Inner Child Work for the Highly Sensitive is Beautifully Complicated
Many of our highly sensitive inner-child parts end up exiled in the unconscious. When we embark on the courageous journey of rediscovering these exiled parts, the process can be intensely relieving, cathartic, and heartbreaking all at once. I’ll attempt to put words to this intensely complex experience of HSP inner-child work, and some of the emotions we may encounter when reconnecting with our inner children.
It’s cathartic to purge so many repressed emotions that we didn’t even know resided within us. When we meet an inner child part who we haven’t seen in a long time (and, perhaps, forgot that they even existed), it’s common to feel an intense surge of emotions. Tears that have been held back or pushed aside for years (decades?) may finally be released. Anger that has remained static for lengthy amounts of time may finally want to be expressed. Emotions that you “thought you were done with” may want your attention once again. A pure childlike happiness or bliss may also be reached—perhaps this is an emotion you didn’t even know you had access to! A cathartic moment isn’t just about the purge of the hard stuff. It’s also about opening up to a new capacity for joy.
It’s relieving to realize so much of what you were trying to “fix” about yourself is no longer necessary. In getting reacquainted with some of those exiled childhood parts, you realize that you were always perfectly lovable. You get to remember a pre-conditioning version of you. Yes—there is a pre-conditioning part of you that does exist. And it’s relieving to realize that within your human experience, you once knew a state of being that was free from self-judgement and repression. Meeting our inner children can help us re-access this state of self-peace.
It’s heartbreaking to realize that, because the world did not recognize your magical sensitivities, that you were slowly taught to see yourself as strangely aloof instead of beautifully gifted creature of spirit. It’s heartbreaking to realize just how beautiful and pure your childhood self once was, and recall the moments when you slowly started to pack away your sensitivities. And it’s heartbreaking to realize just how compartmentalized our parts become as we grow older and older. We may hold the inner child parts that need us the most, and think, “I can’t believe I haven’t talked to you in so long.” It’s okay. You’re infinitely forgiven. Your inner child is happy to celebrate your arrival at any time.
Lots of love to your little ones. I posted an inner child meditation that we did at HSP summer camp over the weekend. It’s free to access for all on my Patreon!
