings of shame and guilt
• Trust issues
• Controlling behaviours/Fear of being out of control (eg. OCD)
• Anger, and often deeply suppressed anger
• Weak boundaries, or overly rigid boundaries
• Fear of abandonment
• Trouble letting things go, or dwelling on things long after they have happened
• Fear of being ill
• Autoimmune disorders, bone and joint problems
• Lack of positivity and openness to life’s ups and downs
• Feelings of not belonging
• Difficulty sustaining healthy intimate relationships

HOW DO I KNOW IF MY INNER CHILD IS WOUNDED?

The list of common problems above is a good indication, but here are some questions about childhood that are worth reflecting on:

• Did I feel loved?
• Did I feel safe and secure?
• Did I feel nurtured?
• What are my relationships like?

Many people go down the psychotherapy route to healing inner child issues, but in my experience, there are a lot of deeper spiritual and energetic aspects to this work that psychotherapy alone doesn’t cover.

As with all healing, there is never a ‘quick fix’. It can take many sessions to uncover and release all the emotions, trauma and programming involved. There is often a strong past life thread running through everything as well. Each session usually focuses around a particular theme, (usually an emotion) and every past life, relationship, karmic imprint and program related to that emotion comes up for clearing. This includes releasing soul contracts and bindings, retrieving soul fragments and healing the client’s ancestral line.

Chris, one of my regular clients, initially came to me because he felt that nothing in his life seemed to be going right. He was lonely, friendless and had a long history of failed relationships. He felt that his childhood, and in particular his mother, was to blame for his predicament.

When I scanned his body, the first thing I found in his 10^th chakra was a cord connecting him to a past life. He was a battered woman living in 1920s New York, married to an abusive and controlling husband. Before dying during childbirth, she suffered appalling abuse from this man, and when I dived deeper, the abusive husband turned out to be his mother in this life.

The husband was also present as a spirit attachment, and when questioned, he said he ‘owned’ Chris, and would always be with him. With Archangel Michael’s help, he was sent to the Light, and the soul contract binding them was released.

Over the course of the next few sessions, other past lives were uncovered where his mother was tied to him in an abuser/victim dynamic, and there were karmic imprints around control and feelings of worthlessness. These were released, along with trauma bubbles from current and past lives.

His root chakra (which is where childhood programming is held) was full of fear and hypervigilance, as a result of being ignored as a child. The fear stemmed from anxiety about saying or doing the ‘wrong thing’, for which he would be punished. There was also a lot of insecurity and lack of control in the root, which made sense when he explained that he had trouble holding down jobs, a permanent place to live and managing money.

From early childhood, Chris had never felt a sense of belonging in his family. His mother had told him she didn’t want or love him, and he was largely ignored and overlooked. His solar plexus contained many trauma bubbles relating to lack of self-worth, and his throat chakra had a cord to his childhood relating to not feeling heard or seen, and not being able to express himself safely. It was interesting when I was releasing all of this that started coughing! There was a disc-like structure over his throat chakra which was deflecting negative attention and conflict, almost like he wanted to blend into the background.

One of the early sessions we did focused on anger, which was coming up to be released in almost every chakra. This anger was coming from current and past lives to be cleared. With this anger, I found many cords and threads to Mum, which were released and cleared. I always send love, healing and forgiveness to the person on the other end.

During a recent session, Chris’s inner child showed up in his 9^th and 10^th chakra. He was crying out to be heard! This explained Chris’s insomnia and anxiety which had come up recently. There was a cord from the third eye chakra which also connected to the inner child. All he wanted was attention and love!

I asked Chris to do some meditation where he connected to his inner child and spoke to him, telling him how loved he was and giving him space to express himself. He told me at his next session how amazed he was that this worked. He had enjoyed interacting with his younger self, and felt it really helped. His child-self had shown him a drawing, and it brought memories flooding back of how he loved art. To further connect and heal, I suggested he try drawing or painting. He had forgotten how happy it had made him!

Although Chris is still a work-in-progress, he is doing really well and is much happier. He has a new girlfriend and is currently on the lookout for a new job. In his spare time, he draws and paints, finding this healing and therapeutic.

HOW TO HELP A WOUNDED INNER CHILD

• Meditation, where you connect to your inner child and start a dialogue. All they want is to be seen, heard and loved! Connect with your inner child somewhere you felt safe and secure as a child, or somewhere you feel safe and secure now. There are many guided meditations on YouTube if you feel you need extra guidance.
• Visualisation- Visualise your inner child inside a beautiful bubble of light. Put your hands at either side of the bubble and send healing energy to the child inside Experiment with coloured light and see what feels best.
• Do what you love and what brings you joy! Like Chris, most of us had a passion or interest as children that we lost over time. Reconnect with yours and see how it makes you feel.
• Grounding- Practise barefoot walking, gardening, outdoor activities or cooking. These activities nurture and heal the root chakra, where many inner child issues reside.
• Physical self-care- Get a massage, see a chiropractor or have some energy healing done. Nurture yourself!

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