Welcome back to Big Feels Monday, a weekly series by The Big Silence where we talk about how we’re feeling, and bring up tools and inspiration to help start the week off.
Let's Talk about Healing Your Inner Child
This week Karena Dawn kicks off the conversation with a meditative journey meant to help heal your inner child. Karena and James have a candid conversation about generational trauma, normalizing therapy, and living life with more openness and less judgment. Watch the video and then read below for more tools to help you with healing your inner child.
Mental Health Tools of the Week
Healing Your Inner Child on The Big Silence Podcast
Healing your inner child has been a popular conversation on The Big Silence podcast with Karena Dawn. The Big Silence podcast is a top-rated motivational and self-development podcast that aims to normalize conversations around mental health and empower people to turn their challenges into triumphs.
In "Have More Happy Days with Gabby Bernstein," Karena and Gabby dive into what exactly it means to reparent yourself (and your inner child). It was in the process of parenting her son that Gabby really learned about reparenting herself. "Some of the greatest parenting techniques are being present and aware. The power of showing up. As I was in the process of showing up for my son, I became very conscious of what I didn’t get as a child and I thought, “Wait, Why can’t I give that to myself?”" says Gabby. "I was literally taking the profoundly transformational parenting methods from Dr. Dan Siegel and applying them to myself."
Gabby recommends Dr. Dan Siegel's book No-Drama Discipline Workbook: Exercises, Activities, and Practical Strategies to Calm The Chaos and Nurture Developing Minds, and his method of The 4 S's: Safe, Seen, Soothed, Secure.
The Power of Showing Up: Gabby Bernstein Recommends these Exercises for Reparenting the Self, based on Dr. Dan Siegel's The 4 S's
"It was just radical for me, to turn to those parenting methods that were working so well with my child, and use them for myself. They just change everything. You have the power within to reparent your inner child and offer them the support they never received," says Gabby. She shares how she applied The 4 S's to help heal her own inner child:
You can tune in to the segment where Karena and Gabby discuss inner child healing and how to reparent yourself, on YouTube. Gabby also has a chapter called "Reparenting Yourself" in her book Happy Days.
- How can I help myself feel safe? I try the heart hold or the breath practice.
- How can I help myself feel seen? Writing passages in my journal about how much I celebrate myself.
- How can I soothe myself? I can make sure I practice sleep hygiene; do my therapy sessions; ask for help.
- And that creates a secure environment for me, little Gabby and all of her parts.
Inner Child Magic
One of the exercises Karena mentions in Big Feels is writing a message to that little you, that you need to hear. In her conversation A Child of Magic: from Gangster to Goddess with Christine Olivia, Christine discusses with Karena that reparenting your inner child is a powerful tool for overall health:
"It's vital and it's essential and it's never ending. We're always going to have that part of ourselves that we get to re-parent right the right way. Our parents weren't here to be perfect they're here to set an example so we can learn and grow from. But we're meant to parent our inner child and give them everything that they deserve and what they need."
In the episode Karena shares a favorite passage from Christine's book, that she wrote as a message to her inner child, and shares to help everyone else's.
What is the Definition of You Inner Child?
"My definition is it's that part of you that is maybe five years old or so, and all of those aspects of yourself from every age on. But the inner child I would say is around two to ten or two to twelve right because then you have the inner teenager after that, that’s a whole other thing!" Says Christine.
What is Healing for Your Inner Child?
WIth Gwen Dittmar Karena breaks down what it really means to reparent yourself and work on healing your inner child. "We can't change what happened, but we can change the energy that is existing inside of ourselves," says Gwen. "It's letting those little parts know that they are loved, they are seen, they are allowed to be angry or sad."
One way to acknowledge the inner child is through letter writing. "I wrote letters about how worthy I was, how loved I was," says Karena. "I wrote letter to my mom, that she would never see." Karena describes that her inner child really needed acknowledgement from growing up with a mother who abandoned her when she was young. Karena writes about her experiences in The Big Silence memoir. She also shares more details in the book about how supporting her inner child helped her heal overall.
How to Write a Letter to Your Inner Child
Th most important thing to remember when writing your letter is to write without judgment, and allow yourself to free write: write your thoughts quickly and continuously, without worrying about form, style, or even grammar.
After practicing the inner child meditation with Karena from the video, visualize yourself as a child and and ask them: what do they need, how are they feeling, what are they upset about? Write down the answers. Then, write to them about how you will show up for them, and fulfill what their needs are now. You can even address the letter to "Little (your name)."
How Connecting with My Inner Child Can Help Me to Heal from Past Traumas
On #DebbieDaily Debbie Whitehead walks through how to work with your inner child to help healing from childhood wounds:
Big Feels Feedback
How are you really feeling? We'd love to hear about your week, or share your favorite tools for the week in the comments!
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The information provided is for educational purposes only, and does not substitute for professional medical advice. Users are advised to consult a medical professional or healthcare provider if they're seeking medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment.
**Please note that if your thoughts start becoming hopeless or suicidal, contact emergency at 988 or 911 andcrisis services immediately. You can find more resourceshere. Text HELLO to 741741 to be connected with a trained crisis counselor.
