There Are Children Inside of You...😳

When the pandemic first hit and we were in lockdown, I spent a lot of time trying to learn how to make macarons, doing a bunch of yoga, and scrolling through TikTok. I am amazed (and sometimes ashamed) by the amount of things I have learned on that app. Whole hobbies and obsessions have spurred from 30-second videos. But there’s one thing I learned on that app that really stands out.

It must have been sometime around July 2020. I was trying to avoid the news blaring on our TV, which was on 24/7 in the early pandemic days. Doom-scrolling through TikTok, I stumbled across the concept of the inner child for the first time. It was a video of a woman talking about her own inner children. She said there were multiple younger versions of herself existing inside her head. At first I wondered if she was just a little off her rocker, until I spent some time googling the concept. Naturally, I brought it up to my therapist next. And to my complete surprise, she was absolutely delighted that I wanted to talk about it.

If you are a new reader, welcome. I’ve spoken about my childhood before, but here’s a quick TLDR: I have always had severe anxiety, however I didn't know how to cope with it until I was older. Untreated anxiety can genuinely be traumatizing. It’s not just being worried or slightly more nervous than your average person. In my personal experience, it fundamentally changed how I interpreted the world around me. Some things that my friends and family members remember as fun and silly, I remember as frightening and sad. I’ve known for quite a while that I have healing to do because thinking of my childhood makes me feel uncomfortable.

For example, many people love listening to songs from when they were kids, but I really dislike it. Songs from my childhood make me feel sad so I avoid them. Or sometimes when I am back at my mom’s house and I see old toys and books, a feeling of intense guilt and shame washes over me. I mean, most people wish they could go back to being a kid. Not me. So when I learned that doing inner-child work could help relieve some of the baggage I had been carrying around, I was without a doubt interested.

So what is an inner-child? Well, it’s pretty straight-forward. We all have one. Sure, we may change and grow both physically and mentally, but those old versions of ourselves don’t just disappear into the ether. We carry them around with us forever, including their opinions and emotions. That’s why it is important to heal trauma – it doesn’t just go away by itself. 5 year-old Renee still exists inside of me, complete with her own wants and needs. She has intense emotions, ones that feel primal and I don’t always recognize are hers (like hating being left alone, a fear of looking under the bed, and a fascination with the toy section in Target).

11 year-old Renee is there, too. She is great at thinking she is either too much or not enough, and debating if people actually like her or not. And we have the same sense of humor – wildly intense and offensive. 17 year-old Renee hangs around, groaning whenever someone mentions hard work, crying at the thought of finances, and desperately wanting to trespass into abandoned buildings. We are every single age we’ve ever been all at once, not just our current age. Like Russian nesting dolls, or the rings of a tree, we have to build off of what has already been made. So it’s all important. If this whole concept feels foreign to you, think of the panel of emotions from Inside Out, each having their own reactions and opinions to the things that are happening.

Now I am no therapist. I can only tell you my own experience, not how you should heal your own inner child. So just keep that in mind as I tell you what I’ve gone through.

Healing my inner child started with journaling. You can look up journal prompts for this online, but one sticks out to me in particular. The prompt was “Write a letter of forgiveness to yourself, then read it out loud.” When I did this I sat myself down and spent 15 or 20 minutes writing out a letter. I forgave myself for not being an A+ student, for making immature mistakes in past relationships, and for not being perfect all the time. Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard to write, it was reading it out loud that was difficult. Even I, a diagnosed cry-baby, was taken aback by how much I cried. It broke into a sob session, but I will say, it was the most cathartic thing I had done in a really long time. I had no idea how much damage my own critiquing had done to my self-esteem. It was a much needed apology, and I could feel a scared, vulnerable version of myself coming out.

Reflecting on that letter makes me want to repeat the exercise again. I have a feeling things like this are like changing the oil in your car – they should be routine.

After my letter of forgiveness, I wanted to do some damage control. My therapist recommended I begin to talk to myself as if I were a child. It sounds weird, but this simple exercise has been revolutionary (when I remember to do it, that is).

Whenever I notice I’m being mean to myself, I picture there is a child in front of me who is experiencing the same complications. I imagine they are asking me for advice. So, for example, I have always had acne, and sometimes it upsets me still. When I find myself being critical, I picture there is a child in front of me with a lot of acne, and she is really sad about it. And I think of what I would genuinely say to her about it.

It’s usually along the lines of “You are beautiful inside and out– human beings are supposed to have imperfections. And the people who matter don’t mind, while the people who mind don’t matter.” This is an example of talking to your inner child. It’s super effective for me because I tend to be much kinder to others than I am myself. It helps keep my problems in perspective, and gives me the inner-support I desperately need.

One final tool I’ve used is a small trick, but it’s sweet. One week when I was spending way too much time bullying myself in the mirror, I decided to tape up photos of young Renee. It was a reminder that every time I said something critical to myself, I was also saying it to this little girl:

I am in progress of hanging photos of young Renee in my office as well (another setting I get self-critical in).

We all have inner children that need inner parents. You can support and love your inner child, it just takes some attention and practice. And as you learn how to do this more and more, watch how your relationship with yourself changes for the better!

I hope that you too are able to take a step back and give yourself the support and love that you need! Self-compassion is a feeling like no other.

As always, I encourage you to do your own research, and reach out to a mental health professional if you can. My own findings online were great, but nothing comes close to working with a therapist. My own therapist was a rockstar with this concept– with her guidance, I was able to take some huge steps towards changing the way I interact with myself, being more gentle and compassionate than ever before.

All this, thanks to a strange woman on TikTok.

I have included resources below if you are interested. I wish you luck, and cannot wait to hear how it goes.

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Xx,

Renee