I came to college as a relatively naive freshman and realized almost immediately that I knew nothing about myself — and I hope I’m not alone in this experience.
In high school, you go through the motions to get by one day at a time. If you’re anything like me, who grew up surrounded by a rigid and homogenous status quo, you realized the necessity of finding a more welcoming peer group as soon as you left.
Thankfully, that changed for me as I found fulfilling friendships after arriving at IU. But curating those friendships required mending age-old scars and wounds from lack of acceptance or understanding from my peers growing up. I had to do something seemingly trite but paramount nonetheless: heal my inner child.
Inner child work refers to addressing the script we learned at an early age to deal with emotions, problems or relationships, among other things. According to the Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center, we are every age we’ve ever been all at once. So because our inner child is perpetually within us, we might occasionally react to problems in our adult lives in a childlike way — especially if our inner child has unresolved trauma.
The blog outlines a few key behaviors that signify unhealed childhood wounds, such as having trouble with boundaries, a harsh inner critic, a weaker sense of self, being highly anxious, needing constant reassurance and having difficulty dealing with or expressing strong emotions.
Healing your inner child can be a long process. I know I’m certainly not finished.
Online therapy blogs and resources recommend working with a licensed mental health professional to accomplish such goals. However, therapy is notoriously expensive and inaccessible, so there are also ways to go about such healing independently if those tools are unavailable.
So, to go about this journey, you must first listen to what your inner child has to say.
According to Healthline, this can be accomplished by recognizing feelings that come up in situations that trigger strong emotions and then seeing if they can be traced back to specific childhood or early adulthood life experiences. Healthline also recommends writing your inner child a letter, meditating, journaling, having an open mind and bringing back the joys of childhood such as relaxation or playfulness.
Though I cycle between each of those tools as part of my healing journey, I’ve recently prioritized the last one as my primary source of remediation. A couple weeks ago, I saw a few Valentine’s Day Lego sets I thought would be fun to complete with my partner, as we both enjoyed building Legos as kids. But as I perused the site, I noticed how many “adult” Lego sets were available — so I bought one.
Building my little vintage-inspired truck — you know, because I’m from Texas — was the most fun I’ve had in such a long time. It was a mindless distraction away from my phone and the constant hum of responsibility. I got a healthy dose of what it felt like to be a kid again. So much so, I’m already saving up for my next set.
So whatever it may be, find something that will make you feel like a kid again — especially if it conjures feelings you couldn’t fully express as a child due to societal pressure or judgment. As an adult, you have the luxury of designing your life any way you want to. So do it.
Natalie Gabor (she/her) is a senior studying journalism with minors in business marketing and philosophy. She hopes to one day find a career that tops her brief stint as a Vans employee.
