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So many of us have learned to suppress, deny, and censor the truest aspects of ourselves as a result of conditioning, culture, and trauma.
But often that which we suppress holds the key to what makes us feel most alive.
Our inner child keeps us connected to our vitality, playfulness, and wonder.
But so many of us have learned that the parts of ourselves associated with our inner child––like sadness, vulnerability, and even sometimes curiosity and open-heartedness––should be tucked away.
These wounded parts of ourselves incur a cost: our vital connection to life, to our passions, and to our souls.
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A lot of our “psychological baggage” as adults is the result of unresolved trauma from childhood.
In order to heal this emotional damage, it’s helpful to start at the source—the age when the trauma happened.
This is what we therapists call “Inner Child Work.”
Connecting with our inner child requires us to cultivate our inner observer, which is the part of ourselves that’s able to call out the discrepancy between our false self and true self.
Sigmund Freud—the OG of psychology—was the first to call this our consciousness.
Often when our childhood wounds are triggered, we experience “fragmenting” or “splitting.”
Fragmenting is the surfacing of other “selves” or “ego states” that have different ages, emotions, and ways of behaving.
How we become fragmented also stems from our early years.
Our parents/caregivers were our first teachers who provided us with a foundation for how we love and view the world.
Until the brain develops critical thinking and reasoning skills, a child is highly dependent upon those who care for them.
A child needs healthy mirroring, or validation of their being, in order to feel seen, heard, and loved.
In some family dynamics, there’s a lack of healthy mirroring, which may be due to a parent’s own negative childhood experience, physical or mental illness, abuse, or addiction.
As a result, a child will learn to hide parts of the self, causing a false self to emerge in order to receive validation.
Depending on the home, the false self can even stay under the radar.
As the false self arises, we lack an anchor or connection to our body and our feelings.
This distance from our own somatic (or bodily) experiences and emotions results in abandonment of the self.
The new false self is created to respond to others’ needs, which is known as ‘acting in agency’.
In other therapeutic modalities, “accommodation” and “enmeshment” refer to similar phenomena.
The earlier in life that we develop a false self, the more it becomes ingrained in us, and the harder it can be to overcome later.
As we move through life, this pattern of acting in agency can contribute to immune system stress, and undermine our sense of resiliency, often resulting in physical and emotional suffering.
And that’s no good.
That’s why our skilled therapists are here to help you access your Inner Child by using a variety of research proven techniques.
One technique we use is called guided visualization.
Guided visualization actively works to heal childhood wounds through visualizing and participating in a dialogue with the younger self.
We also work on building your mindfulness skills and somatic awareness, so you can better anchor your body and increase your attention to somatic cues, which are connected to your emotions.
While we can’t erase psychological scars, trauma, and pain, we can heal them and change our experience of them by creating a more empowered way of relating to our past and present selves.
A Step-By-Step Breakdown of Inner Child Therapy Practices
Step 1: Acknowledge Your Inner Child
First of all, you have to acknowledge that you have an inner child. We’ll help you come to terms with your past trauma and the fact that you may not be fully healed from it. The healing process can’t begin until you are willing to start. Makes sense, right?
Step 2: Connect With Your Inner Child’s Feelings
Next, you need to slow down, take a breath, and drop into your inner experience to connect with your inner child’s feelings. These feelings can be anything from anger and insecurity to feelings of anxiety and guilt. The inner child’s feelings can surface in a variety of different ways ways, like for example, when situations don’t go your way.
Step 3: Letter Writing
Cultivating a relationship with your inner child and getting to know them more deeply can also be achieved through writing a letter to your inner child. Writing to your inner child can help you provide reassurance, care, and healing, as well as to learn more about their needs, experiences, and perspectives.
Step 4: Play
When we think about children, we often think about play. Restoring our connection to and healing our inner child often allows playfulness and curiosity to emerge. Playing helps connect us to our inner child and helps us heal.
This can be especially helpful if you had a really negative childhood or only remember traumatic experiences, but everyone can benefit from playing.
Restoring a sense of joy and vitality requires us to take a break from our serious, adult selves to learn to reconnect with a sense of play.
Our dedicated team of inner child therapists are selected not only for their clinical acumen but for their ongoing dedication to personal and professional growth.
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I am blown away! I don’t write testimonials, unless I have been extremely moved by something. I was blessed to work with Brooke on a single session, and before this I was in therapy on and off with multiple therapists for the last 20 years of my life. Brooke was able to do more in one session than many years of work with my previous therapist. She has the true gift of great insight and compassion while also getting straight to the heart of your blind spots and unconscious issues in a way that has truly changed my life.
Skyler J.
There are people who are good at their work there are people like Brooke: who are born to do it. I cannot recommend Brooke more highly. I can only imagine where I would be today if I had started working with her years ago. From the beginning of our session, she knew exactly what tools and questions that would work for my particular psychology and my personal experience. No other therapist has been able to do that or anything close.
What I also really appreciate from our session is Brooke's ability to go directly to the source of the issue while also keeping a very gentle and kind energy with me. I felt very seen, understood, and supported. Everything and more that I could have ever asked for from a therapist. I have a severe trauma history and complex issues she was able to immediately identify and help. If she could help me, I know she can help you too.
Taylor E.
You did more in 45 minutes than my last therapist did in a year.
Jamie
With your help, I've finally started to understand that while my vivid imagination often wants to create terrifying monsters under the bed, in a lot of cases those monsters are nothing more than a heap of decidedly less-terrifying laundry I've avoided for too long that just needs to be aired out and put away. Which is definitely a lot easier than monster slaying. Thank you for shedding light in the dark places I was too afraid to face alone.
Morgan B.
I am extremely fortunate to work with Sydney, who is helping me create real internal change. The talent to listen well is Hall of Fame stuff, and she has that. She then follows with questions, strategies that are organic to the moment. I have come to believe that deep, radical, if occasionally deeply painful change ... and, then, healing can happen. I'm just at the lip of that last part - but would not have gotten there, AT ALL, without Sydney
Ric K.
The best therapist ever! Life-changing 🙂
Catherine H.
Right now, the work is changing my life, sometimes in inches, sometimes in miles.
Ric K.
