You read that you should talk to your inner child. So you sat down, closed your eyes, pictured a younger you, and waited.
And nothing happened. Or you felt a little silly. Or you said kind things into the quiet and they just sat there.
If that’s where you got stuck, you didn’t do it wrong. Most instructions skip the parts that make it work. This is how I do it, step by step, including what to do when nothing comes back.
What the inner child is
Your subconscious records everything. When you remember being seven, you’re going back to the version of you it recorded at seven, still feeling what you felt then. That’s the inner child. Another way to look at the inner child is to look at it as a memory that lives in your subconscious. But this memory can be updated.
Going back into your subconscious memories happens a lot for most of us. A smell, a song or a tone of voice drops you into a memory, and for a second you feel the way you felt then. Inner child work is going back on purpose, and bringing love and understanding with you.
Why saying the words isn’t enough
What reaches your younger self is the feeling, not the words. Saying “I love you” while feeling nothing changes nothing. The more you can remember how your younger self felt back then, the easier it is to connect.
If you already have a memory in mind, start there. If you don’t, start with something that bothered you recently and follow the feeling back to the first time you felt it. There are five questions that walk you through that on the free inner child worksheet. It finds the memory. The rest of this article is what to do once you are in it.
How to connect
This is my process. It doesn’t have to be yours, but it’s a good place to start.
- Get settled. Somewhere quiet. Take a few slow breaths.
- Go back to the memory. Remember everything you can. Where you were. How you remember seeing the world at that age. What you understood about what was happening, and what you felt. The most important part is to remember as much about how the younger version of yourself would think about the situation. Remembering the feeling is the easiest way to connect to the younger self.
- In my mind, I call to my younger self. I use the name I went by back then while I’m remembering everything I can from that time in my life.
- As you call to yourself you’re paying attention and feeling for biological feedback. I normally feel goosebumps or I feel the emotions I was feeling as a child. You’ll know because you’ll be tuned into yourself and feeling what you felt then.
- Once I feel that connection I start talking to my younger self.
What to say
Think of your younger self as if they were trapped in a time capsule and the only thing they know is whatever you knew BACK THEN…They don’t know anything you learned as you got older.
You want to tell your younger self whatever you learned later in life that would help calm the inner child. If the version you’re talking to is 5 years old, then that version of you doesn’t understand much about life. Fill them in. You don’t have to talk to them as if they are 5, talk to them like you’d talk to your friend.
I also like to take a minute to tell my younger self more about who I am, especially the things I’m proud of. Then I stop talking for a moment. I think about something I’m genuinely proud of in myself, or about how much I love the journey I’ve been on, and I let myself feel it. Then I picture sending that feeling back to my younger self, and picture them receiving it.
Many of us have been taught that if we forgive, that is part of learning a lesson. But then we notice later on that we’re experiencing the exact behavior we had forgiven, and we can’t understand why the problem continues to show up. It’s because we aren’t doing this part of the work. The inner child hasn’t been taught about forgiveness and why it matters. The inner child will continue to act exactly as you did unless you help your younger self learn what you now know. If you skip this step your inner child or subconscious memories continue to feed the programming that you’re trying to escape.
I tell my younger self the things he couldn’t have known:
- What the scary thing really was.
- How it turned out.
- That he wasn’t the problem.
- That the love he needed wasn’t there because nobody around him knew how to give it.
- That I’m here now, and I’m going to show him what that love feels like.
Sometimes I talk right away. Sometimes I stay quiet and just keep him company. The more you do this, the easier it gets to tell which one the moment needs.
An example from my own life
When I was four, my mom left me alone with my stepdad for the first time. I didn’t come inside when he called, and he yelled my name. I was so scared I froze where I stood. He yelled at me like that for years, and every time, I froze.
As an adult, that freeze didn’t look like standing still. It looked like procrastination. If I wasn’t sure what a doctor would say, I’d put off the appointment. If I wasn’t sure someone would like what I had to say, I’d never make the call. I wasn’t lazy. I was scared of the outcome, and it felt exactly like that four-year-old’s fear, just quieter.
So I went back to that four-year-old. I told him how important he was to me. I told myself that he was never going to hurt me. He became one of the most genuine people I ever knew, and by the time he died, when I was 36, he was my best friend. I let my younger self feel how much he loved me, and I sent that feeling back to the moment my younger self was most afraid.
When nothing comes back
Your younger self may not talk back to you at first. That’s not a problem. As long as you’re connected and have felt the biological feedback then the inner child can receive the information. If you don’t feel the biological feedback then you’re probably not connected and this exercise won’t do much for you.
What this article can’t do
This is one conversation with one memory. It’s real, and it can help.
When you’re working with your subconscious programming you’re working with the part of your mind that is designed to help you without you noticing. Seeing your own programming is what my 12-week Guided Reprogramming is designed for. It helps you understand and see your blind spots.
Guided Reprogramming is six private sessions with me across twelve weeks. We start with something that actually happened in one of your relationships and follow the feeling back to where it began. Then we do this inner child work together, so you’re not guessing whether you’re connected. After that, we build new programming you can use in everyday life, one program at a time. If you’d like to talk about whether it’s right for you, you can book a call with me.
Some memories are heavy. If going back feels overwhelming, stop. This isn’t therapy, and you don’t have to do it alone. If you’re in crisis, call or text 988 in the US.
Not sure where to start with your inner child? The free quiz helps you find what needs to be talked to inside of you. That’s often the conversation your younger self is waiting for. The quiz takes less than three minutes, no email needed.
If you’d like help finding the programs you can’t see on your own, that’s what an Origins Session is for.