Inner Child Work
© 2006 Hope Forus All Rights Reserved
Acknowledge & Embrace Your Inner Child(ren)
Hope Forus is a survivor of childhood physical, sexual, emotional and ritualistic abuse. She is currently writing a book on the subject that will include other self-help ideas like this. You can contact her at:
hope4us61@msn.com To be kept informed as to the publication of her book, please sign the guest book.
Hope Forus is not a medical or mental health professional. She is a survivor of childhood sexual, physical, emotional and ritualistic abuse. This article is provided for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should not use the information in this article for diagnosing or treating a medical or mental health condition. If you have or suspect you have a medical problem, promptly contact your professional healthcare provider. If at any time you feel the urge to hurt yourself or someone else as a result of emotions or reactions to any descriptions related herein, promptly contact your mental health provider, your local suicide prevention hotline or 911.
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If you have done the exercises on Meeting Your Inner Child(ren), you may have met distinct stages of your inner child. More accurately, you may have met several independent inner children, which could include any or all of the following:
Don't be concerned if you did not meet an inner child that resembled all of these stages. Most people do not discover all of these inner children. You may also find that your inner children may slightly overlap these distinct stages. For example, I have done several years worth of inner child work and I have only met three. The first inner child I discovered was in a stage between what most people would consider a toddler and preschool age. One of the reasons for this is the early age at which my twin and I started Kindergarten. We started school at the age of four, a couple of months before our fifth birthday in November. When I think of myself as a preschooler, it includes ages three and four. However, my initial wounding from sexual abuse occurred when I was barely three. I had not been potty trained for very long. I think most people would consider a child who was recently potty trained as still a toddler. So, the first inner child I met fell between these two stages.
You may also have discovered your inner children out of sequence. The second inner child I met was somewhere between adolescence and being a teenager. She was very protective of the school-aged inner child I had yet to meet. I refer to the second inner child I met as my "little teenager." She likes to be called Marissa and she is almost 13 years old.
The last inner child I met was my school-aged self. I had the most difficult time coaxing this little one out from hiding. Not surprisingly to me, she represents the child in me who has been the most completely forgotten during the most heinous period of my abuse. There are a couple of years (first and fourth grades specifically) that I have almost completely blocked from my memory. After hundreds of hours of journaling, therapy, inner child work, dream interpretation and even some hypnosis, I have remembered very little from this time of my life. My school-aged inner child, who likes to be called Little Hope, suffered dramatically during this period of time. Her pain was ignored and forgotten for many years. The first step I needed to take after meeting her was to acknowledge her pain, affirm her worth and embrace her with love.
Each childhood developmental stage needs something different in order to be nurtured appropriately. However, there are a few universal affirmations you can try for any and all of your inner children.
Universal Affirmations All Inner Children Need to Hear
Before we get started with the unique ways in which you can acknowledge and embrace your inner children at their individual developmental stages, please try the following affirmations that every inner child needs to hear.
Getting Started
Before you can acknowledge, affirm and embrace your inner children, you must first bring them back out into the open. As when you first met your inner child(ren), you may need to coax them out into the light first. For suggestions on how to do this, please visit the Meeting Your Inner Child page. If the initial meeting went well and you left each of your inner children feeling safe and secure, it should not take long to get them to come back out.
When I do inner child work, I get to a quiet place where I won't be disturbed. Turn your cell phones off! Nothing makes your inner child feel unimportant like answering your phone in the middle of one of these exercises! I then take some deep breaths and try to become as relaxed as possible. Even my inner little teenager enjoys it when I squeeze, hug and rock with my blue stuffed bunny. If you have found something that helps bring your inner children into the open, use that before doing the affirmations. Have some paper and a writing tool available to you.
Acknowledge Each Inner Child
Greet each inner child separately.
Use the name the inner child used in meeting the adult you for the first time.
Embrace Each Inner Child
This may feel silly at first, but it will be appreciated by your inner child. Literally wrap your arms around yourself and squeeze. Give your inner child appropriate, heart-felt touch. This type of nurturing touch may be something you never experienced, but desperately needed at the time your inner child got wounded. Imagine in your mind's eye that the adult you is hugging your inner child.
Affirm Each Inner Child
Say these words out loud or write them using your adult, dominant hand in your journal:
I am so glad you are here!
I love you just the way your are, ____________. Use the individual inner child's preferred name.
I will never leave you, no matter what.
There are other affirmations that are age appropriate for the individual stages of our inner children. Please click on the links below for these individual, developmentally unique affirmations:
Once you have positively affirmed each of your inner children and gained their trust, it is time to find the nurturing parent within you. If your real parents did not provide the nurturing you needed to develop in a healthy way as a child, your wounded inner children will need the adult part of yourself to be their parent and provide this essential nurturing. Please click:
