We all have inner children, inner teenagers, inner young adults and inner mature adults depending on where you’re at in your life. I want you to think of these aspects of ourselves as inner parts of who we are and what we’ve experienced all through life. Working with our inner parts can be so much fun – for example, when you’re having an amazing time experiencing something new or something that you really really enjoy, we can get the inner kid in our self to come out and just play. It gives you a sense of freedom and childlike wonderment – we all remember times like this.

Letting your inner children out to play is a beautiful thing and I highly encourage this for you all. But when an inner child starts to take over your adult self (and you let it) emotionally, physically and mentally – then we start to step into trouble.

When an inner child or an inner aspect starts to take over, starts to take control especially when something isn’t going your way or someone has said something that you don’t like, that inner child will respond in a childlike manner when they don’t want it or like it. The more demanding and belligerent the inner child becomes, the more we step into reactive responses and energy. This is where it turns into a trigger and the Wounded Inner Child is the one to take over.

Remember, every experience we’ve ever had is stored as a memory in your body. Imagine our mind is a computer and it stores files of thoughts/emotions and experiences located all throughout the body.

Let’s talk about a trigger – A trigger is an old reactive response to you not feeling safe in the situation or discussion (it’s an old imprint from our inner child’s experience). It’s when the body instantly reacts to a situation or discussion, it triggers a fight, flight, freeze or fawn response.

Let me explain these briefly to you so you understand what’s happening.

1. Freeze       stuck in that moment and for some of us, we stay stuck in freeze

2. Fight          stand your ground and fight physically, with words, with energy

3. Flight         your run the hell out of there

4. Fawn         slip into comforting/appeasing the other persons needs over your o

 A Wounded Inner Child – specifically can be triggered any time AND in any moment.

What is a wounded inner child?

A need that wasn’t met when you were a child physically, mentally, emotionally or even spiritually and you had to create a pattern so you could protect yourself and feel safer whilst this need wasn’t being met. As we grow and mature, these patterns become our sabotage patterns.

So how do we get our needs met?

As we mature and start doing Inner Child work or Shadow work, we begin to address these needs. When starting this, it’s easier to pass blame onto those around that ‘should have’ met our needs as young children. We assume that that’s their role, to guide us in feeling safe and protected whilst meeting our needs – right?

In theory yes but we are all human and each of us have our own Wounded Inner Child. If you haven’t healed and integrated your own inner children (the wounded ones), simply means (for those that have children) that what you give your child, to try and meet their needs whilst in childhood, is what you desperately wanted and needed as a child. You’re giving your child, what you wanted as child and at times can blind us as to what this little one’s needs are as opposed to your own inner children. For many of us, we do this without awareness and by giving your own children what we didn’t have as child, we hope to meet those old old needs.

Here's the rub, most of us look externally (even as adults) to have these old needs met. We look to our partners, family, friends or even strangers to give us some sort of validation for this need to be met. And when we don’t get them met, that wounded inner child gets angry and sometimes really really mean

(depending on what your trauma response is). Some of us will create relationships around our needs not being met as children – and for some of those relationships, it’s called trauma bonding (and that’s another conversation).

To invite true healing & integration to occur for these wounded inner children, we the adults have to change our mindset and this, can be the biggest challenge yet for each of us on our healing journey. We want someone to come and meet/parent these needs that weren’t met in us as children. But the crux of it all, is that no one is coming to rescue our inner children but ourselves.

I so love this concept but when you first hear it, it messes with your own rules of engagement with everything you thought that happened to you and what was needed to ‘fix’ it. It goes like this...

To heal and integrate your beautiful inner children, today’s adult version of you must step up and be the parent for every single inner child, wounded or not.

YOU are now responsible for meeting your inner children’s needs to feel safe, wanted, loved, protected and most of teach how to thrive instead of surviving.

YOU are the mother, father, favourite aunty, uncle, the best grandparents + for your inner children.

YOU learn how to hold the space for your body as it re-experiences the memory of inner child’s needs not being met.

YOU remind them that they are safe now, that you’re in charge and you will never let anything hurt them like that again.

YOU tell your inner child that you’re in charge now and they now belong with you forever more and that they’re home now.

YOU tell them whenever they feel unsafe, that you’re protecting them now and to stand behind you as you’re not afraid anymore.