Witnessing Your Inner Child Without Rescuing | Somatic Healing

A holistic, body-based approach to inner child healing that challenges conventional rescue narratives and honors the intelligence of survival patterns.
In this guided meditation, Abi Beri—integrative holistic therapist trained in somatic practices and family constellation work—leads you through a body-based practice of witnessing your younger self without the pressure to fix, transform, or heal.
Drawing from somatic principles, nervous system science, and family constellation wisdom, this meditation offers acknowledgement instead of rescue, permission instead of transformation. You'll explore how protective patterns developed intelligently in your body, how family systems shaped your childhood responses, and what it means to meet your inner child exactly as they are through felt sense and body awareness—including the parts that resist healing.

Transcript

So welcome everyone,

Thank you for listening.

This is a meditation For those of you who've been told You need to heal your inner child Rescue them Make them happy again And something in you is resisting this Something in you knows that the narrative doesn't quite fit So let's explore this idea today Find a comfortable position Whether you're sitting up or lying down And there's no special posture required here Your body will tell you what it needs Just listen to my words And take a moment to arrive here Eyes open or closed Or you can soften your gaze Just start by noticing the weight of your body Against whatever surface is supporting you Feel the temperature of the air on your skin Hear the sounds around you And just arrive in the here and now Just for the next few minutes I will be open and receptive As you settle in I want you to know That what we'll explore today is not conventional inner child work We are not going to visualize a younger self of you And promise them everything will be okay And we are not doing this to rescue or fix anything In my own experience I have learned,

I have realized That sometimes the most healing thing we can offer to our younger self Is not change But acknowledgement And I'll say this again The most healing thing we can offer to our younger self Is not change It's acknowledgement Now if your body allows Let yourself close your eyes If that feels close Soften your gaze Or simply receive my words Whatever feels right for you in this moment Now before we move into the practice itself I want to share something with you That might shift how you understand inner child work So in traditional approaches There is often an assumption That your inner child is waiting Frozen in time Stuck in pain And desperate to be saved by your adult self And the narrative goes That you travel back You comfort them You tell them they are safe And you bring them into the present Now I have noticed something different That the younger part of you Is not waiting to be rescued They are already here And they have been surviving inside of you This entire time They are woven into your nervous system Your protective patterns The way you hold your jaw The tension in your shoulders So they are not broken They are adapted And from a holistic perspective One that honors the intelligence of the body And the wisdom of survival Your inner child developed exactly strategies they needed To make it through what they experienced If they learned not to trust It kept them safe If they learned not to need It prevented further disappointment If they learned to be invisible It protected them from harm So these are not wounds that need fixing They are intelligent responses That deserve witnessing And here is what happens When we approach Inner child work From a place of fixing We are sending a message That who they have become Who you became Is not acceptable That's all an adaptation That's all survival And all that wisdom was somehow wrong Your nervous system registers this as another rejection Another message That you are not enough As you are So if I feel I am a people pleaser And I am approaching The people pleasing part of me With the intention of fixing it I am sending a message to that part That you are not wanted And you are not accepted And you don't belong here Now take this into you Recognizing,

Seeing With this wise intelligence That something must have happened At some point in my life That the only way to feel safe Was people pleasing And we can witness it now As that intelligent response That was created Now that gives you That gives us a better chance Of healing,

Shifting,

Changing,

Releasing Whatever it is you think is affecting you We are going to practice the radical act Of meeting your younger self Exactly as they are With all their defenses With all their protective patterns And all their resistance And simply acknowledging You made sense Whatever you did Made perfect sense And this is what we are calling Witnessing without rescuing Witnessing without fixing So take a breath here with me And notice what's happening in your body As you consider this possibility That maybe your inner child Doesn't need to be saved Maybe they just need to be seen And now let's begin to drop Into your body Not to search for anything Or to analyze anything But simply to notice What's present Now bring your awareness To your feet Feel them against the floor Or whatever they are resting on Notice the temperature Pressure Any sensation at all That may be present Notice without judgment Now your feet have carried you Through every moment of your life They have walked through your childhood Through difficulty Through survival So they don't need to be different Than they are Move your awareness now Up through your legs Notice any holding Any tension Or any numbness And whatever you find Just acknowledge it This is how your body Learned to be These patterns develop For reasons Let's move now Into your pelvis And to your lower belly And this is where we Often hold the deepest Survival responses The freeze The contraction The protective shutdown If you notice tightness here Or numbness Or nothing at all That's all information Not a problem to solve Just information about How your system learned to survive Breathe gently into your belly If you can And if you can't,

That's okay too Sometimes the body isn't ready To breathe freely And that boundary deserves Our respect Now up into your chest And the heart space For many of us This is where the younger parts of us Live most vividly Maybe there is heaviness here Maybe there is armoring A sense of protection around your heart Maybe you feel nothing at all So whatever you discover I want you to know This is how your heart Learned to stay safe If it learned to close It was protecting you from something precious If it learned not to feel It was preventing overwhelm Notice your throat now Now so many of us carry the evidence Of swallowed words here Things we couldn't say Or truths that weren't safe to speak So your throat might feel tight or constricted Or maybe it's wide open for you But somehow disconnected From the rest of you So your younger self learned When it was safe to speak And when it wasn't And that knowing is still here It hasn't gone anywhere And finally now Your jaw,

Your face And your forehead Your jaw,

Your face And your forehead Notice if you are clenching anywhere And if there is tension in your temples Your eyebrows Or the muscles of your face We often hold Childhood vigilance here Scanning for danger Trying to read others emotions And bracing for what might come next So if you find tension here You can simply be with it today Rather than trying to release it Because sometimes our body needs to stay braced And that's the wisdom of an inner child Who learned That the world wasn't always predictable Or safe Now take a full breath here with me And as you exhale See if you can soften just slightly Around whatever you discovered in your body So remember we are not changing it We are just making a bit more space around it With the breath Now staying very connected Present To the sensations in your body I am going to invite you to notice If there is an age that arises You might sense a younger version of yourself You might notice just a feeling A quality A place in your body That carries a particular time in your life There is no need to visualize clearly This isn't about seeing an image of your younger self It's about sensing an energy A presence And a part of you that learned How to be in the world During a time when you had fewer resources Than you have now So breathe with me And sense into this younger part Whichever way it's coming up for you It can be a sensation A thought,

A vision A memory,

A knowing A warmth,

A cold,

A symbol Or anything else that's being shown to you As you sense into this younger part Just notice what you have discovered Are they hiding?

Let them hide They learned that hiding Kept them safe Are they angry?

Let them be angry They have every right to their rage Are they shut down,

Numb or unreachable?

Let them stay unreachable That distance protected them From feeling too much Are they suspicious of you?

Of this process?

Or of the idea that anything could help?

Just honor that suspicion It's intelligent They may have been promised safety before And it didn't always materialize Now here is what we are not going to do We are not going to tell them everything is okay Because from their perspective From that moment in time that they are holding Things were not okay And pretending otherwise Dismisses their reality We are not going to promise them That the future got better They don't exist in your future Your inner child Is an imprint Which exists in a moment that was hard And that moment deserves to be acknowledged as hard We are not going to try to bring them into the present Or convince them they are safe now Because safety is not something we impose It's something the nervous system Discovers slowly Through experience,

Not through words So let's today Practice something simpler And more profound And we are going to call it Acknowledgement Now place your hand on your heart Left or right,

If it feels comfortable And if it doesn't You can place your hand on your belly Or even rest them on your lap Now this isn't about forcing a gesture of comfort It's about creating a gentle point of contact Between your awareness and your body And from this place See if you can offer your younger self These truths Just receive my words now What happened to you was real I am not going to minimize it Or explain it away Or tell you that it made you stronger It was hard It was too much And you were too young to hold what you had to hold I am so sorry The way you responded made sense Every defense you built Every wall you put up Every strategy you developed It was intelligent You survived And that's not a small thing I am not here to change you Or fix you Or to make you into something different I am simply here to witness That you existed in a difficulty And you found a way through I am so proud of you Thank you If you are still angry Stay angry If you are still scared Stay scared If you are still shut down Stay shut down You get to be Exactly as you are You get to be exactly as you are You get to be exactly as you are I don't need you to forgive anyone I don't need you to be healed Or to be whole Or to be happy I just need you to know I see you I see what you carried And I am not asking you to be different I see you I see what you carry And I am not asking you To be different Take a breath now And just notice what's happening in your body As we have offered this acknowledgement today Instead of rescue Some of you might notice a softening A drop in your stomach And some of you might notice more tension More resistance Your inner child doesn't trust this yet And that's okay And some of you might feel absolutely nothing Just distance Or numbness That response is okay too It's all welcome here in this space Breathe and notice Now there is one more layer I want to bring into your awareness Because inner child healing Doesn't happen in isolation It happens within the context of family systems Generational patterns And larger forces that shaped Not just you But everyone who came before you Many of the patterns your inner child developed Were not just personal adaptations They were loyalties Invisible agreements To carry what your family couldn't process To repeat what your ancestors experienced To maintain the patterns That kept the system stable Even if it hurt you From a family systems perspective Your inner child Might be carrying grief That belongs to a grandparent Might be carrying fear That belongs to your parents Survival strategies That made sense three generations ago But don't serve the life that you are living right now And this is important That your inner child Took this on Not because they were weak or broken Because they just loved the family system They wanted to balance the family system If someone in your lineage couldn't be seen You became invisible If someone couldn't express their no You learned not to have boundaries If someone had to shut down Their emotions to survive You inherited That shutdown This is not your fault It's not even your pattern It's a family pattern Moving through you So as we sense Into the younger self now Let's notice If there is something They are carrying that feels bigger Than their personal experience It will show up As you are in this space If My inner child Which I am experiencing And which I am tapped into now Which I am witnessing now If they are carrying a weight That seems to belong To something larger A family legacy A wound Or a pattern that keeps repeating Let me Sense that now And if you sense that See if you can acknowledge that now You may be guided to a place In your body You may be guided to somebody In your mind Or you may be having a different experience Now receive these words You were never meant to carry this alone This weight didn't start with you You tried to help By taking it on And that was an act of love Towards your family But it was never yours to hold Forever It was never yours to hold forever It was never yours to hold forever Take a breath now And as you exhale Imagine that what your inner child is holding Begins to return To where it came from Not forcefully Not all at once Just a gentle acknowledgement That some things belong To a larger story And your younger self Doesn't have to be responsible For the healing For what they didn't create Now this is the holistic view You exist within systems Family systems Cultural systems Nervous systems Your inner child's struggles Aren't isolated personal failures They're responses to complex forces Complex circumstances Some of them much older Than your lifetime And the healing Isn't about making That child different It's simply about Recognising the larger context Releasing What isn't theirs Letting them simply be a child Who did their best With impossible circumstances Letting them simply be a child Who did their best With impossible circumstances This is me Acknowledging And not fixing This is me Recognising That all the things that I call Limiting beliefs Patterns Things to be worked on Things to be healed Are simply intelligent responses Developed Because of complex circumstances And this understanding Brings integration This understanding brings healing Now if you're in a process At the moment If you're having some shifts Some movements,

Some changes in your body You may want to Pause this recording Now as we begin to Complete this practice I want to acknowledge something You might not feel fixed You might not feel healed And you might not even feel better And that's okay That's actually perfect Because the work we have done here Is not about transformation It's about recognition Your inner child doesn't need to be Rescued or changed or made happy They need to be witnessed Exactly as they are With all their protection With all their pain And with all their intelligent survival strategies And that witnessing Is its own form of healing Not the kind that makes everything Suddenly better But the kind that says You were real Your experiences were real And you don't have to be any different For me to see you Now begin to Deepen your breath slightly And start to bring gentle movement Back into your body Maybe moving your fingers And your toes Rolling your shoulders Front and back Maybe stretching if that feels good As you return to your full awareness Of the space around you Bring this truth with you today You are allowed to be Exactly where you are In your healing journey Your inner child is allowed to be Exactly as they are Protective,

Resistant Unwilling to trust too quickly And that's not a failure of healing That's intelligence Now With this knowing With this understanding With this awareness That anything that I needed to heal Shift,

Change,

Download Today That has happened And that process will continue In alignment with my body's wisdom When you're ready In your own time Let your eyes open If they've been closed And take a moment now To notice To orient to the room Or wherever you are Notice the colors The shapes The quality of light Notice your breath Your hands,

Your hips Your shoulders,

Your hands,

Your arms,

Your feet And before you move back Into your day Or into your night Place both hands Somewhere on your body Maybe your thighs Maybe your belly And maybe your chest Whatever feels grounding for you And Offer yourself This final acknowledgement I don't need to be fixed I never did I just needed someone to see me As I am Including the parts That don't want to be healed Don't want to forgive And don't want to move on Those parts are welcome too Take one last full breath with me When you're ready now Gently transition back To your body And to your conscious mind Carrying with you the permission To be exactly as you are Unrescued Unfixed But wholly yourself Thank you very much for practicing with me Thank you very much for joining me And Namaste