Inner child
Inner-child work - what is it actually?
"Your inner child needs…" That sentence is everywhere today. On social media. In podcasts. In books. At workshops.
And it is easy to conclude that somewhere inside there lives a small version of you who needs something explained to her every day. I see it a little differently.
"Inner child" is a way of describing experience
Imagine someone criticises your project. You are forty years old. You are a competent person. Logically you know that one comment is not a catastrophe.
And yet the reaction is enormous. A tightening. Shame. The urge to withdraw. The thought: "I am hopeless."
The reaction is much bigger than the situation itself. And sometimes that is exactly when it is worth asking: how old does this part of me feel right now?
Not because you really "become a child". Only because an emotional reaction can be connected with experiences and ways of responding that formed much earlier.
Adult knowledge does not always arrive first
You may know: "My partner is not my parent." "My boss does not decide my worth." "I can say no." "One mistake says nothing about me."
And yet in the moment of tension the old reaction comes first. Only a few minutes later does the adult perspective get a word in.
So for me inner-child work is not about pretending we are small again. It is about noticing the part of the reaction that still operates by old rules.
What might such a part have learned?
For example: "If someone is angry, you have to calm them down." "If I make a mistake, I will be rejected." "My needs cause trouble." "It is safest not to stand out." "Love has to be earned."
This is not about finding someone to blame. Parents had their own history, their own limitations and their own strategies.
It is about noticing whether a rule that once made sense is still the rule you want to live by.
What does this look like during hypnosis?
Sometimes a specific memory appears. Sometimes an earlier version of yourself. Sometimes only an emotion or a sense of age.
I do not say: "Now you will certainly meet your inner child." I do not need a particular image. If it appears, we can work with it. If not, we work with what is there.
What matters most is not whether you see yourself as a seven-year-old. What matters most is whether you can respond differently to a reaction that was once the only one available.
The aim is not to keep returning to childhood
I do not want your entire present to be explained by your childhood. Today you have adult resources, experience and options.
That is why, for me, good work with the "inner child" does not end at: "Now I know where this comes from." The question is: "What can I do differently today?"
How can the adult part of you respond when someone is displeased? How can it set a boundary? How can it live through a mistake? How can it decide that a place at the table no longer has to be earned?
And this is where the work stops being a story about the past. It becomes work on the present. Because the point is not to go back to the child you were. The point is for the adult part of you to have more choice today.
If you want to work with these reactions, let us start with an intake call. Book an intake call - 30 minutes, online, free of charge.