Why Your Inner Child Holds the Key to Your Happiness

Think about the feelings you experience day to day — anger, sadness, frustration, shame, insecurity, fear, overwhelm, disappointment, loneliness, anxiety, grief.

Very often, these feelings are not entirely new.

One of the most common questions I ask people when they feel emotionally activated by a present-day situation is:
“Does this feeling feel familiar?”

And surprisingly often, the answer is yes.

Not necessarily because the exact situation has happened before, but because the emotional experience underneath it has.

Many of the emotional reactions, fears, beliefs, sensitivities, and protective responses we experience today have roots in earlier experiences and relationships from our lives.

And that's where your inner child comes in.

Here is an example from my own life. One of the belief systems that I've struggled with most in my life is the feeling of not being good enough. This was evident to me in some ways but it wasn't fully obvious to me until I came home one day feeling incredibly aggravated by a co-worker who was, in my mind, not performing well enough.

Now you might be thinking to yourself… “So what does your coworker’s performance have to do with you?” Well, at the time I was in a managerial position and was managing the team that this particular coworker was on. If my coworker didn't perform well, it meant that I didn't perform well.

Knowing what I very well know, I turned to myself and asked myself, “Is this feeling familiar?” and guess what? Not surprisingly, the answer was yes. This feeling was very familiar. I could probably say it was more than familiar. It felt as familiar as my own skin. And here’s why: I grew up as an immigrant child of immigrant parents to whom survival was very much dependent on academic and financial success. In their minds, without succeeding academically, I would not obtain the financial stability I needed to survive and live in this world. (Although each immigrant story and narrative differs from the next, one thing they tend to have in common is some form of lack or persecution… that is to say, my parents had a very solid belief system, as many do, that “superior smarts lead to financially secure lives”.

I was raised to be the most competent person in the room. In fact, it wasn’t enough to just be competent. I had to be the most competent person in my class or risk feeling like I wasn’t good enough. When I brought back a 90% or 95% on a test in elementary or junior high school, for example, my father would ask— in a semi-joking though simultaneously very serious way— why not 105%?” And so, to my inner child, not performing well became emotionally linked with fears of disappointment, inadequacy, disconnection, and not feeling fully valued or emotionally secure.

(A note: If you know me, my work, and my message, you know it is not one of blame but one of understanding and compassion. My stance—after having done a lot of healing work myself— is that each of our caregivers did the best they could with what they knew and were able to do at the time. In sharing stories about my own or other people’s families, I am doing so to illustrate the trajectory of belief systems and emotional response patterns in our lives, and not as a means of blame).

Was the situation of my coworker not performing her best activating for me in the present day? Sure, it was. Doing a good job is one of my values and I would never want that to be different. And since it is one of my values, if you’re on my team there is an expectation and appreciation for your contribution to the larger whole. But the problem was that my emotional reaction at the time didn't really match the weight of the situation. It felt emotionally much bigger than the situation itself. And so it became clear to me that I wasn't the only one being emotionally activated here. My inner child was the one bearing a large part of this present-day burden.

When your inner child and its past circumstances are being activated by some present-day circumstance, it’s not abnormal for your emotional reaction to feel a bit irrational or “too much” given the present-day situation. That's why you feel like you have very little control of your emotions. It's not just this situation that's causing your reaction, but many other situations like it that are reminiscent of this one and therefore also part of this emotional reaction that you’re having. Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between past and present. It can sometimes react to present-day situations as though old emotional realities are happening all over again.

Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between past and present. It can sometimes react to present-day situations as though old emotional realities are happening all over again.

So, often the deeper work isn't simply learning how to manage the present-day situation more effectively, though those skills do matter too. It’s also about understanding and healing the emotional wounds, beliefs, fears, and nervous system patterns that are being activated underneath the surface.

Because when those older wounds begin healing, we often naturally respond to present-day situations with more groundedness, clarity, self-awareness, and emotional freedom over time.

Often the deeper work is about understanding and healing the emotional wounds, beliefs, fears, and nervous system patterns that are being activated underneath the surface.

Reparenting the parts of us that still hurt

Part of healing involves developing a relationship with the younger parts of ourselves that still carry pain, fear, shame, insecurity, loneliness, pressure, grief, or unmet emotional needs from earlier experiences in our lives (i.e., our inner child). And often, that means learning how to offer ourselves some of the reassurance, understanding, emotional safety, validation, compassion, protection, and care we may not have consistently received earlier in life. Over time, we may begin helping these younger parts feel more worthy, lovable, emotionally safe, supported, understood, and less alone than they once did.

It was our parents’ or caregivers’ responsibility to care for us in these ways when we were children. And now, part of the healing process involves learning how to care for ourselves differently in the present — how to process what hurt us, relate to ourselves more compassionately, and move through life with a little more self-understanding, self-protection, and self-trust than we once had. This is one of the places healing often begins.

It was our parent’s or caregivers’ responsibility to be there for us in these meaningful ways when we were children; now it is our responsibility to be there for ourselves.

What has triggered or activated you recently? Does your emotional response and the situation feel familiar to you in some way? If it does, you’ve likely stumbled upon an emotional wound born from situations of your past that this current situation is reminiscent of. This can feel like a bummer, and I encourage you to remember that it can also be a blessing.

When we become emotionally activated, it can sometimes feel discouraging or exhausting. But these moments can also become invitations — opportunities to understand ourselves more deeply, reconnect with younger parts of ourselves that still carry pain, and begin relating to ourselves with greater compassion and care.

Much of the process I guide people through inside my course Happy from the Inside Out® and in my one-on-one work centers around this process of understanding our emotional patterns, healing old wounds, and building a more connected relationship with ourselves from the inside out. I invite you to check out these offerings if you feel called.

Note: This article was originally written several years ago and has been lightly updated to reflect my current work and offerings.