In working with adults in therapy, clinicians explore the dynamics that most affected their childhoods and the pivotal and most significant moments and relationships that formed them who they are now. Blame or judgment aside, you may find that parenting was insufficient to support the demands of your critical early years. Even when parenting is healthy, it is possible to have unmet needs.
The most perceptive years of childhood are between birth and age seven. Commonly called “formative years,” they are the most crucial regarding the absorption of data, as well as the dynamics and cognitions within the family. How your parents related to you, the interactions, guidance, and values your young brain absorbed happened at a faster pace during those years. As you grew older, you may have abhorred the idea of “becoming your parents” and swore never to “be like them.” All of us share the experience of wanting to be “different and better”—at least to a certain extent. Fortunately, humans do have the capacity to create better experiences for themselves; however, whatever your parents’ shortcomings, they’ll inevitably have an impact on who you are as an adult.
During therapy, your perception of your own needs is imperative to build momentum in sessions. It is useful to explore the past and examine the needs that were not fulfilled, the missing love, and the specific perceptions and unhealthy messaging that you have learned to live with, or even normalized through the years. In adult life, unmet needs may take the form of anxiety, shame, guilt, enmeshment, judgment, poor boundaries, or abandonment of your own needs.
Unintentionally, you may repeat the same patterns that you witnessed and normalized in your young mind during childhood. Additionally, people often gravitate towards and attach to partners that reflect similar patterns they observed as children, consciously or not. If you have done that, it may be because you seek external validation of your internal world. You may even have learned to repress and disassociate from our own body to meet the demands of your external reality.
Inner child work provides a structure to allow clients to get in touch with those unmet needs that have not been fulfilled. In therapy, the work is to connect the individual to that younger self and reconnect with those needs. When you are able to do that, you become aware of dynamics that directly impact the present moment and nurture parts of you that you never before considered. Also, in this work you are encouraged to support your healing from those experiences by using your own inner resources such as compassion, care, love, and acceptance. By doing so, you may gain greater connection to your adult needs as well as your body by developing inner safety and the capacity to nurture yourself and challenge unhealthy bonds that can trap you in harmful patterns of behavior, for example in relationships.
Some exercises for connecting to your inner child:
1. Write a letter to your younger self. It helps to find a picture of yourself as a child to examine. Appreciate the qualities of your childhood: your innocence, your uniqueness, your favorite toys and activities, your best friend, your sensitivities, and fears. As you write, imagine traveling back in time as the adult you are to address the young you. What would you say? What advice would you give? What is important to tell this little person? Finally, write and repeat to yourself words of caring and compassion, such as: I love you, I hear you, thank you, and I am sorry.
2. Watch children around you. As you observe the qualities of children you know or see in your daily life, notice everything about them. Be curious about their feelings, ask questions, and spend time with them. The delight, compassion, and interest you feel for them can then be directed to your inner child, instead of judgment, criticism, or guilt.
3. Spend time doing things that you used to enjoy. Children explore, play, and engage the world with curiosity and openness. As we mature, we lose those qualities. Explore an activity that you were good at, or things you used to enjoy with your parents and other family members. It does not matter how “childish” you think it is. Roller skate, make things out of Play-doh, finger paint, catch bugs, explore the woods, ride the carousel—anything that connects you with your curious and playful inner child.
4. Lean into the learning. As you try the above exercises, what do you learn about your childhood? Is there anything that you can incorporate in your adult life that returns you to a state of childhood joy? Were there needs that were not met then that you can fulfill now? Be compassionate, kind, and nurturing to yourself. Remember that when you speak badly about yourself you are talking to your younger self. The child you were does not deserve that negative talk, and neither does adult you. Love yourself and the inner child who is still there inside you.
There is meaningful work to be done in reconnecting with your inner child. If you’d like more information about this therapeutic work, reach out to make an appointment. Just call XX. I look forward to hearing from you.
