Making Peace with the Wounded Inner Child

By
Dilla Pusparini
Faculty of Psychology, Prof.Dr.Hamka Muhammadiyah University

"Others do the hurting but it's our responsibility to make peace with the hurt"

The wounded inner child tries to protect itself and the pain, the inner child lives in every
person along with all the good and bad experiences from the past. The wounded inner child
can influence into adulthood even where one can be unaware that the inner child persists into
adulthood by showing up in one's habits. Painful childhood or past experiences make us
realize that our inner child has its own wounds with its own healing process capacity.
Inner child
In the perspective of psychology, the inner child is the side of a person's personality that
results from childhood experiences that have an impact on present life or the childish side of
a person. Inner Child is the result of past experiences or events that have not been properly
resolved (Bradshaw, 1992).
The inner child in each person is a character that is created from individual experiences of
how to behave to be loved in childhood. Unconsciously the inner child as an adult will appear
in the form of behavior or in an unconscious emotional state.
Inner child is formed from feelings or emotions in the growing child's soul that will shape his
mentality and personality, if the child gets good behavior or parenting from his environment,
then his soul and personality will be fulfilled, otherwise if the child gets bad parenting from
his environment, there will be a lack of sense of soul and personality (Herawati & Kamisah,
2019).

Inner child hurt

During childhood every individual has experienced difficult times in their childhood and
some children are traumatized. The painful experiences individuals had as children such as
abuse, neglect, lack of love and overprotection from parents can hurt the inner child.
The problem that usually afflicts a person's inner child is wounded so to prevent pain and
deep wounds experienced, things are usually done by ignoring, avoiding, suppressing the
wound and pushing it into the subconscious mind or ignoring it in the hope that the pain will
disappear. In fact, the inner child that has been wounded will not go away easily as long as it
has not been healed.
The inner child cannot heal if a person continues to remember their bad experiences as a child
this is because the person is trapped in a wounded inner child.
Usually people whose inner child has been wounded exhibit problems with trust, intimacy
and addictive behaviors, sanctions and interdependence. Hence resulting in many of them
having a low bond with their parents. Childhood trauma leads to the application of adult
behaviors that are often insecure, unresponsive, insecure, irritable, fearful of hurting others,
anxiety, fear and loss of interest. This behavior is a form of self-defense against "danger"
created by the environment as a result of parenting patterns during childhood.

Making peace with the wounded inner child

Healing yourself from your inner child means unraveling the tangled threads of your current
and future life. Although not an easy problem, healing inner child wounds is important to try
to get harmony between the mind and heart. One of the procedures for treatment is through
the process of making peace with the unfavorable experiences that are allegedly the cause of
the inner child.
The process of trying to make peace with the inner child is to heal, forgive and accept.
Although it is not easy, because it takes an impractical process and time, but by trying to
fight, identify and recognize the inner child itself so that this method can help to develop and
explore yourself better.
The following efforts can be made to make peace with the wounded inner child:
1. Writing
By writing we can express the pain and bad memories of the past, and this can help to release
all the negative emotions that have been bottled up for a long time. For example, writing a
letter to yourself by writing about childhood memories from an adult perspective can also
offer an understanding or explanation for a sad situation that you didn't understand at the
time. It could be that you didn't know why your parents shouted at you and belittled your
achievements. Even though the truth is that when we write, we remember the old wounds, but
at least by putting it in writing, it can help soothe some of the remaining inner child pain in
childhood.
2. Validate feelings and build trust
Our inner child needs encouragement. Therefore, we need to learn to validate his feelings and
not abandon him (forget him) so that he believes that we will always be there for him.
Validate, understand, and realize that we were once hurt, although it is difficult to do so, it is
okay to do it slowly and not too forcefully.
3. Doing Ho'oponopono
Ho'oponopono is a Hawaiian way of forgiveness, this healing helps rebuild bonds with others
and can also be for our inner child. This method is tried by setting aside time to be alone and
doing self-talk activities. For example, by telling yourself that you are loved and appreciated,
apologizing to yourself for bottling up emotions and thanking yourself for fighting and
surviving.
4. Consultation with professionals
If the previous methods are not able to heal and make peace with the inner child, the last way
is to do therapy through consultation with professionals, namely a psychologist or
psychiatrist who can help with their expertise to find the best way to heal or make peace with
the wounded inner child.

So although sometimes making peace with yourself is not always easy, mental health is one
of the important things in life that needs and needs attention in human life. Cheer up for
everything that is difficult to go through, don't forget to always try to slowly make peace with
your wounded inner child because this is for your better mental health in the future. it's okay
to not be okay.

Reference:
Bradshaw, J. (1992).Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child. Bantam
Books.
Herawati, H., & Kamisah, K. (2019). Educating Children Ala Rasulullah (Propethic
Parenting). JOURNAL OF EDUCATION SCIENCE, 5(1).
https://doi.org/10.3314/jes.v5i1.358