5 Affirmations That Will Comfort And Validate Your Inner Child
#2 You deserve the space and the freedom to do all the things you love.
The inner child is a recurrent concept in my articles, not only because it has helped me immensely but also because I believe every soul on this planet could benefit from diving into it.
In the beginning, I was a bit skeptical. However, a few years ago, I thought “well, let’s just try it out”, and decided to write a letter to my 10-year-old self. Suddenly, I was crying my heart out, with no clue I had been holding onto so much suffering.
Inner child work is powerful because we’re all traumatized people denying our pain. We live in a largely unconscious society that doesn’t acknowledge the importance of our emotions, which leads to many suppressed feelings.
Another problem is that we carry this idea that we should “be grateful for our family” — which makes us believe that we shouldn’t even question our family dynamics.
But there are broken families, there are narcissistic grandparents, there are emotionally immature mothers, and self-involved fathers. There are many dysfunctional problems that can be extremely damaging, especially if we’re not aware of them.
Inner child work unlocked a whole new world and unpacked a whole bunch of feelings that I had never allowed myself to feel. Anger, sadness, despair, fear, anxiety — it was all there, stored in my body.
So yes, now I am that person that talks to my inner child almost every day. And I believe, with all my heart, that you’d benefit a lot from doing the same.
1. I’m sorry you went through that.
We all have a story. We all have a few pieces inside us that we don’t share with anyone else — sometimes, not even with ourselves. We think we’re protecting ourselves by not bringing them up to the surface when, in reality, we’re just suppressing everything and delaying our healing.
I don’t know what your story is, but it’s very likely there’s still something disturbing your inner peace. Something you didn’t deserve to go through as a child or teenager. Something that robbed you of your innocence.
Trauma doesn’t have to be a massive, terrifying event. Something like living in an unstable household, or being surrounded by people who don’t make you feel emotionally safe, can potentially have many harmful psychological consequences.
Whatever your story is — remind your inner child that he/she didn’t deserve to feel such pain. It was not his/her fault.
2. You deserve the space and the freedom to do all the things you love.
I still remember how my father would react when I’d stop studying and would want to play. It didn’t matter that I had studied for 6 or 7 hours — he would always say “it’s not time to play. You should study harder”.
After a few months of hearing this, I absorbed the message that I should always be in a doing mode. I stopped playing because there were more important things to do, such as getting the best grades and pleasing my parents.
Many of us have absorbed similar messages and unconsciously apply them in our adult lives. We neglect ourselves for the sake of pleasing others; we only do things that our society values instead of things we actually enjoy doing because we’re constantly chasing external validation.
“As a child, you probably did plenty of things just for fun. You didn’t have to do them, you just wanted to. But you might have a hard time recalling the last time you did something in your adult life simply because it made you happy.
Creative activities like coloring, doodling, or painting can help, too. When you let your active mind rest, emotions you usually don’t consider can surface in your art, through your fingertips.
Some of these emotions might tie into buried or forgotten parts of self, such as your inner child.”
Crystal Raypole, in Finding And Getting To Know Your Inner Child
3. You’re worthy of love just as you are.
Why do you think some of us can’t get into healthy, loving relationships? Why do you think there are so many people stuck in push-pull dynamics or emotionally abusive relationships?
As I wrote a few days ago, these patterns don’t just happen by accident. They’re the result of the beliefs we created during our childhood, as well as during our previous romantic experiences. They’re the result of our attachment wounds.
If we grow up in an environment where we only feel loved when we’re over-performing or pleasing others, we tend to believe that we need to betray ourselves to be worthy of love and acceptance. We believe relationships are supposed to be draining and unbalanced— and that it’s normal to feel unlovable at all times.
Your inner child will always carry these beliefs unless you convince her/him otherwise.
When I first started telling my inner child that I deserved authentic, reciprocal, secure love, tears poured down my face — tears of joy and freedom, because I could feel how I was finally liberating myself from my conditioning.
4. You don’t owe anyone anything.
When we grow up with parents who judge us, criticize us, or minimize our achievements, we tend to feel like it’s our responsibility to justify every little thing we do and say.
This leads us to apologize for things we didn’t do and carry the emotional (and physical) burden of taking care of everyone.
If you want to free yourself from this burden, you need to tell your inner child that you don’t owe anyone anything. That you’re not responsible for the emotions or well-being of others.
5. I promise you’re safe now. I’m here to protect you.
Many of us didn’t feel emotionally safe as children. We were constantly in survival mode, trying to cope with the chaos we were raised in.
Some parents are physically present and meet all your physical needs, but when it comes to establishing a secure relationship filled with emotional intimacy, they’re not really there.
Over the past few years, I’ve realized that my childhood was not as loving as I thought. Yes, my parents would kiss me and play with me sometimes, but there was conflict all the time and I never felt like it was safe for me to truly express my thoughts and feelings.
Children don’t understand life the way adults do. If, as a child, you have a caretaker that is distant, inconsistent, or emotionally immature, the message you unconsciously get is I can’t express myself because mom/dad will reject me.
Your inner child needs to know she/he doesn’t need to hide anymore.
Healing your inner child is crucial if you want to free yourself from all the dysfunctional patterns you’ve absorbed.
I know it’s easier to ignore that part of yourself, but ignoring it won’t benefit you in any way — it will just delay your freedom and make you feel unfulfilled.
Once you allow yourself to acknowledge its presence, and give yourself permission to validate its deepest feelings, you’ll feel an inner peace you’ve never felt before.
The question is: are you brave enough to do it?
