#6 in the series of inner journeys accompanying the book Allies & Demons: Working with Spirit for Power and Healing. The process we will use to heal the child within is a modified Shamanic soul retrieval. This inner journey may be done repeatedly to heal our wounds and grow in emotional vulnerability and maturity.

In bringing loving kindness to our lost inner child parts, we also grow in the ability to parent ourselves with presence and compassion. When our internal landscape is grounded in self-care, we create for ourselves the environment of emotional and mental nourishment we have always craved.

When working with our inner child, it’s as if this child is an actual individual with unique experiences that we might not have access to with ordinary awareness. In fact, we may have consciously or unconsciously blocked childhood experiences in an attempt to avoid or manage pain and trauma we couldn’t process or handle at the time.

When we lose authentic parts of ourselves in this way, a void is created in the psyche. This void is often a place where inner self-criticism and destructive, defensive patterns can come in to fill the gap. Alternately, we may create a social mask we wear with others in an attempt to manipulate or control how others perceive us. Though these tactics may be a way to keep our authentic suffering at bay, the pain created by our defenses may be exponentially greater than the original conflict we hoped to avoid. Allies & Demons teaches us how to become a responsible self-parent. With the help of our guides and teachers, we aim the attention of our best self devotedly toward those childhood parts of ourselves that didn’t get their needs met. We can then bring compassion and unconditional love to parts of our- selves that were misunderstood, ignored or abused. Now, in the present moment, we can care for our emotional self in empowering and deeply healing ways.