.png)
Inner Child Healing Process: The Two Questions That Shift Self-Belief
- Stella Dove MBSCH
- 7 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
This inner child healing process helps you understand how childhood experiences shape self-belief, emotional patterns, and the way you relate to yourself and others. If you find yourself stuck in a loop of self-criticism, overthinking, or feeling "not enough," you are asking the wrong questions.
Most people ask:“Why am I like this?”
But that question keeps you stuck in self-blame.
The inner child healing process begins when you ask something different; something that brings understanding instead of shame. Rather than thinking of this as a one-off process, this is something that gets easier and improves with repetition.
How To Begin The Inner Child Healing Process
Find yourself a quiet time where you won't be disturbed or distracted for at least 10-20 minutes. If you're worried about time, set a gentle sounding alarm. If it's your thing to create a ritual, by all means, fire up some incense, light a candle, and rearrange your crystals. If it's not, I promise you, you can do this in as sterile an environment as an aircraft lavatory, but you would probably have a very irritated queue waiting outside. The point is, you don't have to have any kind of a setup. And, you don't have to have had previous experience. You might want a pen and paper handy to make notes. Ideally, you want to focus on an image of your younger you. It can be helpful to use a photo, but this exercise is even more powerful when you look into a mirror and directly into your eyes. Allow yourself to settle and look really closely. You want to be close enough to the mirror so you can see your iris clearly. Focus on one or both of your eyes. Sit for a while here. Now begin focusing on simply exhaling for longer than you inhale.
Focusing on simply exhaling for longer than you inhale.
Nothing more. Nothing difficult to do, nothing complicated. Just slow it all down.
When you feel present and ready, it's time to proceed.
⚠️ SAFETY FIRST: This inner child healing process can stir deep emotions
Before you begin, please ensure you are in a safe, quiet space.
If you feel overwhelmed at any point, use the following grounding techniques and return to these when you close the practice.
FIVE GROUNDING TECHNIQUES
🕐 Find 3 things the same colour or shape. Keep looking for more.
🕑 Feel your feet on the floor. Wiggle & scrunch your toes. Notice where you feel connected. If you can’t feel your feet, try making and releasing fists.
🕒 Say out loud; “I am safe here, in this moment. I am okay now.” Repeat.
🕓 Sip some water and have a bite of something grounding or strongly flavoured, like dark chocolate or garlic.
🕔 Alternate your hands under cool then warm running water.If you would like to keep these useful grounding techniques for future reference, I've produced a pdf you can download when you click send me the pdf.
The First Question: What Happened to Me?
What series of events happened to you at a time in your development that felt too frightening, too overwhelming, too confusing, or too painful for you to process?
If you feel your shoulders tensing, or your jaw clenching, or your belly bracing, allow them to settle down gently. That is memory, sitting in the soma.
You may have a single sharp and painful memory.
You may have so many you don't know where to begin.
You may be struggling to find anything at all.
Sometimes it's visual, auditory or, both.
If no specific memory comes up, don't worry.
Your body might be holding a feeling instead of a picture.
Just stay with the sensation in your chest or in your stomach, in your throat.
That's a memory, too.
You're not alone. Many people I work with have very little specific visual memories to work on, but when we get very still and take our time, we usually find sensation and feelings.
The Second Question: What Did I Make It Mean?
This second question is where it all starts to make sense.
We're going to look for the story your brain told you to keep safe.
In other words, what did you become to make it survivable? And in order to stay safe, what did you believe about yourself? This question, which is really at the heart of inner child healing, sounds simple, but it isn't. Don't worry, it doesn't all make sense initially, but have patience.
Without support and co-regulation, the inner child bids for safety by suppressing personal need and trying to be someone they believe will be better accepted.
Which is why the second question is so important.
To protect you, your early intelligence created meaning.
Not truth, not fact, but a story, a filter that said,
"It must be my fault. I'm not enough.
If I was better, they would have stayed.
If I speak up, I'll lose love.
If I take off the mask, I'll be rejected.
Take your time with this.
If the answer isn't coming easily, relax and try this.
You will hear it when someone compliments you
and you will hear it when someone criticises you.
Your internal response to those two situations will give you a really good understanding of what you believe about yourself.
When you hear the internal story: I'm not enough or I have to be perfect,
imagine it as a filter over your eyes.
This is the question that helps us to lift that filter.
Allow feelings to surface and try to meet them with curiosity.
It's okay to get angry or sad.
It's okay to cry.
This does get easier.
It's a bit like learning a new language or a new instrument.
It takes time.
What did you believe you had to do or be in order to be accepted and loved?
Go carefully here.
Inner child healing asks us for care, compassion, grace, and patience to gently heal.
Closing the Inner Child Healing Process
You might have made some notes, by pen or on your phone, and maybe things are falling into place. Say to yourself or out loud, that you will return.
When you're ready, please return to the grounding techniques to close the practice. I advise you to pick 2 or 3 that feel right for you, but doing just one of them is better than none.
Watch: Inner Child Healing Process: The Two Questions That Shift Everything
This 7-minute guided practice moves away from the "Why" that shames us and toward the two investigative questions that actually lead to healing. This is a practical adaptation of the work I do with my clients to help them move from a state of "Functional Freeze" into self-compassion.
This is a practical adaptation of the work I do with my clients to help them move from a state of "Functional Freeze" into self-compassion.
Why This Inner Child Healing Process Matters
Looking deeply into your childhood self is deep nervous system work. It’s a way of building safety within, of showing the body that it is no longer abandoned. Many of us silenced our emotions, suppressed our needs, and become someone else to win approval. Over time, this becomes self-betrayal. We ignore our instincts. And then we become frustrated or angry with ourselves or suffer with complaints that conventional medicine cannot seem to heal. We internally call ourselves names that we'd be ashamed if anyone could actually overhear because they sound so cynical, lonely, angry or just plain sad.
This process allows us to get underneath that and work from a deeper place. It doesn't make you wrong for thinking negative thoughts, or tell you to just stop thinking them.
It is a tender practice. Sometimes it will bring up sadness. Sometimes anger. Sometimes both. All of it is welcome.
✨ If this practice speaks to you and you’d like to go further, visit Inner Child Healing where you can explore more about how childhood wounds shape our patterns today, and how this work supports recovery from people-pleasing, abandonment wounds, and emotional disconnection.
If this process resonates, this is the work we do together. When it feels right, you’re welcome to book a 90-Minute Inner Child Healing Session.
🧸 Inner Child Healing Exercise Here's another practice for you to try. This Inner child healing exercise with a photo is simple in form, but profound in impact, and would be a great way to close your session.
📚 Further Reading
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Inner Child Healing Process: The Two Questions That Shift Self-Belief?
It’s a gentle practice of looking into a mirror and meeting your younger self with presence, compassion, and truth. And asking two questions: 1. What happened to me? 2. What did I make it mean? By gazing into your own eyes and offering reassurance, you begin repairing the bond between who you were and who you are now.
Why is connecting with my younger self important?
Your younger self still lives in your nervous system and shapes how you respond to love, fear, and belonging. Meeting that part with tenderness reduces self-criticism, softens shame, and builds an inner sense of safety and trust.
How do I practise the Inner Child Healing Process?
Find a quiet time to settle down in front of a mirror, breathe, and settle. Look into your eyes and ask yourself what you came to believe about yourself. Notice what arises with compassion.
What can I expect to feel during this inner child healing process?
Feelings often range from anger or sadness to relief, frustration to emptiness. All are welcome. Emotions surfacing are signs of reconnection, not regression. The body recognising it is finally safe to feel what was once suppressed.
How does this help inner child healing?
The process rebuilds safety and belonging within. Each moment of eye contact and self-assurance rewires survival patterns like people-pleasing or self-abandonment, teaching the nervous system that authenticity is now safe.
Can this replace therapy?
No. It’s a supportive doorway, not a substitute for professional care. For deeper integration, trauma-informed modalities such as Inner Child Healing combine somatic work, guided reflection, hypnosis and nervous-system regulation.
Why do I feel “not enough”?
Feeling “not enough” is rarely a reflection of who you are.
It’s usually something you learned to believe.
At some point in childhood, when something felt confusing, overwhelming, or painful, your system tried to make sense of it. Without the support or reassurance you needed, your mind created meaning to protect you.
That meaning often sounded like:
“I must be the problem.”
“I need to be better to be loved.”
“If I get this wrong, I’ll lose connection.”
Over time, that belief becomes a filter, shaping how you interpret relationships, feedback, and even your own thoughts.
So when you feel “not enough” today, you’re not discovering a truth about yourself.
You’re hearing a story that once helped you adapt.
The inner child healing process helps you recognise where that belief came from, and begin to loosen its hold, so you can relate to yourself with more clarity, compassion, and truth.
A Step Toward Deeper Inner Child Healing: work with Stella Dove, Inner Child Healer
Inner child healing helps us release survival strategies like people-pleasing, reclaim our voice, and return to the authentic self we abandoned long ago.
If you feel affected by childhood trauma, you may be ready for a deeper exploration through gentle, trauma-informed Inner Child Healing (in- person London or online).
If you're not quite ready to take that step:
Soothe your nervous system
🎧 Listen straight away here: A Moment of Calm for the Aching Heart – Free Guided Audio
Gentle reflections, healing tools, and reminders that you are not broken - trauma-informed practices delivered straight to your inbox.
💌 Receive Weekly Stories With Stella 👉 Join me here
Final Word
Look into the eyes of your younger self today. Let them see you stay.
You are not too much. You are not broken. You are becoming.
Transcript of video "Inner Child Healing Process: The Two Questions that Shift Self-Belief
This is an adaptation of a practice I use with clients in session. For meaningful results, please give it time and space. Before we begin, this may appear simple, but it can stir emotion. If at any time you feel disturbed, orient back to the room in the present and do these four grounding techniques for safety. One, find three things that are the same color. Two, gently feel your feet on the floor. Wiggle and scrunch your toes. Notice where you feel connected. If you can't feel your feet, try making and releasing fists. Say out loud, "I am safe here. I am okay now. I am safe here. I am okay now." Four. Drink some water and have a bite of something grounding or with strong flavor like dark chocolate or garlic. Find yourself a quiet time where you won't be disturbed or distracted for at least 10 minutes. If you're worried about time, set a gentle sounding alarm. If it's your thing to create a ritual, by all means, fire up some incense, light a candle, and rearrange your crystals. If it's not, I promise you, you can do this in as sterile an environment as an aircraft lavatory, but you would probably have a very irritated queue waiting outside. So, I don't recommend it. But the point is, you don't have to have any kind of a setup. Ideally, you want to focus on an image of your younger you. It can be helpful to use a photo, but this exercise is even more powerful when you look into a mirror and directly into your eyes. Allow yourself to settle and look really closely. You want to be close enough to the mirror so you can see your iris clearly. Focus on one or both of your eyes. Sit for a while focusing on simply exhaling for longer than you inhale.
Focusing on simply exhaling for longer than you inhale.
Nothing more. Nothing difficult to do, nothing complicated. Just slow it all down.
And when you feel ready, the first question is very simple. What happened to me? What series of events happened to you at a time in your development that felt too frightening, too overwhelming, too confusing, or too painful for you to process? If you feel your shoulders up by your ears right now, just let them drop. You're doing great. You may have a single sharp and painful memory. You may have so many you don't know where to begin. You may be struggling to find anything at all. If no specific memory comes up, don't worry. Your body might be holding a feeling instead of a picture. Just stay with the sensation in your chest or in your stomach, in your throat. That's a memory, too. Without support and co-regulation, the inner child bids for safety by suppressing personal need and trying to be someone they believe will be better accepted. Which is why the second question is so important. So maybe you might want to pause here and get a pen and paper so that you can write this down. To protect you, your early intelligence created meaning. Not truth, not fact, but a story, a filter that said, "It must be my fault. I'm not enough. If I was better, they would have stayed. If I speak up, I'll lose love. If I take off the mask, I'll be rejected. The second question, which is really at the heart of inner child healing, sounds simple, but it isn't. Now, stay with me because the next part is where it all starts to make sense. We're going to look for the story your brain told you to keep safe. What did I make it mean? In other words, what did you become to make it survivable? And in order to stay safe, what did you believe about yourself? If the answer isn't coming easily, relax and try this. You will hear it when someone compliments you and you will hear it when someone criticizes you. Your internal response to those two situations will give you a really good understanding of what you believe about yourself. When you hear that internal story, I'm not enough or I have to be perfect. Imagine it as a filter over your eyes. This question helps us to lift that filter. Allow feelings to surface and try to meet them with curiosity. It's okay to get angry or sad. It's okay to cry. This does get easier. It's a bit like learning a new language or a new instrument. It takes time. Inner child healing asks us for care, compassion, grace, and patience to gently heal. When you're ready, please return to the four grounding techniques to close the practice. Doing just one of them is better than none. Hit subscribe to stay informed of more inner child healing insights and practices. And if anything comes up you want to discuss, leave me a note in the comments.
Comments