5 Ways to Connect with the Inner Child

Blessed be Wildlings! Today we're going to talk about the inner child, which is a common archetype discussed in Jungian philosophy and psychology, as well as spirituality. The inner child represents the tender, innocent, dreaming and hopeful part of ourselves. As we mature and develop as adults, we become responsible for this inner child in the same way our parents are supposed to be responsible for us when we are literally children. Nurturing, supporting, and developing the passions, dreams, and skills of our inner child, while protecting them from the harsh truths of the real world, is the goal.

As someone who personally came from a sorrowful childhood, in which I did not often feel seen, supported, and safe, inner child work has been and is a major tool for me in my personal growth, healing, and development into a much more healthy and balanced adult than before I found these processes. I'd love to share some of my tips with you all!

1. Play

As simple as it sounds, playing is a really good way to connect to the energies of your inner child. We also live in a wonderful time to be an adult looking for a place to play; from mini golf courses to video games, the ability to delve into an active space of freedom and joy is readily available to all of us in a wide variety of forms.

Don't have access to money or a means of transportation to get to the fun? That's okay! Some free ways to play include playing with the pets or children in our lives, dragging out some of those old, dusty board games (and deepening some connections, while you're at it!), splashing in some puddles or a creek, looking up and attempting various new dance moves or shadow puppet styles on the internet, and more.

The key to play is that the only or key product being made is fun. In our adult worlds, and especially in our capitalist motivated society, money and what we are making seems to be an ever present emphasis that, quite honestly, is stressful and overwhelming for our inner child. Like actual children, who have very little concept of money, our inner child simply wants to take part in and thoroughly enjoy the world they were born into.

Integrating play into our work, once we've remember the difference between work and play, in the first place, can greatly improve our adult experience. Fun, after all, was a primary reward we sought out as children from the things we put our free time and energy into. Why shouldn't it be the same, now?

2. Creativity

Being creative is another excellent way to connect to our inner child. This is because while we are actively connected to our imagination, we are communicating with the child inside of us. What we want to create, and how we want to create it, can be really key indicators to the needs and desires of our inner child. For many people, it is also a lot easier to meditate and connect to the inner facets of the self while doing something passively with their hands, as well.

As mentioned above, our inner child came to this world to enjoy it, and one of the major ways the inner child feels enjoyment is through expressing their individual viewpoint. By utilizing and sharing our own creative and individual spark, our inner child feels great contentment, because it is learning about itself, and the universe is learning about us. So, like most real world children, our inner child cannot resist a blank stack of paper, and a good set of markers! Maybe that's why we all have so many pens, blank notebooks, and discount bin office supplies saved up, after all?

Sometimes, connecting to our creative spirit can be difficult, especially if we have been disconnected from our inner child for a long time, or have experienced a lot of trauma or emotionally negative times. Thankfully, we are not alone in the world! There is a community from which we can draw creative and inspirational energy from. A primary tool I use to spark my imagination and creative energy when I am unable to create new things myself is poetry and visual art, in particular paintings and sculpture. Some additional tools around us are coloring books, art kits, and the always bountiful internet craft gurus.

Whatever I make, and however I make it, be it an original creation or an analysis of someone else's creative expression through my own lenses and mirrors, expressing myself creatively is one of the primary ways I nurture my inner child.

3. Memories

While I personally know the struggle of having a sizable chunk of core memories that aren't pleasant to look back on, I can also say that I have a variety of good ones, too. While there are certainly some people who this may not be true for, or that it would be incredibly difficult to come up with positive memories, I think most people have things from childhood they remember fondly. Some examples of this for me would be childhood toys and films, experiences with my peers, friends, and family, experiences with my environment and the natural world, and the variety of creative ideas or fantasies I allowed my mind to play into.

Primarily, recalling positive memories from our childhood can highlight the ways that our inner child can be supported, nurtured, or made to feel safe and seen. There are key elements in the things that we sought out or enjoyed doing as children, and which we found enjoyable, that can help us immensely in gaining fulfillment in our day to day lives as adults.

Part of why I have chosen to do spirituality work as an adult is because of my childhood interest in spiritual and magical things, and the real world events and correlating feelings I had around them. Discovering this core element that ran through a majority of my childhood interests, through an inspection of my more joyful or positive memories, has allowed me to branch into a career field that is incredibly fulfilling - and certainly not the English teacher position I thought I was setting out for when I graduated high school, at all!

The things you loved as a child are very likely the things you still love or find resonance with to this day. The experiences you had as a child that brought you joy and fulfillment very likely contain seeds of truth as to how you can create that joy and fulfillment in your every day life now, as an adult. With some introspection, journal work, and practical application, our pleasant childhood memories are excellent tools to build a bond and work with our inner child.

4. Self Care

When we were children, we needed someone to take care of us. From food, to clothes, to teaching us about the world we came into, we relied on adults to provide us safety and the basic necessities for survival. Now, as adults, we are responsible for providing these things to ourselves. While this is definitely a form of what we would consider basic responsibility, it is also a means to connect with and care for our inner child, and not just make sure that we have somewhere to live, and food to eat.

What our inner child needs to feel cared for is specific to each of us as individuals, and require introspection and self analysis. Some examples of things my inner child personally desires are things like snacks and foods I enjoy and associate with pleasant feelings or memories, a clean and organized home, large but safe outdoor spaces, alone time to sort through and take action on my thoughts and creative ideas, and a community or space to share those thoughts and creative ideas in which they are well received and appreciated.

Behavior that can feel tedious or like work, but that ultimately makes us feel safe, secure, loved, and confident to be creative, abundant, and playful with our energy is self care for the inner child. Creating emotional boundaries and being adult about how we manage our time and personal spaces are all major forms of self care that favor the health of the inner child.

5. A Sense of Wonder

I think many of us turn away from our inner child at some point during adolescence or our teenage years. This is a combination of peer pressure to "grow up," growing weary of being the child who is always having to learn from others, and our maturing sense of security in the world around us. While some people certainly never set down "childish" things, most of us do.

Stop it!

Children, our inner child included, experience the world with a sense of open wonder as to its possibilities and potential. Because they don't know the outcome, or have a firm basis to form probability off of, children are capable to live looking through lenses of imagination that do not create the same limitations that, we, who have come to exist in an adult realm of thinking, full responsible realities and firm truths, set on ourselves. While a child certainly can imagine childish things, like purple dragons or butterfly winged horses, they can also imagine very realistic things, such as dream jobs or a society in which we are all friends, and no one is hungry.

Practical thinking certainly has its place, especially in regards to making what our inner child dreams up become a reality, but learning to reconnect to my more childish way of thinking - asking myself, "well, why can't I do that, really?" - has allowed me to reach for goals and opportunities I would never have reached for in my more adult mindset. By allowing myself the space and opportunity to connect to the child inside of me, and the wealth of imagination and hope available therein, I have also been able to connect to a much more wonderful version of what life can be.