You might have experienced problems in your business that you tend to have over and over again. These might appear in the form of anxiety, self-sabotage, procrastination, imposter syndrome, and so on. Instead of normalizing these issues and telling yourself that this is just who you are, or getting upset and judging them whenever they appear, we have to question and challenge these. How ironic as it seems, most problems that you experience in your business actually aren’t solvable with some marketing tactics or business strategies, and no, it won’t solve itself neither if you just throw some money at it. In most cases, it has to do with your mindset, and more specifically with the inner child deep inside you. This inner child often dictates the way you show up in your business.

So in this blog post, I will dive deep into how to tap into your inner child, and resolve any unmet needs or unresolved emotions it has, which will make you completely unstoppable in your business!

Related Reads:

• How I Changed My Money Stories And Created An Abundance Mindset In My Business
• How I Avoid Feeling Overwhelmed As A Solopreneur: 3 Simple Steps
• How To Activate Your Creative Flow
• Practicing Mindfulness On A Daily Basis
• Overcoming Perfectionism: 7 Steps To Silence Your Inner Perfectionist

#1: What is your inner child? And where does it come from?

So your inner child is basically the younger version of you, that at a certain time in your childhood didn’t felt that safe space where she could express herself freely and authentically.

In most cases this is caused by for example your caregivers not listening to you in a present way, maybe they reacted negatively to something you said, or maybe the younger you didn’t feel like she wasn’t taken seriously and that her voice didn’t matter.

Something important to note here is that tapping into your inner child isn’t about blaming your caregivers in any way for the way they have raised you. It’s just about cultivating awareness about which situations in your childhood have to lead to you showing up in a certain way in your current, adult life and business.

As a young child, you’re very dependent on your caregivers, right? So, when they react in a ‘negative’ way to you (for example being disappointed, angry, frustrated, or sad), as a child, you can easily interpret that as them, not loving you anymore and wanting to abandon you.

So these childhood ‘traumas’ that have created those bad habits, limiting beliefs, unhealthy attachment styles, triggers, escape mechanisms, and so on, that you are now experiencing in your adult life, are often so little, that it seems ridiculous that it has had such a big impact on you.

If you think about childhood traumas then the first things that spontaneously come up, are abandonment, abuse, and violence, right? But for a child, trauma could be as ‘little’ as, you showing proudly a drawing you made to your mom, and your mom telling you to be quiet because she is having an important phone call. This event could have created unmet needs of approval and encouragement and additionally might have created some limiting beliefs about creativity being something disturbing, unimportant, and a waste of time.

Or you as a child not being able to choose what to watch on TV when the whole family is watching could have cultivated unresolved emotions, that could trigger you whenever you are treated unfairly or could create feelings of inferiorness, insecureness and people pleasing.

So try to think back about some moments in your childhood where you have felt negative emotions such as hurt, shame, and fear.

These could be moments where:

• People laughed at you
• You were punished a little too harsh
• You felt treated unfairly
• Emotions or feelings that you were having weren’t acknowledged by your caregivers (you felt you shouldn’t have these emotions)

And it doesn’t even necessarily have to be you, experiencing these things, it could be also you observing someone close to you going through something like this and in that way learning what the consequences are.

#2. When do you know when it is not you, but your inner child that is reacting to situations?

• Moments where you feel an insane amount of resistance or that make you feel extremely uncomfortable.

• When you get deeply affected by something that rationally isn’t a big deal and you just keep overthinking it and can’t seem to get over it and move on.

• When you notice that you are consistently escaping from a certain feeling or situation in order to avoid having these deeply painful and uncomfortable feelings. These escape mechanisms are ways that you are obsessively distracting yourself, such as overeating, parties, drugs, sex, busyness, and shopping.

• When you have some situations that you overreacted to something, you felt that you just couldn’t control your emotions, and afterward, you just can’t understand what happened and everything is a blur.

These are all signs that it’s not you, but your inner child that is getting triggered and is reacting to situations.

#3. What can I do to heal this so I don’t get triggered anymore?

First of all, it’s super important to not show any negative emotions towards your inner child, because that is what it created in the first place. So treat it exactly for what it is, a little child who just doesn’t know any better.

So, instead of being annoyed by it, labeling it as bad, or judging it, just look at it from a perspective of curiosity and compassion: ‘hmmm, that’s interesting, why was I so triggered by that situation?’

That is the first step.

The second step is making a list of situations in your current life and business where it was not you, but your inner child who was reacting and showing up. Do you see any patterns between those situations? Is there a similar emotion, that you have, that triggers your inner child?

The third step is to pinpoint where this is coming from.

Which specific events or situations in your childhood have created these triggers? Go back to #1 to identify these situations.

And even though you might think that you can’t remember them, believe me, you definitely can. These were traumatic to you, so that isn’t something you just “forget”.

However, in many cases these experiences are buried deep into your subconscious mind, so you have to dig deep in order to find them.

Once you have identified those situations in your childhood, in the fourth step, it’s time to go back in time to that painful memory by either journaling about it, visualizing it, or just talking out loud about that memory to yourself.

The key to healing these painful memories is being truly present and hearing and seeing your inner child with compassion and unconditional love. Tell her that you’re here for her, whatever happens. Let your inner child share with you whatever it needs to express.

What did she feel and think at that moment in time? What did she want to say at that moment that she never got the chance to say? Give her that safe space to just be her authentic self and express all the emotions, feelings, and thoughts.

When your inner child has been able to let it all out, acknowledge those feelings, emotions, and thoughts that she was having. Tell her that it is OK and normal that she felt that way. Tell her that she is allowed to have these thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And tell her that, despite whatever she just told you, you still love her deeply and unconditionally. Tell her whatever she needs to hear and was dying to hear from her caregivers at that moment in time.

And just like that, you will be able to reparent yourself and reframe that painful memory in a more positive way. Since you were able to meet your inner child’s unmet needs and give her this safe space to express all that she needed to express in an authentic way and also make her feel seen and heard and acknowledge all of her emotions, feelings, and thoughts, she can now heal.

And you might not immediately after those ‘healing sessions’ notice any change in your behavior, other than feeling super relieved. But the next time that you get into a certain situation that would normally trigger you, you will notice that your inner child will no longer feel the need to show up anymore. And now, you can have control and consciously choose how you want to react to that situation!

Related Reads:

• How I Changed My Money Stories And Created An Abundance Mindset In My Business
• How I Avoid Feeling Overwhelmed As A Solopreneur: 3 Simple Steps
• How To Activate Your Creative Flow
• Practicing Mindfulness On A Daily Basis
• Overcoming Perfectionism: 7 Steps To Silence Your Inner Perfectionist

Let’s Chat!

Do you notice sometimes that you have an inner child deep inside you? Let me know in the comments down below!