Inner Child Work (Part 1: Introduction) | Episode 86

Aion Farvahar  0:13
Wounded Healer Path to Inner Child Work
(Part 1: Working With Your Inner Child)
By Aion Farvahar

"Our Inner Child is a living and autonomous aspect of who we are. 
We feel what it feels, and believe and it believes.
When it is wounded, we feel soulless and devoid of life energy. 
But, when we help it heal, we feel soulful and alive again." 
Hi, this is Aion Farvahar. I am glad you are here.

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Today, we want to focus on Inner Child and its relationship to psychological healing. Most of our negative emotions or self-limiting beliefs are formed during our childhood and adolescence years. Because of that, our emotional wellbeing is directly related to the emotional health and wellbeing of our Inner Child. When we grow up in an emotionally safe environment, our Inner Child maintains its true nature, which is soulful, playful, and full of life. But, when our upbringing is not as nourishing or emotionally safe, our Inner Child cannot embody its true and soulful nature, and becomes wounded. 

Aion Farvahar  2:06
In other words, the emotional state of our Inner Child largely dictates the emotional state of our mind as adults. If our Inner Child is healthy, happy, and inspired, we feel the same too. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true, and if our Inner Child feels abandoned, misunderstood, or unappreciated, we feel the same too. No amount of psychological inner work or make-believe mental skills can lead to a lasting emotional wellbeing, without healing our wounded Inner Child. Similarly, no amount of wealth, success, or external validation can make us feel alive and whole without our Inner Child feeling the same. That said, healing our Inner Child is our most important task in life, because without its playfulness and imagination, we cannot feel as alive or as inspired to create the life we really want. 

Restoring the true and divine state of your Inner Child in various ages is the key to self-awareness and Individuation. This presentation is meant to explain why that is the case, and what is it about our Inner Child that makes it so important. The topics are organized in two parts. Part 1 focuses on what causes our Inner Child to become wounded, and what we need to do to heal our Inner Child. We also see how Inner Child is related to the shamanic concept of Soul Loss, and the spiritual concept of the Divine Child. Part 2 is an experiential inner child meditation, designed to cultivate a compassionate connection to our Inner Child. 

In Part 1, we cover on the following topics:

How our Inner Child became Wounded (Inner Child Needs) 

Relationship between the Inner Child and Soul Loss

Relationship between the Inner Child and the Divine Child

Working with our Wounded Inner Child 

And, Self-Guided Inner Child Work for Wounded Healers

Let's go over these. Please note that the ideas presented here reflect my personal experience and understanding, and are not meant to represent Developmental Psychology. 

Aion Farvahar  4:52
How our Inner Child became Wounded (Inner Child Needs) 

Our Inner Child has a beautiful nature, and is soulful, playful, and full of life. Unfortunately, small events in the course of our childhood and adolescence years affect our Inner Child in those ages, making them feel wounded. To understand how an Inner Child becomes wounded, we need to understand Inner Child needs, the needs that must be fulfilled by parents or guardians. These needs vary at different ages, for example,

As infants, we need nurturing connection and attunement. We just entered an unknown world, and need to feel safe, loved, and attuned to. This helps us realize that we exist. 

As toddlers, we need a safe space to develop our curiosity, explore the new world around us, and learn to interact with it. This helps us relate to our environment and feel comfortable in it.

As preschoolers, we have gain some knowledge about the world, and want to be more playful, imaginative, and creative now. This helps us find courage to express ourselves.   

As elementary schoolers, we need to learn new skills, especially communication skills. This helps us develop a sense of community and belonging to our peers.  

As adolescents, we need to learn more about ourselves, discover what inspires us, and what we are good at. We also need to feel respected, validated, and more independent. This helps us develop a sense of trust and confidence on ourselves, the confidence that shapes our life later as adults.   

When these Inner Child needs are met in all ages, we grow up with a healthy level of self-worth, self-love, and self-trust. But, when these needs are not met at a certain age, our Inner Child in that age cannot embody its true nature, and becomes wounded. For example, 

An infant Inner Child can feel abandoned, if growing up with emotionally distant or unsettled parents or guardians.  

A toddler or a preschooler Inner Child may withdraw and be fearful of the world, if growing up with overly protective, or fearful parents or guardians. 

Or, An adolescent Inner Child can develop self-doubt or self-critical beliefs, if growing up with overprescribing and overcritical parents or guardians, who fail to respect the will or authenticity of their child.      

Hope you can see how important these Inner Child needs can be to our self-worth and self-confidence, later as adults. Vast majority of our self-critical beliefs and negative self-image as adults are held by our wounded Inner Child in different ages. For example, if I feel abandoned or misunderstood, what I am feeling is likely the feelings of my wounded Inner Child, who felt the same in different ages. And for me to feel connected and understood, I need to find and heal my Wound Inner Child, who felt abandoned or misunderstood in the past. 

Aion Farvahar  8:53
Relationship between the Inner Child and Soul Loss

As children, we are pure and innocent, and can be traumatized easily. For example, if a mother delays to pick up her child from school, the child waiting alone for her mom may feel abandoned, even wondering what he did wrong or whether he is a bad child. Even subtle experiences can at times be emotionally painful and devastating to us as a child, and can separate us from our true nature, or worse, they can affect our soul and soulful nature. 

In shamanic and ancient wisdom traditions, the adverse or emotionally-charged traumatic experiences are not viewed as psychological events, but rather as psychospiritual and energetic events, causing a part of the soul to be separated and exiled. This partial loss of the soul is known as Soul Loss. Soul loss can happen as the result of any emotionally adverse event, for example a severe illness, an accident, a break in an emotional attachment, or even during an unsupervised psychedelic experience. However in majority of cases, soul loss usually occurs during our childhood. 

That said, when our Inner Child experiences trauma and emotional pain, it becomes wounded, and we experience a Soul Loss as the result. That is why many of us adults today are not as soulful as we once were as preschoolers. For many of us, it's hard to feel truly inspired, hard to feel alive. It is as if the spark of life energy has left our adult eyes. Fortunately, all these can change, when we realize that our wounded Inner Child carries a part of our soul, and when we heal our Inner Child, we also heal ourselves, and feel soulful and alive again. 

Aion Farvahar  11:18
Relationship between the Inner Child and the Divine Child

I hope by now, you realize how important the healing of our inner child is to our emotional wellbeing. But, the healing of our Inner Child extends beyond emotional wellbeing, and can lead to the experience of a spiritual and numinous child within, the Divine Child. 

If you ever watch children play, you notice how inspired and full of life they are. When children feel emotionally safe and nurtured, they become highly imaginative and creative, as if they have access to a deeper source of inspiration, imagination, and creativity, a source that we adults don't know much about. When not wounded, children carry an aspect of the divine within them, a divine companion, a Divine Child. 

The concept of the Divine Child has several interpretations. One views the Divine Child as a unifying archetype of the psyche which emerges in the deeper levels of Individuation and Self-Awareness. The other interpretation which is more relevant to our topic here is that the Divine Child is an aspect of the divine that operates through human experience, in order to imagine and creates reality. 

Let me use a metaphor to clarify this. For an artist to create a piece of art, the artist first needs a spark of inspiration. Then, the artist must imagine something that represents that inspiration. That imagination comes to life, when the artist creates something that represents it. In that sense, the artist brings something to reality, which could not otherwise exist. So, inspiration, imagination, and creativity, are the foundation of creation, and everything that exists in reality was at one point just a spark of inspiration, which was consequently imagined and created by the Divine.  

Similarly, when a child exercises creative imagination, it brings something to the world that could not exist otherwise. The divine child's playfulness, inspiration, and imagination precedes creation, and our fully healed Inner Child manifests its qualities. Noticing the divine child within is a profound and transformative spiritual experience, and healing our Inner Child is the prerequisite for this experience.   

The following quote from C.G. Jung resonates with such view.      
    

"The spirit of the depths teaches me that I am a servant, in fact the servant of a child….I had to recognize and accept that my soul is a child and that my God in my soul is a child." 

C.G. Jung (The Red Book)

The divine child has its blueprint within our Inner Child. This means that healing our Inner Child not only restores our emotional wellbeing and soulful nature, but also gives us access to one of the deepest spiritual manifestation of the Divine, the Divine Child, a numinous child who is calling us to imagine and create beauty in our way of life. If you are a wounded healer or in a spiritual awakening journey, finding and healing your Wounded Inner Child in all its ages should be your foremost and primary mission.  

Aion Farvahar  15:33
Working with our Wounded Inner Child 

Overwhelming majority of our negative self-image and self-limiting beliefs are related to different versions of our inner child, who are wounded and stuck in the past. Fortunately, we can heal our wounded inner child. The key to healing our Inner Child in all ages is the realization that they still exist and are fully alive within us. In other words, they are not just a distant memory in our past, but fully living and autonomous versions of us at younger age. In a sense, at any moment in time, most if not all of our emotions and beliefs are a collection of our Inner Child's emotions and beliefs. This means that we can engage our inner child in all ages, and help them heal and transform their emotions or beliefs. 

The acceptance of the fact that our Inner Child is a living version of us at a younger age is the most important factor in Inner Child Work. This is not a theory, and is empirically verifiable using psychospiritual techniques such as IFS. Our wounded Inner Child in all ages want to heal and reclaim their true nature, but to do that they need our compassionate presence. They need to know that we notice them, and see their purity and good nature. They have been alone for many decades and cannot liberate themselves from their pain on their own. However, they usually find courage to do that, when sensing our loving and compassionate presence. 

In addition to Inner Child Work in psychology, techniques like Journaling and Shamanic Journeys can be used in engaging and healing our Inner Child. If you are in a wounded healer journey and doing your own inner work, the next section provides a few suggestions on how to notice and bring healing to your wounded Inner Child. To do this work, you need to become a compassionate observer of your inner child, without any judgment or pity about happened to it, and without feeling overwhelmed by its negative emotions or beliefs. This is essential because it'd be hard to heal your inner child on your own, if you judge it, pity it, or feel overwhelmed by its pain or belief. If it's hard for you to become a compassionate observer of your wounded Inner Child, consider doing this work with some help, maybe with some guidance from an IFS practitioner. 

Aion Farvahar  18:43
Self-Guided Inner Child Work for Wounded Healers

If you are a wounded healer and feel comfortable and confident to be able to become a non-judgmental compassionate observer, you can do some Inner Child Work yourself, or at least gain some insights related to any wounded Inner Child you notice in you. This section provides an example of such work. You can choose to do this work as an inner contemplation, or using journaling in a form of an inner dialogue. If you are familiar with Shamanic Journeying, this type of inner work can be also done as a part of a healing shamanic journey. The Inner Child meditation, like the one I provided in Part 2, can also be complementary to this work, because it helps you notice and cultivate a compassionate connection to your Inner Child. 

Depending on the nature of the negative emotions or beliefs you sense in you, there could be a child or an adolescent part of your Inner Child, which presents itself. Our wounded child parts usually hold emotions that are painful, like feeling alone, unseen, misunderstood, and so on. Our adolescent parts usually embody a negative belief, like anger, sensitivity, self-critical beliefs, and so on. Although, these are not rules, and exceptions always apply. To do this work, find some personal time and a comfortable place, so you can feel grounded, at peace, and fully present.      

Think of any negative emotion or self-critical beliefs you may have. Negative emotions could be something like feeling anxious, lonely, hopeless, unloved, misunderstood, unappreciated, and so on. Self-critical beliefs could be something like feeling not so special, not as lovable, not as capable, good, or smart enough, not as motivated enough, not as confident enough, and so on. 

Focus on one of these negative emotions or beliefs that takes most space, and check if you remember the age you first noticed that emotion or belief in you. In most cases, these feelings or beliefs go back to our childhood or adolescence years. Check inside and see what age comes to mind, intuitively. 

If you have a picture of yourself in that age, find it and focus on it. If you don't have a picture, imagine a version of yourself in that age, either as a memory or in your imagination. 

Open you heart and fill with it with light, compassion, and unconditional love, then extend your compassion and love to your Inner Child internally, to make it aware of you. Consider your inner child as a living and autonomous version of you in that age. 

Update your Inner Child intuitively, let it know who you are, and how much wisdom and life experience you have gained since then. Your Wounded Inner Child is often stuck in the past, and doesn't know how far you have come in life.   

Aion Farvahar  22:37
Ask your Inner Child to tell you why it embodies that negative emotion or belief. What happened that made your inner child feel or believe that way. Listen to the story of your Inner Child and acknowledge what it tells you, but also let it know how you see things, maybe in a more positive way. When you embody unconditional love and compassion, you usually see only the purity, beauty, and good nature of your Inner Child, regardless of what happened to it, or whether or not it did something wrong. This is essential for healing, because deep inside, your wounded Inner Child in all ages want to reclaim their purity and good nature, and knowing that you realize their true nature, motivates them to let go of the negative emotions and beliefs they carry. 

Ask what your wounded inner child needs to let go of their negative emotion or belief, and reclaim their most pure and natural state in that age. Facilitate what your inner child needs to help it release whatever does not represent its true nature. If your inner child is still stuck in a painful memory or is not ready to let go, ask it if it wants to go to somewhere safe and beautiful to rest or recharge. Facilitate what your inner child wants and help it relocate to its desired place. This place can be a playground, a beautiful scene in nature, a safe and magical place in your heart, and so on.  

If your wounded inner child is open to release its burden, help it do that, preferably using one of the main shamanic elements, for example releasing the burden in water or wind, or giving it to fire or the Earth. Once unburdened, ask your Inner Child to re-embody its purity and good nature. This should make your inner child feel more soulful and alive again in that age. Your Inner Child is now healed, but may need more time to get used to its healed state after so many years. 

Let your healed Inner Child know that from now on, it can rely on you to handle things in life, and all it needs to do is embody its true nature in that age, and feel playful, happy, and inspired again within you. Your Inner Child does not need to think about the past, because it is now with you in the present, and can receive your protection and love. In return, your inner child can make you feel soulful, youthful, and alive again. 

Before your say your goodbyes, make sure your Inner Child realizes that you are here to stay with it going forward, and can always be around when it needs you.       

When all versions of your inner child are fully healed, you remember them not based on a painful memory, or how they actually experienced in the past, but based on their highest positive true potentials in each age. When all versions of your Inner Child are fully healed, looking at their pictures from the past, does not remind you of their pain or burdens, but of their purity, beauty, good intention, and divine nature. They deserve to be seen that way, because they are the closest to the Divine Child, which is the most beautiful manifestation of the Divine in you. When you see them this way, they become playful and joyous around you. They keep compassion and love alive in your heart, and transform your emotional state and your life. 

In closing, remember that your real life starts when you heal your wounded Inner Child in different ages, and create space for them to be soulful, playful, and inspired again. They wants that too, because deep inside they know that what happened to them in the past, and what they felt or believed as the result, does not represent their true nature and who they really are. All they need is for you to notice and feel them in you, and see them in their best light, see their purity and goodness. They have been stuck in the past for many years, because you could not realize them inside. But, now that you are ready and your heart is open, you are here to help them heal, and come to present to be with you again, to be in your heart again.    

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Blessings.