How to Heal the Inner Child After Child Abuse

When most people think about an inner child, they think about the joy from childhood that they left behind as they entered the adult world. For the adult survivor of child abuse, the inner child is much different. Rather than leaving behind a joyous part, the child abuse survivor pulled away from a very wounded part of himself in order to survive his childhood. The inner child for the child abuse survivor holds the pain, emptiness and unmet needs. Because of this, many child abuse survivors have no desire to connect back with this pain. Healing your inner child is an important part of healing from child abuse, and your life today will continue to be influenced by this wounded part of yourself until you make the choice to heal it. Here is how to heal your inner child after child abuse.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Recognize that you have an inner child. Many child abuse survivors prefer to pretend that no inner child exists so they will not have to deal with the pain. All of the pain and unmet needs that you experienced as an abused child had to go somewhere. You did not express them because doing so was unsafe. Instead, you stuffed that pain into a place deep inside of yourself. You inner child is the part of yourself that holds this pain and emptiness.
2. Reach out to your inner child. Visualize what you looked like when you were an abused child. See your adult self reaching out to the abused child. Because you have rejected your abused child for so long, she will probably resist your efforts, so you might need to attempt this step multiple times.
3. Visualize being kind to your inner child. As you continue doing visualizations to connect with your inner child, she will begin to respond. Visualize doing loving things for her, such as giving her a toy that she always wanted. Clean her up and give her fresh clothing if she is dirty (Many inner children appear "dirty" to symbolize the shame from the abuse).
4. Do fun things for your inner child. Take your inner child out for ice cream. Go to a park and swing on the swing set. Do the fun things that you never got to enjoy as a child.
5. Tell your inner child that you love her. Say kind things to her, such as you love her and that the abuse was not her fault, because these are the messages you needed to hear as a wounded child. As you heal your inner child, you heal yourself.
6. Accept your inner child as part of yourself. Over time, your inner child will "grow up" and integrate into being a part of you. Your inner child has always been a part of you, but you left her behind to avoid the dreadful pain that she held. As you learn to love your inner child, you learn to love yourself. As you heal your inner child, you no longer have a need to keep her separate, and you become one.

Tips & Warnings

• As you heal your inner child, you are healing your deepest emotional wounds.
• Healing your inner child will likely take a long time. Be patient with your progress.
• Finding a qualified therapist with experience in counseling people with your abuse history is an important part of healing from child abuse. Your therapist can provide you with additional tools for healing your inner child.