Exploring and Healing Your Inner Child

Naomi Kristiana, M. Psi., Psikolog

 What is Inner Child?
A part of ourselves: Emotions, memory, beliefs
from the past
Good Hopes and dreams for the
experience Subconscious future

Traumas
Fears

Significant
loss
Neglect
 Mengenal Inner Child

Self-discovery: Membuka diri untuk

melakukan eksplorasi pada pengalaman
masa lalu
Mengenali dan menerima setiap
pengalaman yang menimbulkan rasa sakit
pada masa kecil
 Inner Child terluka?
Kenali tanda-tandanya

Rasa percaya diri Sulit membuat

yang rendah People pleaser
batasan
Cemas dengan hal Selalu merasa Perfeksionis/terlalu
baru bersalah kompetitif

Selalu mengkritik Curiga pada orang

diri sendiri lain
Takut ditinggalkan
 Penyebab Inner Child
Terluka
• Pengalaman Bullying
• Tidak merasa diterima lingkungan
pertemanan
• Merasa malu tidak dapat menjawab
pertanyaan di depan kelas
• Pengalaman dibohongi/dikhianati
orang yang dipercaya
• Orang tua meninggal
• Perceraian orang tua
• Kekerasan dari orang tua
• Dibandingkan dengan anak lain
• Pengabaian orang tua
• dsb
 Wounded Inner Child
• Abandonment wound :
ditinggalkan oleh orang-orang yang berarti di dalam hidup, baik
ditinggalkan oleh sebab kematian, perpisahan orang tua, pekerjaan dan
lain-lain.
• Guilt wound :
perasaan bersalah atas kesalahan di masa lalu.
• Trust wound :
rusaknya kepercayaan seorang anak terhadap orang-orang yang
dicintai.
• Neglect wound :
pengabaian dari orang-orang yang dicintai.
 Apa dampak Inner Child
yang terluka?
• Kemarahan yang mendalam
• Tidak mampu mencintai diri sendiri
• Melukai diri sendiri
• Krisis identitas
• Kesulitan mempertahankan hubungan yang sehat
• Perilaku criminal
• Pola pengasuhan yang tidak tepat: emosi meledak-
ledak/memanjakan/overprotektif ?
 Healing Inner Child
• Utilize activities to start feeling (a little bit at a time) in order to undo the numbing.
• Work on reducing anxieties and fears by processing fearful memories or experiences.
• Developing healthy relationships that allow you to feel safe and steady in the world.
• Creating a warm and inviting environment.
• Create structure and nourishing self care- by creating steady patterns of feeding,
sleeping, hygiene.
• Develop clear emotional, energetic, time and physical boundaries.
• Create passions and hobbies and make them part of your life.
• Shift focus from performing to doing + being + celebrating.
• Shift your inner beliefs (what beliefs you feed yourself, therapy can help with this).
 Healing Inner Child
• Listen your inner child has to say
Here’s an example:
Your partner suddenly becomes busy with work and doesn’t have time for the big
night out you’d planned. While you know they’d prefer to spend time with you,
you still feel rejected and frustrated. Your disappointment manifests in a childlike
way, with you stomping off to your room and slamming the door.
Considering what happened through the eyes of your inner child can offer some
valuable insight in this scenario.
You realize your partner’s sudden need to work made you feel just as you did
when your parents canceled plans, playdates, even your birthday party, because of
their busy schedules.
In this way, listening to the feelings of your inner child and letting yourself
experience them instead of pushing them away can help you identify and validate
distress you’ve experienced — an essential first step toward working through it.
 Healing Inner Child
• Write a letter
Questions that can help keep the dialogue going:

• “How do you feel?”

• “How can I support you?”
• “What do you need from me?”
 Healing Inner Child
• Meditation
Loving-kindness meditation to send feelings of love to your child self.
• “May I be safe, peaceful, and free of suffering.”
• “May I be happy. May I be healthy.”
• “May you be strong and confident.”

Visualization meditation as a useful tool for picturing your inner child, or

even “visiting” them as your adult self.
 Healing Inner Child
• Journaling
Just as journaling can help you recognize patterns in your adult life that you
want to change, journaling from the perspective of your inner child can
help you recognize unhelpful patterns that began in childhood.

For this journaling exercise, set your present self aside for the moment and
channel your child self. Try photos or a brief visualization exercise to help
recall how you felt at the specific age you’re intending to explore.
 Healing Inner Child
• Therapy session

Inner child work: including attachment theory, somatic therapy, Jungian

psychology, and psychotherapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Art therapy
 Healing Inner Child
• Bring back the joys of childhood
making regular time for fun and lightheartedness in your life can help
rekindle the positive emotions of youth.

• Leave the door open

reinforce the connection you’ve opened by affirming your intent to continue
listening, offering love and compassion, and working to heal any wounds
that remain open.
Cultivating Relationship with
Inner Child
• Reparenting yourself
• Who is a Wise Parent?
• A wise/authentic/conscious parent to me is that
one secure attachment in your life.
• By this I mean, any person who you feel:
• safe
• seen
• heard
• soothed
• and secure with
• It could be
your spouse, friend, therapist, grandparent,
parent, aunt, uncle, brother, or sister. Or yourself.
• Reparenting yourself
Here are some ways to do just that:
• Tune in to your gut. Check in on when something feels off, and go with that.
• Practice empathy and acceptance of yourself.
• Learn to contain big emotions and engage in mindfulness practices so you can
self sooth and not rely on others to do this for you.
• Validate and embrace all feelings, there no such thing as "silly emotions".
• Set clear, healthy boundaries with others, and know your limits.
• Create consistency in your daily schedule.
• Make time for self care on a daily basis.
• Accept your flaws and practice forgiveness when you make mistakes (we all do!)
• Reference
Bradshaw, J. (1993). Homecoming: Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child. Bantam
Books.
Carr, S., & Hancock, S. (2017). Healing the Inner Child Through Potrait Therapy: Illness,
Identity and Childhood Trauma. International Journal of Art Therapy, 22(1), 8–21.
Firman J, Russell A: Opening to the Inner Child: Recovering Authentic Personality. Palo
Alto, CA, Psychosynthesis Palo Alto, 1994.
Goldstein, E. What Is An Inner Child and What Does It know?. Retrieved November 30,
2022, from https://integrativepsych.co/new-blog/what-is-an-inner-child.
Laela, M. N., & Rohmah, U. (2021). Pola Asuh dan Inner Child. Loka Karya Pendidikan
Islam Anak Usia Dini, 1(1), 40–44.
Raypole, C. (2021). 8 Ways to Start Healing Your Inner Child. Retrieved November 30,
2022, from https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/inner-child-healing.
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