Inner Child Work in the Mystical Realm of the Sacred Feminine
What great healers and mystics know is that in order to heal the wounds of childhood you need to do inner child work where that child lives—inward—to the spirit of the inner child.
I had no idea how much the wounded child in me was directing most of my life. It was shocking really, until I started recreating and repatterning my childhood experiences.
The pain we experience from childhood can make an imprint that lasts throughout our lives, until we decide to compassionately heal the wound and the unmet emotional needs at their core–inside the child within.
One of my elders taught me about the significance of inner child work in the mystical realms. Whenever she took us on a journey to meet one of our power animals, stones or plants, she first brought to a place where we met and connected with our inner child.
At some point, one of us in the medicine circle asked why we always met our inner child before going on the journey.
She patiently explained that it is the Spirit child within us that leads you confidently, and fearlessly into the realms of the Mystery.
She invited us to think about our own childhoods and how at our earliest ages we were deeply connected to God.
We had absolute trust the Divine and we saw the unknown realms of the Mystery as places of adventure. What I now understand is that the realm of the unknown is the realm of the Sacred Feminine.
If the Child Self has been wounded, the inner child of the adult makes decisions that don’t work.
Some years later, working with another elder, I came to understand that if the child has been deeply wounded, the spirit of the wounded child lives within us into our adulthood.
As we attempt to make adult decisions, a part of us is constantly trying to protect the inner child, by doing the same things we did as a child to protect ourselves–like leaving our bodies, fighting or hiding.
It is almost impossible for the adult self to ever feel completely successful or to be able to completely surrender to Divine guidance when you are so busy protecting yourself.
The protective mechanisms of our childhood become obstacles as adults.
Many of us try to heal the inner child in adult ways. If we never had a bicycle as a kid, we might own the best bicycle, motorcycle or car that we can afford as an adult. If we always had hand-me-down clothes, we might only wear new clothes as an adult. If we were constantly told to be quiet as a child, we might talk obsessively as an adult.
Whatever we are doing as an adult usually doesn’t heal the wound of the child. Why? Because the child lives inside your spirit. To reach the child, you must enter the spiritual realms.
In the mystical traditions, the way you help the adult is in providing emotional healing for the inner child.
In my experience, inner child work is at the heart of healing in the Sacred Feminine. It is here we find compassion for the experiences of our childhoods and release emotional pain that was created.
One of my elders made sure I spent a month of my life dedicated to inner child work, honoring the challenges I experienced and making sure I met her emotional needs in the spiritual world.
I was in essence, recreating my childhood within the mystical realms. When I had completed my healing, I felt years of obstacles lifted.
Over the years, I’ve explained in many readings and counseling sessions about how to do the same inner child work my elder taught me. And recently, I decided to record enough guided meditations that I could walk someone through the entire process, that my elder so lovingly took me through.
If your inner child is in need of some deep love, healing, and repatterning of your childhood, this is one of the sweetest, life-affirming approaches to inner child work in the Sacred Feminine that I’ve encountered, and I’m delighted to be sharing it with you now.
