If a child ran up to you in distress, how would you help them?
You’d comfort them. Take their hand or hold them. Make them feel they’re not alone. Give them words of reassurance. Try to identify what happened to them. If it was dangerous, you’d try to make sure it didn’t happen again. If it wasn’t, you’d help the child see that it wasn’t so scary after all.
The same process is how we help the young parts of us that are stuck in distressing emotions like fear, sadness, shame, guilt.
We call this Inner Child Work, or Reparenting our young parts, in therapy.
Our mind is a multiplicity. As we grow into adults, our psyches will still have parts of ourselves from all the ages we’ve lived through. Multiplicity isn't a disorder, it’s not pathology, it’s human nature. We all have young parts that have experienced distressing emotions and get stuck in those feelings.
It’s normal to want to push away old painful feelings. But here’s the thing - these feelings are the young parts of ourselves, still burdened with painful emotions.
Healing comes not from pushing the young parts away or judging them - but by responding to these parts with compassion and emotionally attuning to them.
The same way you’d respond to that distressed child that runs up to you.
Here’s a practice for attuning to and reparenting your young parts:
1. When you feel old painful feelings come up, put a hand over your heart and acknowledge them by saying “This is a moment of suffering; I’m going to be as gentle as I can with myself.”
2. Ask yourself: “How old does this part of me feel right now?” This helps locate the age of the part.
3. Tell the young part: “I’m here with you.” Be present, and let the part know it’s not alone.
4. Help the young part name how it’s feeling. Naming helps contain and regulate distressing emotions. “You’re feeling scared… sad… confused….”
5. Ask the part what it needs for care. Does the part need reassurance? Encouragement? Validation? Does it need you to hold it? Often young parts need physical holding - if so, putting your hands on opposite shoulders and gently squeezing your body can help.
6. What movements does your body want to do to move the painful emotions out of the body? Gentle swaying, rocking, shaking, running, dancing, can help.
If you find it difficult to be with distressed young parts, you’re not alone. We often have parts that avoid or judge the young parts because the feelings are too overwhelming to be with. If this happens to you, try to not judge the judgement parts - they're just coping the best they can. Offer those parts compassion too.
This is also where working with a therapist can help - someone who can hold and help release the trauma energy these young parts carry, when it’s too much to do alone; and to help repattern the avoidance or judgement parts into parts that can respond.