6 Practices for Reparenting Your Inner Child
The Wounded Child Still Living Inside You: Why Adult Healing Requires Meeting Her
For most of my life, I had no idea there was a terrified child still living inside me.
I thought I was a functional adult. I had jobs, responsibilities, and a daughter to raise. I showed up. I paid bills. I took care of everyone.
But underneath that adult exterior was a little girl who'd been abused, abandoned, and never protected. A child who learned that love meant sacrifice, that safety was an illusion, that her needs didn't matter.
And that wounded child was running my life.
She's why I said yes when I meant no—because she learned that saying no meant punishment.
She's why I over-gave until I had nothing left—because she learned that her worth was in her usefulness.
She's why I chose partners who hurt me—because she learned that love and pain were inseparable.
She's why I worked myself into complete collapse—because she learned that rest meant she was lazy, unworthy, unlovable.
Every pattern that was destroying my adult life was rooted in what that child learned about safety, worth, and love.
I had to use plant medicine, hypnosis, and past life regression to even access the memories my mind had buried. My childhood abuse was so painful that my psyche literally couldn't hold it. But my body remembered. My nervous system remembered. And that wounded child remembered.
Meeting her—really meeting her, not just intellectually acknowledging she existed—changed everything.
Because I realized: she'd been waiting decades for someone to finally protect her, comfort her, tell her it wasn't her fault, give her permission to have needs.
And the only person who could do that was me.
This is what reparenting means. It's not about blaming your parents (though they may deserve blame). It's about becoming the parent to yourself that you needed and didn't have.
It's about meeting that wounded child inside you and giving her everything she's been desperately needing: protection, validation, safety, unconditional love, permission to be imperfect.
For women who've survived childhood trauma—abuse, neglect, emotional unavailability, conditional love—the work of reparenting is essential. Because that wounded child doesn't just live in your past, she lives in your present, influencing every decision you make, every relationship you enter, every pattern you repeat.
You can't heal what you won't meet.
And meeting your inner child isn't a one-time meditation. It's a daily practice of noticing when she's activated, when she's afraid, when she's driving your adult behavior from a place of old wounds.
It's learning to recognize: "Oh, I'm not responding to this present moment as a capable adult. I'm responding as a terrified 7-year-old who learned that speaking up meant punishment."
And then consciously choosing to respond differently.
This work is tender. It's painful. It brings up everything you've been running from.
But it's also the most liberating work you'll ever do. Because when you reparent that wounded child, when you give her what she's always needed, she stops running your life from the shadows.
She can finally rest. And so can you.
My Soft Living Codes for Reparenting My Inner Child
My Soft Living Codes became: I Am the Parent I Needed, That Child Deserves My Compassion Not My Judgment, Her Needs Are Valid, I Protect Her Now, and She Is Safe With Me.
These codes guide me when I encounter that wounded child—when she's terrified, when she's acting out, when she needs comfort. They remind me that my adult self can give her what no one else did.
This is core work in The Soft Hearts Society™—meeting and healing our inner children so they stop unconsciously running our adult lives.
"You can't heal what you won't meet. And meeting your inner child isn't a one-time meditation. It's a daily practice."
6 Soft Practices for Reparenting Your Inner Child
1. Meet Your Inner Child Through Guided Visualization
Before you can reparent your inner child, you need to actually meet her.
Guided visualization practice:
Find a quiet space. Close your eyes. Take several deep breaths.
Imagine yourself walking into a room where your younger self is waiting. How old is she? What is she wearing? What does her face tell you about what she's feeling?
Approach her slowly. Ask if you can sit with her.
Ask her:
What do you need?
What are you afraid of?
What do you wish someone would tell you?
What would make you feel safe?
Listen. Don't try to fix or minimize. Just listen.
When I first met my inner child, she was 7 years old, curled in a corner, terrified and alone. She told me she needed someone to protect her, to tell her the abuse wasn't her fault, to promise she was safe now.
Meeting her broke me open. Because I realized she'd been waiting my entire adult life for someone to finally see her.
In the Soft Hearts Society, we practice this through:
Monthly guided meditations specifically for inner child work
Visualization practices where we meet our younger selves at different ages
Live calls where we share what our inner children told us
This week: Do this visualization. Meet your inner child. Ask what she needs. Listen without judgment.
2. Validate Her Feelings (Even the "Inconvenient" Ones)
Your inner child's feelings were likely dismissed, minimized, or punished.
Reparenting means validating what she feels:
When she's angry: "You have every right to be angry. What happened to you wasn't okay."
When she's sad: "Of course you're sad. You lost so much. Your sadness is valid."
When she's afraid: "I understand why you're scared. That makes complete sense given what you experienced."
When she's needy: "Your needs are valid. You deserved to have them met."
Stop doing what your parents did—dismissing, minimizing, and shaming her feelings.
My inner child was angry. Furious at the abuse, at my mother's betrayal, at all the years no one protected her. For decades, I suppressed that anger because "good girls" aren't angry.
Reparenting meant telling her: "You have every right to be angry. I'm angry too. What happened to you was wrong."
In Module 2 (Releasing Family Guilt and Shame), we specifically work on validating the feelings that were shamed. We practice giving ourselves permission to feel what we were never allowed to feel.
This week: Notice when your inner child is activated (fear, anger, neediness). Instead of dismissing the feeling, validate it: "Of course you feel this way. That makes sense."
3. Give Her What She Didn't Get
Your inner child needed things she never received. You can give those things to her now.
If she needs protection, protect her now. Set boundaries. Remove yourself from unsafe situations. Speak up when others hurt you.
If she needed comfort: Comfort her now. Hold yourself when you're scared. Speak gently to yourself. Let yourself cry.
If she needs validation, validate her now. Tell her she was right, it wasn't her fault, she didn't deserve what happened.
If she needed unconditional love, love her now. Not because she's perfect, productive, or useful—just because she exists.
If she needed permission to have needs: Give her permission now. Tell her it's okay to want things, to ask for help, to take up space.
My inner child needed protection most of all. She needed someone to stand between her and harm. As an adult, I give her that—I set fierce boundaries, I remove myself from toxic situations, I protect her in ways no one protected her then.
In the Soft Hearts Society™, we practice giving our inner children what they need through:
Ritual work where we symbolically provide what was withheld
Self-soothing practices that comfort our younger selves
Boundary work that protects our inner children
Journal prompt: What did your inner child need and not get? How can you give that to her now?
4. Recognize When She's Running the Show
Your inner child doesn't stay quietly in the past. She shows up in your present, often running your adult behavior.
Signs your inner child is activated:
You feel disproportionately afraid.
You're people-pleasing to avoid abandonment.
You're overreacting to a minor conflict.
You feel small, powerless, helpless.
You're acting out (rebelling, avoiding, numbing)
You feel desperate for approval or validation.
When you notice these signs, pause and ask: "How old do I feel right now?"
If you feel young (a child or a teenager), that's your inner child responding, not your adult self.
Once you recognize she's activated, you can respond differently.
I used to react to conflict like a terrified child—shutting down, dissociating, and people-pleasing to make it stop. When I learned to recognize "Oh, I'm not feeling like a 42-year-old woman right now. I feel like a scared 7-year-old," I could pause.
Then I could comfort that scared child while responding to the current situation as an adult.
In the Soft Hearts Society, we practice recognizing inner child activation through:
Somatic tracking during live calls
Age regression awareness practices
Grounding techniques that bring us back to our adult selves.
This week: Notice when you feel disproportionately activated. Ask: "How old do I feel right now?" If you feel young, that's your inner child responding.
5. Create a Dialogue Between Adult Self and Inner Child
Reparenting isn't a one-way street. It's an ongoing dialogue.
Practice written dialogue:
Adult Self writes: "What are you feeling right now?"
Inner Child responds: (Write with your non-dominant hand to access the child's voice)
Adult Self validates and comforts: "I hear you. That makes sense. Here's what I can do to help you feel safe..."
This practice creates integration. Your inner child learns she can trust your adult self. Your adult self learns what the child needs.
When I first tried this practice, my inner child's voice (written with my left hand) was tiny, scared, barely legible. She didn't trust me. She'd been ignored for so long.
But over time, as I consistently showed up for her, validated her, protected her—she started trusting me. The dialogue became easier. She started asking for what she needed instead of acting out.
In the Soft Hearts Society™, we practice this dialogue through:
Journaling exercises with prompts for inner child conversations
Live call shares where we read our dialogues to each other
Witnessing each other's inner child work
This week: Try written dialogue. Adult self asks questions. Inner child responds with the non-dominant hand.
6. Let Her Play, Rest, and Just Be
Your inner child didn't just need healing from trauma. She also needed to be a child—to play, to rest, to be silly, to have fun without earning it.
Give her opportunities to:
Play without purpose (coloring, dancing, games)
Be messy and imperfect.
Do things just for joy.
Rest without productivity
Be taken care of
This isn't frivolous. This is healing.
I had to learn to let my inner child play. To color in coloring books. To dance around my living room. To watch cartoons. To rest in the middle of the day just because.
At first, it felt ridiculous. But that wounded child needed to experience joy, play, rest—things she was never allowed.
In the Soft Hearts Society™, we practice this through:
"Nothing time" practices where we just be
Play prompts that invite joy without purpose
Permission to be imperfect, messy, childlike
This month: Do one thing purely for your inner child's joy. Let her play. Let her rest. Let her just be.
Ways to Continue This Work with Me
The Soft Hearts Society™
A sacred space for women doing the tender work of reparenting their inner children and healing childhood wounds.
Inside, you receive:
10-month Ancestral Healing curriculum, including deep inner child work
Monthly guided meditations for meeting and healing your younger selves
Inner child courses for mothers and daughters (healing together)
Weekly livestreams where we process inner child activation
Somatic practices for regulation when the inner child is triggered
A community of women who understand the pain of meeting the child who was never protected
Investment: Monthly ($375) | 3-Month ($1,025) | Yearly ($4,050)
Free Resources
→ Join me on Insight Timer for free circles every Sunday at 10 am CST
→ Subscribe to YouTube for inner child healing practices
→ Follow on Pinterest for reparenting reminders
Remember: That wounded child inside you has been waiting for someone to finally protect her, comfort her, tell her it wasn't her fault. You can be that person. You can give her what she's always needed. She is safe with you now.
