Anxiety Relief Practice: Your Inner Child Needs You

You know that hand-to-heart thing everyone talks about? This takes it to the next level.

This isn't just a self-soothing technique—it's actual inner child reparenting that heals anxiety at its root. You'll learn why your anxiety keeps coming back (hint: it's not about the present situation), and how to give yourself what you needed as a child but didn't receive.

I'll walk you through the exact practice I use with clients—and in my own life—to transform overwhelming feelings into moments of healing. You'll use this in your biggest meltdowns AND at stoplights (yes, really).

Whether you're spinning in worry, can't stop the mental loops, or feel like your feelings are too much to bear, your inner child has been waiting for you. Not for the situation to change. For YOU.

This practice builds trust with yourself, increases your capacity to handle hard feelings, and might just change everything about how you relate to anxiety.

Transcript

Welcome!

It's Deb here,

And I'm so glad that you're here.

If you clicked on this talk,

I'm going to guess that it's because,

If not now,

At some point,

You've felt some feelings of anxiety,

Maybe a sense of feeling worried,

Or even scared.

Whether you're feeling them now,

You've felt them in the past,

Or you feel them a lot,

I'm glad you're here.

I know this feeling of actual sensations coursing through your body that make you feel fear,

The sense of your nervous system being dysregulated,

And maybe you've tried a lot of things to make those feelings go away,

To stop those sensations,

But they keep on coming back.

What I'm going to do is share a practice that has changed my life and the lives of countless people that I've worked with.

And I would say that,

In a nutshell,

This is called inner child reparenting,

A specific kind of inner child reparenting,

But it's more than just a self-soothing technique.

It's really about healing the root of your anxiety by giving yourself what you needed as a child,

But you didn't receive.

You don't really need to do anything right now except listen.

I'm going to walk through this with you,

We'll do this together,

And then at the end I'll invite you to practice this in your own life.

So I know you know these feelings.

Maybe you would call them anxiety,

Maybe you'd call it fear or worry,

Stress,

Confusion,

Those feelings that you actually feel in your body.

I often think that they make us feel a sense of not feeling safe in the world,

And usually what we do is we usually attribute them to present-day situations.

And that's most likely because something in our lives really does activate it.

Something happens and it touches on something inside of us.

I know Michael Singer uses the term a thorn,

That it touches an emotional thorn that got put into us when we were a child.

Some people might say that it triggers us,

It triggers something from the past into the present moment.

So it becomes very easy to focus on the situation at hand and to try to somehow fix it,

To maybe improve the circumstances,

Maybe to have a conversation with someone to resolve it,

Maybe to rationalize it in your mind,

To tell yourself maybe you're overreacting,

Or maybe you start to future catastrophize and you remind yourself that there's evidence that this isn't really going to turn out that way.

We try things like breathing exercises maybe,

Or we go for a walk,

Or try to move the energy.

I know what we're usually trying to do,

Though,

Is make that feeling go away.

None of these things are inherently bad.

Trying to resolve a conflict or breathe,

To move your body and move the energy,

They're all excellent strategies,

And I'm definitely not trying to tell you to not do them.

I just think that there's something that we could add to this that would be very beneficial.

And for many of my clients,

And in my own personal experience,

This has been a huge thing that's really changed our lives.

It adds to the level of capacity that we have to deal with these types of situations.

So all these feelings that we're having,

Obviously they're uncomfortable.

And you could easily say,

Well,

Who really wants to have those feelings?

Of course we want to make them go away.

But that's usually because there's this automatic response really baked into being a human,

Which is to move away from pain and move toward pleasure.

And I think there's another reason.

I think that in some ways,

We feel that we can't handle the feelings,

That it's just too much to bear.

Well,

I want to invite you to consider the possibility that you really can bear them,

That you have everything in you,

That you have the capacity to handle and bear these feelings.

But the reason why it's hard to bear them is because you automatically think you need to get rid of them.

So that's kind of an impulse inside of you.

You may not have even considered that you could bear them.

So imagine that first is,

Yes,

Consider the possibility that you can actually handle the feelings that are coming up right now.

But let me tell you a reason why you don't think so.

Because deep down inside,

Programmed inside of you,

From when you were a little child,

You were powerless in many ways.

You were just little.

You didn't have the capacity at that time to handle and feel into these situations.

You probably didn't know how to deal with them.

So it felt like they were too much to bear.

They were overwhelming.

And very likely,

You didn't have anybody else there with you that could help you to process these big emotions.

It's like this gets stored in our body.

It's like an automatic memory of that.

Your brain becomes aware of these situations and automatically wants to move beyond them in some way to suppress them,

To cut off of them,

To do something,

Whether that's fixing,

Changing yourself,

Adapting,

Do something to cope with the situation,

To make those feelings go away,

To not have to deal with them anymore.

And so what happens is unconsciously,

Unknowingly,

We bring that into our adult lives.

And those feelings from our childhood,

They're still stored in our body.

The discomfort,

That sense of powerlessness and helplessness,

That sense of fear and anxiety,

Those worry feelings,

Those scared feelings,

They're all in there still.

They're stored in our bodies.

And then that gets touched.

That wound,

That thorn gets touched.

It gets triggered and activated.

It brings up those original wounds,

The ones when we were little and the feelings that we had when we were little.

So the invitation that I'm going to give you is that instead of trying to bypass them or to get them to move through you or somehow suppress them or stop them,

That you take a moment before you do that and you just presence them.

So you may ask,

What does presence them mean?

You've probably heard people say,

Feel your feelings.

What I hear a lot of times from people is,

Well,

Of course I'm feeling my feelings.

But oftentimes what we're doing is not really feeling our feelings.

We're oftentimes telling a story about our feelings,

Like this shouldn't be happening.

They shouldn't have done that.

Or I shouldn't have done that.

Or this is a bad situation.

They shouldn't be acting that way.

Why are they treating me like that?

So maybe you can see that there's a lot of story in there that we tell ourselves that creates more suffering for us.

This is the concept of the first arrow and second arrow.

The first arrow is an automatic response.

It's in your body and you really actually don't have any control over it.

It's the thing that happens.

It could be the thing that somebody does and then how it feels in our body.

It just is a feeling that comes up.

It might be the actual sensation of fear in your chest or a knot in your stomach.

And that one hurts.

We're not going to discount that at all.

But what happens is we make it worse with a second arrow.

And the second arrow is all the resistance that we have to the situation,

The story that we make up that I shouldn't feel this way or that shouldn't have happened or I can't handle this or I need to make it go away or the ways that we are wishing that the circumstances were different or the other person was different.

The judgments we have,

The anger that we're feeling,

That's because we feel some type of righteous indignation.

And all of that just gets wrapped up and makes whatever painful situation that we're in even worse because resisting feeling the pain is actually causing suffering.

In many ways,

What we do is we argue with the reality of the situation.

So something happens,

We find out some bad news or some hard news,

We're disappointed or we're a little bit afraid,

We're really feeling some uncertainty about the future.

And all of those things feel yucky inside of us.

So what we try to do is we try to fix the situation,

Rationalize the situation,

Control the situation.

We talk about how the situation shouldn't be the way that it is.

And that's why we are oftentimes arguing with the reality of the situation.

So here's the question.

What if you were able to instead just become aware of what it is that you're feeling?

Like pause as soon as you can catch yourself.

And it might not be immediately.

There might be time.

It might be two hours later.

It might be three days later or two weeks later.

But whenever you can,

Catch yourself and say,

Wait a second,

Something happened that spun me out into this other set of arrows and all the stories and I made my suffering much,

Much worse.

What did I first feel?

Now,

If it's possible,

I would invite you to feel that feeling right in the moment.

But whenever you notice something,

Whenever you notice yourself trying to push away or suppress or get rid of a feeling,

What if you could stop for a moment and feel that original feeling?

A lot of people will say that the first feeling is really called an emotion,

Energy in motion.

This is the emotion that is kind of a bit of a combination of feelings and sensations.

And usually that emotion is being triggered from the past.

So one of the things that I need you to remember in order to be able to successfully do this is that you're now an adult.

Oftentimes we doubt our capacity and the ability to do something like this because at some level we are associating with being a child at that point.

When we get emotionally triggered,

It's almost as if your brain goes back in time and you feel like a child.

You may not think that because you go into adult mode trying to solve the problems,

But the actual one feeling the feeling,

That's really the inner child.

So you are an adult that has an inner child.

And this inner child is being activated.

And that inner child part is feeling feelings.

Scared,

Anxious,

Powerless,

Helpless,

Embarrassed,

Some sense of pain.

And the most important thing we can do is create a little tiny bit of separation between you,

The adult you,

And the inner child part of you.

So you've got this inner child part,

The one that has the feelings.

And so what if you were able to say,

Wait a second here,

These feelings are feelings that are coming up from the past.

These feelings are feelings that are coming up from when I was a child.

Now,

I know that you may not fully believe me on this and you may think,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

This situation is really bad.

This situation is painful and it's not the past.

If you looked at my situation,

You would say,

No,

No,

I agree.

This is really,

Truly the present day situation.

I do not doubt for one second that the situation in your life is painful.

I don't,

I don't discount that.

And I suspect it's also bringing up pain from the past.

So my request is that you suspend disbelief for a moment and trust me just to try it.

Because listen,

It's not going to cause you any harm to try it and you could see how you feel.

The only thing I would say is you might want to try it for 30 days or something,

Because this type of thing isn't going to change in one moment.

Though my own personal experience is,

Not just for me,

But also with my clients is that the relief is pretty quick.

So let's go back to this situation.

Imagine if you felt confident knowing that you're an adult right now and that your adult self is able to parent your inner child.

In other words,

If you inhabit this adult you,

Then I almost want you to imagine you're rising up just a little bit and looking down at the inner child within you,

The one that's having the feelings.

And imagine that the adult self is able to hold the inner child and listen to and feel those feelings with her so she's not so alone anymore.

Imagine the young you that was alone and felt these scary feelings,

Maybe felt powerless and hopeless and helpless and afraid.

Imagine that she is not alone anymore.

She's got the adult you.

Now you might think this is crazy.

Like,

How would you do that?

Here's the thing.

The brain is really interesting in this way.

The brain doesn't fully distinguish between the past and the present when it comes to emotional memory.

So if you offer your inner child what she needed in the past,

Your nervous system registers that as healing.

Like right now,

Real healing.

You're not just imagining it.

You're actually creating new neural pathways.

You're rewiring the emotional memory.

And so imagine if you're experiencing these feelings.

And by the way,

You don't have to remember a specific time that it happened or anything.

You just have to believe that it's your inner child that is feeling these scared feelings.

And then what do you think you needed in that moment?

I'm going to take a guess and say at a minimum you probably needed someone who actually saw that you were scared.

If that's what you were feeling,

Someone who was able to say,

Oh yeah,

I do.

I see that you're scared.

Someone who acknowledged your feelings.

Someone that helped you to feel less alone.

Who was there for you and said,

Oh my goodness,

I'm so sorry that you were feeling so alone in this.

I'm here.

Come here.

Get in my lap.

Let me hold you.

Maybe you're sobbing and crying and someone's there for you.

Maybe you needed a hug in that moment.

Maybe you needed someone to hold your hand or help you.

Whatever it is that you needed,

Usually at some core level,

It's to feel heard,

Believed.

Maybe to feel held.

Possibly to feel validated.

Definitely to feel like you're not alone.

To feel like you matter.

That you're important.

That your feelings matter.

That whatever is happening right now matters.

And that it's worthy of someone stopping for a moment to just be with you.

And so that's my invitation,

Is that you,

As an adult you,

Stop for a moment to just be with those feelings.

To just be with that you that needed something back then and provide it to you now.

So let me just talk about the protector parts.

The inner protector.

The reason why we go into fixing or strategizing or helping or going for a walk to move our energy or whatever,

These are ways that our brain,

As a child,

Learned to keep us safe.

Some people would call these coping mechanisms or defense strategies.

They're automatic ways that we have these actions,

These strategies that we use to stop feeling,

To feel better,

To avoid more suffering or to be accepted,

To belong,

Feel loved.

So this is the type of thing that we do where we try to smooth over a situation with somebody or to say the right thing.

Somehow to control the situation.

And the protector part,

Some people call this also the ego defense mechanism,

I call it the protector part,

Is fast and loud.

It's the fastest part.

It is.

It's this part that just zooms in.

I used to say it to my therapist that I know there's another part in there,

But oh my goodness is that part fast.

So one of the things we're doing here by just even understanding this is to build enough capacity to become aware of those protector parts.

And then as soon as we become aware of them,

We can remember that we can do something different.

Now oftentimes the way that I become aware that my protector parts are there is by knowing what my actions are,

The ways I protect myself,

The ways that I'm in the mode of fixing something or thinking about something,

Ruminating over it or trying to smooth things over or something like that.

It might be the ways that I can just feel the uncomfortable feelings and everything I'm doing to try not to have to feel those uncomfortable feelings.

So doing something different is remembering that this external situation is triggering the internal feeling of the inner child.

When we say things like,

No,

No,

No,

This is actually this situation that's in the present day,

This is an excellent indicator that the protector part is playing its role in this because the protector part honestly doesn't want you to go in there and feel these feelings.

The protector part has spent its entire life trying to avoid feeling these feelings.

So if you're starting to get close to those feelings,

The protector part's going to up its game and be like,

Nope,

We're not going there.

No way.

But let's just go with that.

We are able to catch it and we're able to choose something different.

We're able to notice either some of these uncomfortable feelings and not try to suppress them anymore or some of our behaviors.

Well,

I want to talk about what you can actually do in that situation.

You may have heard about or tried putting your hand on your heart before.

It's a nice self-soothing technique.

Sometimes we learn it in yoga or therapy.

Well,

I want you to keep listening because there's more to it than just the physical gesture of hand to heart.

We really need to take it a step further and understand why it's so powerful and what you're actually doing when you do this.

Now,

Before I share what this practice looks like,

I want to say this.

You may not have the exact experience that I describe,

And that is okay.

Your experience is your experience and it's perfect.

You may not feel all that much at first.

That's okay.

Keep practicing.

Sometimes our inner child takes time to warm up to us,

To trust that we really are here to stay.

Here's something else that's really important.

You absolutely do not need to see or visualize your inner child for this to work.

She is going to come to you in your own ways.

Many people,

Including me,

Tend not to see or visualize our inner child.

For most people,

The inner child comes to you through feelings and sensations in your body.

That is her.

For many people,

You're not going to see her as a clear visualization or some voice in your head.

She might speak to you through the tightness in your chest,

Through an upset stomach,

Maybe through shaking or a heavy feeling in your heart.

All of those feelings and those sensations,

They are your inner child communicating to you.

Some people would even say illness and ailments are ways that our inner child is speaking to us.

So here's the practice.

For me,

It's become something very automatic that I built this practice into my day-to-day life.

And that's what I would say that the best thing we could do is build it in all day,

Every day.

But in the beginning,

I had to almost force myself to do this.

I had to create this automatic thing that as soon as I noticed I was doing something that was from my protector parts,

A way that I was not acting in a way that I really wanted to be acting or that I was triggered or hijacked,

Or I was stuck in worry thoughts,

I would just so quickly take my hand and just almost like smash it onto my chest to put my hand to my heart.

Because I was so afraid my protector parts would sneak in and tell me not to do it and distract me.

That would say that this is stupid or this won't work or you don't have time for this,

Just fix the situation,

Whatever it was.

I had to really interrupt that autopilot with this new action.

I had to have this rule in my head that I will do this thing called putting my hand onto my heart to start to build this new connection.

And I was interrupting just like I'm asking you to do the autopilot with this new action.

I didn't even believe it was going to help.

I just knew I needed something that I could do to interrupt this pattern.

So I kept this tool front and center and I pulled it out fast before my old pattern could take over.

And I might have been in the midst of my old pattern.

And I would try to just muster everything I could and put my hand on my heart.

Yeah.

And as soon as my hand is on my heart,

It starts to remind me,

Oh,

Yes.

Oh,

Right,

Right.

Wait,

What am I doing?

What am I doing?

And it starts to give me this physical reminder that I'm trying to do something different.

Now,

In that moment,

You might not feel like you're being very adult,

But I want you to know you are.

Just by doing this,

You're automatically creating a little bit of separation between the hurting part of you and the adult part of you,

That more witnessing part of you.

So if the hand comes to my heart,

To me,

That's the signal that my hand is the adult me that's holding the heart that's hurting right now,

The young me.

So as soon as I do that,

I'm immediately creating this different relationship,

That there is a me that is holding another part of me.

Now,

Here's what's really beautiful about all of this.

Research shows that self-touch,

Just placing your hand on your body with intention,

Actually releases oxytocin,

The same bonding hormone that's released between a mother and a child.

So this isn't just metaphorical.

Your body is literally responding to your own touch,

As if you're being held and comforted by someone who loves you.

Isn't that amazing?

And this doesn't even have to be on your heart,

Just by the way.

But you put your hand on your heart,

And then you say whatever it is you can possibly muster.

Just start saying it.

Even if it doesn't feel like you mean it.

Even if it doesn't feel true to you.

So say things like,

I hear you.

I'm with you.

I can see you're really scared right now.

You're not alone.

I hear you.

I'm listening.

I'm not going anywhere.

Anything you would think to say to a scared,

Crying child,

You would just say that in that moment.

Maybe you just say,

I hear you,

I hear you,

I hear you.

Maybe it's just,

I'm with you,

I'm with you,

I'm with you.

Maybe it's,

I love you.

Now,

You might start to feel a little bit of a change in your body.

You might start to notice some space or your shoulders dropping.

Maybe you don't even notice it,

But because I'm saying it to you,

You just start to do it.

That's okay too.

And then you might start to breathe a little differently.

Maybe deeply.

You might feel some warmth or tingling.

Maybe your breath starts to shift.

You might feel nothing at all.

It's all okay.

But I'm just saying,

Sometimes just putting your hand on your heart causes you to breathe differently.

Maybe you start to have a little crack in that belief that says that I'm alone or that I have to fight or that I have to stop this.

And maybe you start to wonder into,

Maybe I'm not so alone.

Maybe that scared part of you has her little ears perked up a little bit and says,

Wait a second,

Someone's listening to me?

Someone's feeling this with me?

I want you to take a moment right now and just take a breath as you're listening.

Just take this in,

That maybe the inner child parts of you,

That you think that you're waiting for all these things to happen to be better in the outside world or for people to stop being mean or stop doing the things they're doing.

Maybe your inner child part has really been waiting for you.

Maybe there really is something to this whole inner child healing thing.

And let's take another breath and imagine that that's true.

And maybe now we can start to lean into those feelings even more.

Maybe you're not doing it right now,

But that's my invitation for you,

Is that you start to feel those feelings a little more.

Maybe even the feelings start to change.

Sometimes it started off with a tightness in your chest,

And now it became an opening in your chest,

Or now you feel some tightness in your neck.

Maybe they don't feel as bad,

Or maybe it got worse.

Now,

What I know about the actual emotion,

Like if we get to the original emotion,

There's usually an arc of about 60 to 90 seconds where the wave of emotion naturally peaks and subsides.

That's usually when we let the energy be in motion.

That's when we let the emotion flow.

It's what happens when we let ourselves feel something without putting a story around it,

Without resisting it.

That's why when kids cry,

Oftentimes they just cry and wail,

And then they get up and start playing again.

And that's usually because they let that natural arc flow.

Now,

The thing that causes us to suffer with our feelings so much for so long,

For years,

Decades,

Maybe lifetimes,

Is the story that we tell ourselves.

It's that second arrow that I mentioned.

That's usually what causes us to suffer and suffer and suffer.

But when we can get to the original feeling and be present with that feeling,

And when we don't have to make it go away or change it,

And we can just be with it,

It's really life-changing for us.

Now,

I just want to say something.

If you find yourself doing this,

And you're just like,

I can't stop crying,

I'm sobbing and sobbing and sobbing,

Well,

It's very possible that your inner child does have just such a deep well of emotions to express and to feel.

It's also possible that you still have some stories in there,

Or your inner child has stories.

Stories that she has deeply embedded into her.

And so there's no right or wrong here,

For sure.

And it's okay if you use your coping strategies.

It's okay if you say,

This is too much for me,

We're going for a walk.

Or you go into fix-it mode.

Or you go smooth something over with somebody else.

It's okay.

We are not saying coping strategies are not welcome.

We are saying they are part of the journey.

But now we can just add this as another tool.

To give ourselves the emotional support that we needed.

And when we can do this,

In that moment,

Or even later,

We give ourselves what we needed as a child.

We start to fulfill the unmet emotional needs.

This is called reparenting our inner child.

So often when people talk about reparenting our inner child,

It's pretty vague.

It's a little nebulous.

And I just want you to see that this is a process that is much easier than people think.

There are countless ways to reparent our child.

But this is a very active way to do it.

What we're doing here is we're bearing witness to ourselves in the way that we needed someone to bear witness to our experience when we were younger.

And we're reparenting ourselves by providing those unmet emotional needs.

So my invitation to you is to practice this.

I would invite you to practice it all the time.

One of the best things you can do is start by just noticing the ways that you automatically do things to avoid suffering.

And that it is automatic.

Because just becoming aware that it's happening and starting to believe that maybe,

Just maybe,

This is something that's rooted in our childhood and that we are trying to avoid that suffering and that it's possible that we could maybe lean in and be present with those uncomfortable,

Scary,

Anxious,

Fearful,

Hopeless,

And helpless places.

I know it's really brave.

Especially because it's just not what we were taught to do.

And the problem is that we're perpetuating our childhood wounds in our present days by not doing the thing that we needed when we were young.

And that's why reparenting our inner child is so important.

Because none of us got all of our needs met as a child.

So now,

As adults,

We have a chance to use this as an opportunity to pick up where our parents left off.

To build a relationship with ourselves,

With our inner child,

And to fill those gaps of our childhood that weren't met.

But see,

Here's the thing.

You could think,

Well,

I'm just annoyed that my parents didn't do this for me.

I'm upset that I didn't get what I needed.

I'm resentful.

I totally get it.

You could also say to me,

I don't believe this.

This is ridiculous.

If you don't get your needs met as a child,

You're forever doomed.

And this is just the way that we all suffer.

This is how it works.

I understand how you would feel those feelings,

Because that's really kind of the mainstream idea.

But the question is,

Do you want to be right,

Or do you want to feel better?

Do you want to be right that you're going to suffer forever,

Or do you want to actually commit to feeling better every day?

Because if you want to commit to feeling better every day,

Then the work is yours to do.

It is.

It's yours to take responsibility for your own wounding,

Your own pain,

Your own feelings,

And step in and become that parent to yourself.

This is one of the most incredibly powerful,

Empowering exercises you can do for that.

So let me give you the practice in three layers.

I told you that I would encourage you to witness what you're already doing,

Maybe without any action.

That's probably step zero.

But let's go with the first step,

Is to build a foundation proactively.

So that means that you start doing hand to heart and saying some types of words,

Like I'm with you,

Or I'm here,

I love you,

You're not alone,

I'm listening.

Some version or variation of those words.

I invite you to do it whenever you think of it.

I think it's great to have some specific times you do it,

Like maybe when you wake up in the morning,

Or every time you stop at a stoplight,

Or before you go to sleep at night,

Maybe when you're putting your kids to bed at night.

Any moment that you can remember,

Because what's happening is this builds a pathway that becomes more automatic.

And you're also building trust with your inner child,

Because your inner child is like,

Oh,

Wait a second,

We have a relationship.

I didn't even know there was such a thing.

Second,

I would practice it in minor moments.

Not when you're super stressed out,

But maybe when you're feeling worried about something that's coming up.

Not those big overwhelming feelings,

But the smaller triggers throughout your day.

That's when I would put your hand on your heart and take a breath and say something,

Like I'm here,

I'm with you,

You're not alone.

And this is building your capacity.

It could even be that someone didn't hold the door for you,

Or someone was on their iPhone when you were talking to them and you noticed you kind of felt a little bit of this anxious feeling.

And you could just put your hand on your heart and just take a breath.

Maybe internally just say,

I'm with you.

I know that felt scary.

And third,

Use it during those peak moments when you're in the thick of it.

When those scared,

Anxious feelings are so big and so overwhelming.

Now,

This is really hard because you have to catch it.

So you might not catch it right in the middle of it.

You might catch it later.

You might catch it when you're spinning out into story.

That's okay.

You catch it whenever you can.

But this practice becomes your lifeline.

Hand to heart.

Adult self holding the inner child.

I'm here.

You're not alone.

I'm listening.

So if it feels silly or nothing happens at first,

That's totally normal.

Your protector parts are doing their job trying to keep you from enjoying this or getting benefit from it.

Just keep practicing.

I teach this because I really feel that this type of inner child reparenting is the pathway to truly becoming whole after not getting our needs met as children.

And here's the thing I'll say to you.

Some people will say,

But I had great parents.

They were really,

Really great.

They did so much for me.

And I would say this.

If you're suffering from situations in your life or you've got a lot of anxiety or worry or you're overthinking a lot,

Maybe if you feel like you're always having to cope with things or you don't have a sense of inner peace,

If you don't feel a connection to yourself,

A sense of self-love,

It's just likely that they just might have missed the mark on a few things.

They could have been really,

Really great parents,

But they're human beings and they might not have been able to meet every emotional need of yours.

Human beings raising other human beings means that there are going to be gaps and that's okay.

This does not have to be a situation where we have to pathologize our parents,

Say that they were wrong and bad or they're awful.

There are some parents that had some huge gaps that they missed in parenting their children.

And then there are also some parents who just missed the mark because they're human and there's every parent in between.

So we do not need to make your parents wrong or bad for this.

We don't.

Certainly,

It's not required for the work.

All you have to do is realize that you probably didn't get all of your emotional needs met.

That's just probably true.

And that as an adult,

It's your responsibility to step in and to reparent your inner child so that you can actually heal and grow.

And if you're a parent yourself,

This work will make you a better parent.

It'll allow you to be able to bear witness to your children's emotions and to hold and presence their big feelings and their experiences.

Because once you can do this for yourself,

Then you increase your capacity to be able to do it for others.

So here's what I want you to remember.

You have everything you need inside of you.

Those feelings of anxiety and fear,

Any of your worries and any other emotions you're having,

They're not signs that something's wrong with you.

They're signs that a younger part of you is asking for your attention,

Asking to finally be felt and heard.

The practice is simple,

Hand to heart,

Adult self holding the inner child.

I'm here,

I'm with you.

I love you.

You're not alone.

Build it proactively every morning,

Before bed,

At stoplights.

Practice in those minor moments of stress and then use it as your lifeline in those big moments.

I promise you this is not about perfection.

This is about practice.

It's about showing up for yourself,

For your scared little girl inside of you,

Again and again,

Until she finally believes that she's not alone anymore.

And this is the process of growing her up.

When she no longer is that little scared child,

She becomes integrated and becomes one with you.

And these things stop having such a hold on you.

So start today.

I would say start right now.

So put your hand on your heart.

Take a nice,

Long,

Slow,

Deep breath in.

And a long,

Slow,

Spacious exhale and say,

I'm here.

I'm listening.

That's all you need to do.

So thank you for being here.

Let's keep moving toward wholeness.

And I'll see you there.

Namaste,

My friends.