Listening to Your Inner Child: Giving Yourself What You Didn’t Receive

Hello Sunshine,

If you’re reading this, maybe something inside of you has been stirring. A quiet ache, a memory, or a longing you haven’t had words for. I want to talk about that sacred part of you, the part you might not often name, but feel deeply: your inner child.

Your inner child isn’t some distant version of you locked in the past. She’s here. She lives in your laughter, in your fears, in the way you love, and in the way you sometimes doubt yourself.

She’s the reason your eyes sparkle when you’re fully present, and the reason your heart aches when you feel unseen.

For a long time, I didn’t know how much of my pain came from that little girl inside me. The one who didn’t always feel safe, the one who didn’t always feel heard, the one who learned to shrink in order to be accepted. And I didn't know that part of becoming a whole woman meant going back for her.

Not to rescue her, but to hold her, to listen, and to give her what she needed all along.

Healing doesn’t always look dramatic.

Sometimes it’s small, sacred moments: letting yourself rest without guilt.

Playing music you used to love and dancing freely in your room. Speaking gently to yourself when your emotions rise. Crying in the shower, not because you’re weak, but because you’re brave enough to feel. Buying yourself a cupcake. Sitting in the sun. Taking a nap without explaining yourself to anyone.

I started asking myself, “What did I need back then?” The answers weren’t always clear, but when I listened closely, I heard her,

"I needed to feel chosen.

I needed to feel safe.

I needed someone to tell me I didn’t have to be perfect to be loved."

Now, as the woman I am today, I get to offer her those things — day by day, moment by moment.

This journey is not always pretty or easy. It’s layered. Some days feel like a soft reunion, and others stir up old grief. But every time I sit with her, my younger self, and ask, “What do you need today?”

I feel something in me begin to soften. I feel love expand in spaces that once held shame.

I feel my wholeness coming back to me.

You don’t have to go back and relive the pain to heal. You just have to acknowledge that part of you still exists and offer her what no one else could.

You are the mother she needed.

The gentle guide.

The safe place.

The home.

Start with something small. A kind word. A warm bath. A moment of silence with your hand on your heart. Let her know you see her now. That you’re listening. That you’re not going anywhere.

Because healing isn’t about pretending the past didn’t happen,

it’s about offering love in all the places it never reached.

Gentle Reflection

If you could sit across from your younger self today, what would you say?What does she need to hear — and how can you give that to yourself now?

Your healing begins with listening and your inner child is still there;

waiting not to be fixed, but to be loved.