What Does it Mean to Work on Your Inner Child?
What is the Inner Child?
When we say “inner child," we essentially mean a story we keep in our mind about who we were as children. That story is comprised of memories, other people’s stories about us, and pictures and videos we’ve seen of ourselves. All of those contribute to our sense of who we were as children. That makes up your inner child.
Why Would We Work with the Inner Child?
First of all, we all have an inner child. Childhood is a time of openness, receptivity, and conditioning. During our childhoods, we absorbed so much from our environments: how people treated us, how we responded to both big and small events, the tides of life – everything. And because our inner child is so receptive to their environment, it’s very likely there are wounds there.
Some people assume they don’t have wounds because they had a good childhood: tranquil, serene, supportive, and joyful. But, we do get hurt. Each of us. People hurt us, accidentally and on purpose. Circumstances bring us stress, sorrow, guilt, confusion. Even if they are little things, they create a wound in a child. Everyone has a hurt inner child. Each wound is valid and deserves care.
In therapy we may begin to formulate a sense of who that inner child is, what those wounds are, and how they shape who we are today. If you have old wounds, even small ones, that were never tended to properly, those wounds never healed. You could imagine how it would feel if you never treated physical wounds over the course of decades. It would not be pretty. Our emotional and psychological wounds are similar.
How Your Inner Child Shows Up Today
The symptoms of untreated psychological or emotional wounds can be a number of things, but generally you might recognize it as a disproportionate reaction to an event. For example: Your spouse is 5 minutes late and you become angry and upset to a level that is disproportionate to what is actually happening. You make it a priority to be on time or early for things, and that hyper-vigilance serves you well, but there are psychological side effects: you are hard on yourself and treat yourself badly if you are late to things; you forget about being present and what is going on in the moment because you are so focused on what’s happening next and being on time; you worry to the point of being anxious; when other people, such as your spouse, don’t value time the same way you do, you both become angry. These are all symptoms from unhealed wounds to your inner child.
During childhood, your parents brought you late to dance class every time and your teacher would call you out in front of the whole class embarrassing you. Your parents shrugged it off as no big deal because you were only a few minutes late each time and acknowledged it was usually their fault you were late. But to you, it was a big deal and your embarrassment and sadness were never addressed. Those wounds never healed. Now as an adult, you hate being late and you hate when others are late, and your emotional response is disproportionate to reality. Through therapy and IFS (Internal Family Systems), we learn there is a hurt inner child who needs help.
IFS uses the language of wounds in order to understand the impact of these difficult experiences in our childhood. These wounds do have effects well into adulthood, so it’s helpful to go back to revisit our childhood and do some caretaking and healing. Even though some of the responses to a childhood wound seem helpful (like being punctual and respecting other people’s time), we can prioritize the helpfulness and deprioritize the harm that the wound manifests in our adulthood (disproportionate negative responses, creating tension in relationships, making you preoccupied to the detriment of being present in important times).
How We Heal Our Inner Child Through IFS
For many people, the story about their child self contains some sadness. While they have lots of fun memories, they focus on the hurt as a thing that cannot heal or change. It can be very emotional for people. That misunderstanding is tragic and shapes what you think of your past self and how you got to where you are today. But the beautiful thing about IFS work is you can change how that inner child feels and affects you today.
When we work with the inner child in IFS, we follow a classic IFS path. We search, discover, connect, understand, then give compassion, love, appreciation, and gratitude. As a result, we show respect to the part and enable the fullness of expression. It is quite wonderful for that childhood part to feel understood, loved, appreciated, and then free to do whatever they want.
IFS aims to help heal the childhood wounds by identifying the dynamics of the inner system which is made up of various parts. When healing the wounds of your inner child, there are typically two parts that come into play: the protector and the exile part. The exile part is one version of your inner child who has a wound that never got healed. The protector part is the one who shows up loudly to protect the exile part.
Every exile part has at least one protector part. They try to do two things at once: 1. Keep the exile away because they’re afraid the exile will cause us so much damage that something bad will happen to us. 2. Hide the exile part in order to protect the exile. They’re trying to shield and hide at the same time. It’s a distorted, misguided way of loving that part.
Working With the Protector Part
As with all IFS work, there is searching and discovery. We explore and learn about the different parts of you to learn how they are interconnected. I facilitate a connection between you and your exile part, then I help you get to a place of compassion and curiosity with that part. This, in itself, is healing for the inner child. But in order to access the exile part, the protector part needs to trust you, your whole self, enough to allow you to connect with the exile. The protector spent their whole existence keeping the exile away from you. You need to discover where the protector is coming from and why it believes it needs to shield the exile from you.
On our journey to heal the inner child, we need to work with the protector part, gain its trust, and share that it no longer needs to protect us from the exile part. This is an exciting time in the IFS process because we get to discover more about the protector part: what it does, how it got this job, why it does the job, and how it believes it is helping. When we understand the protector part it begins to see us as an ally, someone it can trust. This is important for a number of reasons, but as it pertains to exiled parts, it really is up to the protector part to give us permission to connect to the exile part. If they don’t want to, we can’t push it. We can’t force it. It would be disrespectful and therefore damaging. The power of compassion will prove to the protector part we are strong and safe. Eventually the protector part will trust us. Sometimes it just takes time – it’s about exposure and dependability. It can happen over a few sessions or a few minutes. When we have shown the protector compassion and respect, we show them we are strong and capable of welcoming the exile.
Often the protector part (or parts) associated with the exile go through a transformation, as well. And as we understand our protectors better, the protectors also grow and heal and are given the opportunity to rest. It won’t have to do any protecting anymore and can take on a new role. Similar to the exiled part, the protector part is free to do as it chooses, no longer burdened by outdated roles.
Healing the Exile Part
Once that connection with the exile part is created and compassion is given to the exiled, wounded inner child part, often what happens is there is a lot of sharing of feelings. It’s likely the inner child exile part will share the pain they’ve been in, why they’ve been in pain, and what stories they believe about themselves. All of this information gives you an opportunity to give a lot of care and love to that part of you. You begin to heal the wound. Essentially, you’re letting that part know they didn’t do anything wrong. The fact they’re alone in their suffering is not their fault. You’re here with them now to give them comfort and belonging and to reassure them they’re worthy of love. Not only that, if they want, they are welcome to help you as the adult live a really good life.
When your inner child has the chance to feel loved, welcomed, and valued, it will take all of the burdens and stories about themselves they carry, estimations of self worth, and beliefs about power dynamics and set them down. At this point in the process I give you an opportunity to visualize a burial or ritual that gets rid of these burdens. No one needs to carry them. They no longer serve any purpose. Clients often notice a change in the exiled part after this unburdening. Whatever shape, form, and traits it had before are likely to shift or fade away. Even if the part doesn’t change automatically, we will invite the part to take on a new role. This is their opportunity to freely express themselves. They can rest, help you be more joyful, or shift into something else. Truly, whatever they want to do is welcomed.
Working with your inner child or exiled part can happen during one, or several, IFS sessions. It all depends on what the part wants and how much time we have. There’s no rush – we’re not going to fast track healing. The healing takes as long as the healing takes, and sometimes it takes a while. That is fine. When the inner child is healed, we do not just say goodbye to it. The exile part wants to be part of the fold, part of the family. It was often misunderstood and perceived as toxic. At times the exile part likely felt useless, worthless, and burdensome. But when the exile starts to heal, it can contribute positively again. The exile part is not just a bunch of wounds – they are vibrant, powerful, visionary parts, who can now contribute to your goodness as an adult. It’s a joyous reintegration.
Understanding Our Complexity Through IFS
The magnitude of our internal system is immense, and it is all connected. Call it the butterfly effect, if you like. A change in one part shifts everything in the system.
We are complicated and IFS takes our intuitive nature of introspection and self-reflection and amplifies it through tested interventions, like the one mentioned above. IFS really attends to the way we actually are – we have different parts and need to acknowledge it for the betterment of ourselves.
If you have a wounded inner child that needs love, compassion, and healing, IFS therapy can help. Katey Kingra, LMHC offers in-person therapy in Ithaca, NY, as well as online in New York State. If you’re ready to better understand and deepen your relationship with Self, let’s talk.