Chances are you have some sort of wound tied to your inner child. This wound could come up for a variety of reasons. Maybe your parents weren't around much, your childhood bestie moved away, you moved around a lot, you had a bully, you went through psychological or physical abuse, or you come from a broken family. These experiences (and others I haven’t added), left a significant mark on you and the pain sometimes resurfaces seemingly out of nowhere.
When it comes to healing our inner child, one of the approaches we might go for is reparenting them. Reparenting your inner child is all about making sure they feel the love, value, and protection they probably lacked in childhood. Our inner child holds power over our thoughts, decisions, and relationships and it’s essential to introduce them to new approaches that help promote reflective responses. Remember that in as much as these wounds are not your fault, you’re responsible for healing them. In this post, I’m going to focus on reparenting through positive self-talk. Here are some things you can say to nurture and show love to your inner child.
I Love You / You Are Loved
As children, there are times that we’ve internalized that we need to do something or accomplish something (be a good example to your younger siblings, get good grades, etc) to be lovable. This probably looked like getting praise, love, and attention when you accomplish things and lacking it when you don’t.
Our parents may not have known how important it was to tell us that we are loved no matter what we achieve. Some of us may have had parents who considered showing love and tenderness as signs of weakness or unnecessary, especially since they’ve provided a home for you and paid for fees (looking at the Africans in the chat 👀).
But you can change the narrative and tell yourself that you’re lovable now. Say it in the mirror as you get ready, say it when you’re struggling, say it when you’ve done absolutely nothing, and say it at random moments. Love is the key to healing, so give it to yourself freely.
You Didn’t Deserve That/It’s Not Your Fault
When bad things happened to us when we were younger, we probably told ourselves we were bad or we did something wrong to deserve the shame, abuse, or abandonment. Many of us are still that critical of ourselves. But we can change the stories we tell ourselves.
In many cases, the people who wounded us didn’t know better. Perhaps your mom was beaten when she was growing up, so it was the only way she knew how to parent. We may not have had the capacity to understand this when we were younger or to understand that we didn’t deserve shame, abuse, or abandonment, but now we do and we can tell ourselves that we didn’t deserve that.
I Hear You/Your Feelings Are Valid
Hands up if you’ve been told ‘stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.’ It’s not uncommon to have felt invisible and unheard when you were younger. This probably came from having our feelings invalidated. ‘What do you have to be stressed about? I pay bills and your fees but you don’t see me complaining,’ this is just one example of how we were invalidated in childhood.
Now whenever we feel hurt, we push down our feelings and bottle them up and try to act strong. The problem is, these feelings never really go away, and the more we go through life, the more painful they become and they start to affect how we show up as adults. Next time you feel like pushing back your difficult feelings, maybe you can exercise some validation & compassion and say to yourself ‘I hear you, this is difficult but I’ll be okay.’
I Forgive You
Often we hold on to shame, blame, and guilt from when we were younger and we keep beating ourselves up for things we could’ve done better. You are human, you made a mistake and that’s okay. You deserve the same forgiveness you so freely give others. Check out my ‘I Forgive You’ blog post.
I’m Sorry
Do you find yourself being super critical of yourself, pushing yourself too hard, or not cutting yourself some slack? Chances are you did the same to yourself when you were younger. I never let myself make mistakes and I’d be really mean to myself when I wasn’t perfect at something.
I would never let anyone talk to me or treat me like that so why do I allow myself to do that? I don’t and didn’t deserve to push myself that hard and neither do you. Saying I’m sorry to your inner child is recognizing that.
You Did Your Best
Similar to the points above, we find ourselves being very critical of ourselves and expecting nothing but perfection from ourselves and sometimes we fall short and that’s okay. Let your inner child know you appreciate their effort.
Thank You
Lastly, your inner child deserves their flowers. Thank them for getting you this far, and through the tough moments with strength and perseverance. Thank them for trying to protect you even if they did it in a way that doesn’t serve you anymore. Your inner child doesn’t deserve your judgment, they deserve your gratitude, understanding & respect.