Let's be real: 'Inner Child Work'?
That's not healing.
That's building a luxury padded cell for a character who doesn't exist.
You're not comforting a wounded self from the past. You're just giving the current performance of 'me' a compelling backstory. "Ah, yes, this is why I do that! My Inner Child!" It's the ultimate excuse. The perfect narrative thread to keep the whole flimsy tapestry of 'you' from unraveling completely.
Every tear shed for that supposed pint-sized trauma survivor is just water for the garden of 'my story'.
And look how fertile it's become.
A whole ecosystem of pain points. A rich soil for victimhood to blossom.
You call it healing.
I call it reinforcing the cage.
You think you're integrating fragments. You're just gluing more elaborate masks onto the face you insist is yours.
The endless processing, the journaling, the guided meditations to "meet" this phantom child... it’s spiritual masturbation.
It feels important. It feels productive.
It feels like you're doing something.
But all you're doing is polishing the chains you're wearing.
You believe in this "inner child" more than you believe in the ground beneath your feet.
You've made an idol of your own history.
Your trauma isn't a thing to be healed. It's a story you keep telling yourself, a record stuck on repeat, a comfort blanket you're afraid to drop because then... who would you be? You'd just be... here. Now.
Without the drama. Without the narrative arc.
And that's terrifying, isn't it?
Because the 'you' that needs healing is the same 'you' doing the healing.
It's a snake eating its own tail and calling it 'spiritual progress'. Here's the destabilizing punch:
Your 'healing journey' is just the elaborate theatre production where the ego plays both the wounded child and the heroic therapist.
It's like trying to escape a maze by drawing a map of the maze while still inside it.
You're using the mind that created the problem to try and solve it. It will never solve it.
It will only create a more intricate version of the problem, complete with footnotes and recommended reading lists.
You're searching for freedom in the very place you feel trapped. The warmth you crave isn't found by digging deeper into the past. It's found by noticing that the entire archaeological dig was unnecessary.
The revelation isn't that you've finally 'healed' the inner child. The revelation is that there was no child.
No wound.
No separate 'you' needing fixing in the first place.
That soft, soul-warming core you're seeking?
It's not buried under layers of trauma waiting to be excavated. It's the space in which the idea of "layers of trauma" appears. It’s the quiet hum beneath the frantic mental chatter about who you were, who you are, and who you need to become.
It’s the simple, undeniable fact of presence.
Not your presence. Just presence.
This awareness that is watching the whole 'inner child' drama unfold.
It doesn't need healing. It can't be wounded.
It's like the screen showing a movie about a broken character. The screen itself isn't broken. It's untouched by the plot.
You've spent years trying to mend the character on the screen. Meanwhile, you are the screen.
The relief, the genuine warmth, comes when the obsession with the character finally softens. When the energy invested in rewriting the script or giving the character therapy finally dissolves. It’s not a victory. It’s a ceasefire.
It’s the sudden, embarrassing realization that you’ve been fighting a war against a ghost.
And the only casualty was your peace.
The effortless peace that was always already here, obscured by the elaborate performance of trying to attain it.
So, when the script of the wounded 'inner child' goes quiet for just a second, what's left?
And if there was no one needing healing, what would you be?
Stay wild, stay curious—grab my book and keep exploring:
(Also as an audiobook now!)
