How To Work With Your Inner Child
Perhaps you’ve heard the term Inner Child bantered about, but wondered what it means to connect with your inner child and work with them. In this article, we will explore exactly what it means to work with your Inner Child – who they are, how to reach them and some practices to do so —and the kinds of guidance your Inner Child can give you.
What (or who) is your Inner Child?
Let’s start by discussing just what I mean when I use the term Inner Child. I don’t necessarily mean the memory of yourself as a child, nor do I mean to recall or remember aspects of your childhood. Of course, as a practice itself, this may be useful, but it’s not what I mean by the term Inner Child.
Instead, I am referring to your spiritual Inner Child, a spiritual aspect of yourself, as a part of your being that has remained a child. You may like to imagine a miniature version of yourself, this Inner Child, residing in your spiritual heart.
Your Inner Child has retained its sense of wonder, joy, curiosity, excitement and innocence that perhaps your human or adult self has ignored or silenced. Like any other child, your Inner Child needs a balance of work, rest and play. And, like any other child, your Inner Child shouldn’t be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.
From the perspective of our spirit guides, angels and Higher Self, we are still children of the Universe, despite our human perception of adulthood. From their perspective, we are still learning, growing and exploring here on the Earthly plane.
Why do I need to connect with my Inner Child?
Inner Child Therapy is often used in psychology as a way of accessing emotional blocks. And so, a word of caution here: if you are intending to connect with memories and recall actual events, emotions and experiences, it may be wise to do so with a therapist or healer, depending on what you may need to explore, as of course, not every childhood, or at least not every memory, is happy.
This kind of inner child psychology is useful for accessing the mental and emotional bodies —but we also have physical and spiritual bodies too. In this way, we can work with the spiritual or energetic aspect of our Inner Child.
By gaining the perspective of ourselves as children, we can begin to alleviate the pressures our mind may be placing on ourselves, we can see the areas we can restore ourselves and return to our own sense of wonder and curiosity in our lives.
When we connect with our Inner Child, they can guide us towards healing, revealing to us parts of ourselves that need attention. This may indeed be linked to our childhood… but it can also be about a child’s perspective of what we need in adult form.
But, if we work at the level of our energy, with our SST and with the aspect of ourselves that is childlike, we can still learn a great deal about ourselves and on our own.
How do you work with your Inner Child?
Given my explanation of our Inner Child as a spiritual aspect of yourself, you can connect with your Inner Child just as you would connect with a spirit guide, or Higher Self.
You can connect with the energy of this non-physical being, this childlike aspect of yourself through meditation, journaling or perhaps even through oracle cards. You could work with your own self-care rituals, or guidance practice, and hold the intention for your Inner Child to step forward, to bring the guidance you need to hear from them.
As I mentioned earlier, your Spiritual Support Team – or spirit guides, angels, Higher Self and Soul – see you a child of the Universe, and so if you have trouble accessing the aspect of yourself as an Inner Child, you may like to try connecting with your SST and asking them to help you see yourself – even at the age you are now – as a child of the Universe, still learning, growing and evolving.
Let’s look at some tools for connecting with your Inner Child:
1. Journaling for your Inner Child
You might like to write a letter to yourself from the perspective of your Inner Child.
Use automatic writing and ask for your Inner Child to step forward and channel through your written word their message.
Future Script with your Inner Child in mind. Simply cast yourself to a future state, and write about what it’s like at that point, in this instance, from the perspective of your Inner Child. Future Scripting pages are included in my Head and Heart Digital Planner and Journal.
Using whatever formal practice of meditation you currently have, hold the intention for your Inner Child will bring you the messages you need during your practice.
2. Meditation to work with your Inner Child
Using whatever formal practice of meditation you currently have, hold the intention for your Inner Child will bring you the messages you need during your practice.
Try my Meet Your Inner Child meditation to be specifically guided into the energetic realm of your Inner Child, to meet with them and connect with them.
We also work with this aspect of yourself and your Spiritual Support Team in Living Intuitively.
3. Oracle Card spreads for working with your Inner Child
You may prefer to work with your oracle cards to ask for specific guidance from your Inner Child. In just the same way you would ask your SST to guide the cards you pull, you could ask your Inner Child to specifically help you pull the cards you need to answer your questions from their perspective.
The Little Sage Oracle Cards do include a card dedicated to your Inner Child, and so even if you aren’t asking your Inner Child to guide your oracle card spread, if you receive this card do pay attention! Your Inner Child has a specific message for you at that time. We cover more on this in Mastery of the Oracle.
A final note on your Inner Child’s guidance
Your Inner Child is like any other child (minus the physicality!) — they are curious, innocent and particularly insightful. But, they may not be so concerned with human realities and intricacies. Like any other member of your SST, take their advice on board, but run through your own intuition (and perhaps even logic) where required.
