4 Ways to Attune to Your Inner Child and get Unstuck

Feeling stuck is actually a message from your nervous system that doesn't feel safe to change or move forward. This episode explores how our inner child influences our adult patterns and how honoring those early needs can lead to authentic transformation.

• Stuckness is not laziness or self-sabotage but a survival pattern from childhood
• The inner child is a living emotional memory that carries our earliest experiences of love and belonging
• Early emotional environments created neuropathways that operate automatically in adulthood
• People-pleasing, shutting down, and avoiding intimacy are adult manifestations of childhood protection
• Unfreezing begins with listening to what your stuck part needs, not forcing change
• Creating safe micro-moments of intentional care helps build safety in your nervous system
• Play and imagination help reconnect with your inner child's language
• Working with a guide or therapist provides external attunement that your inner child may need
• Transformation happens when you feel safe enough to be authentic, not when you force yourself to change

If you'd like to take the step into healing your inner child, reach out to our practice through the link at the bottom of this page to get matched with a therapist, coach, or guide who can support your journey.

Thank you for tuning into And Still WE Rise! If you would like to learn more about me or the work our practice is doing, feel free to follow us on Instagram at:

@atltherapygirl and @risetherapycenter

Or check us out at www.risetherapycenter.com

Disclaimer: And Still We Rise is meant to provide perspective and meaningful conversations around mental health topics. It is not meant to provide specific therapeutic advise to individuals. If anything in these podcasts resonates, ASWR recommends consulting with your individual therapist or seeking a referral from your primary care physician.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to and Still we Rise.
I'm your host, christine Seidel, and today we're going to talk
about stuckness.
If you've ever found yourselffeeling stuck emotionally,
spiritually or even physically,you're not alone, and we're
going to discuss that today.
Stuckness may present itself asmaybe you're in a relationship
that doesn't feel right, but youcan't seem to leave or get out

(00:22):
of a rut that doesn't feel right, but you can't seem to leave or
get out of a rut.
Maybe your body has beenexperiencing anxiety, panic,
pain or physical or somaticblocks, but the doctors try and
tell you nothing is wrong.
Or maybe you're constantlysecond-guessing yourself,
repeating patterns that drainyou, even though part of you

(00:42):
knows that something has tochange.
Well, today I want to explorewhat's really happening
underneath that stuck feeling,or that physical stuckness, and
what this may have to do withyour inner child.
So let's get started.
So let's get started.

(01:04):
When we talk about feeling stuck, we're often talking about a
nervous system that doesn't feelsafe enough to move or change.
This is not laziness and it'snot self-sabotage, and it's
definitely not that you'rebroken.
Often it is a younger part ofyou, the part who had to survive

(01:27):
early emotional environmentsthat never really got the chance
to feel safe enough to trysomething new or to speak with
authenticity.
Those early experiences createdneuropathways that you believed
were true in order to keep yousafe.
And now they are continuing tooperate subconsciously because

(01:51):
that neuropathway is automaticand familiar for the nervous
system.
The ego doesn't know what'sgood or bad for it.
It only knows what's familiar.
So maybe you grew up in a homewhere expressing big emotions
just wasn't allowed orexpressing different opinions
was shut down.
Or maybe you were the caregiver, the good child, the one who

(02:15):
held everything together, thepeacemaker.
And now, as an adult, you'renavigating your relationships
and your choices from that sameemotional blueprint.
This could be people pleasing,it could be shutting down if
there's conflict or situationaloverwhelm.
It may be avoiding intimacy orover-functioning for others or

(02:39):
sometimes unconsciously creatingchaos.
But there's a long list ofother maladaptive patterns we
continue in adulthood.
And here's what's reallyimportant.
That stuckness is a message.
It's not a flaw.
It is a part of your nervoussystem that is calling you to
pause and be still long enoughto begin listening.

(03:02):
It's your inner child sayingI'm overwhelmed, I'm afraid to
trust again.
I don't know how to choosesomething different.
I feel like I'm always going tobe in trouble because I never
saw what it looked like to be insafe love as a child.
And the inner child is not justa metaphor, it's a living,

(03:27):
breathing emotional memoryinside of you.
It is a part of your ego, yourself-concept and a very integral
part of your parasympatheticnervous system that is
developing between the time inutero through age seven or eight
.
Through age seven or eight,this part carries your earliest

(03:49):
experiences of love andbelonging and your beliefs about
your worthiness and your valueand your understanding of how to
survive emotional pain throughconnections.
And when your little selfdidn't feel emotionally attuned
to, or when their needs wereignored, minimized or maybe even
punished, they learned thatit's not safe to feel so they

(04:11):
will just stay small, quiet andfrozen, and this is what had to
be normalized so they cannavigate the world in a way that
was safest for them.
And that is where stucknesscomes from.
It's not from failure, it's notfrom being incapable, but it's
a deep, brilliant survivalpattern that once protected you

(04:36):
but now holds you back.
But the good news is that it'snot needed any longer and there
is a way to begin to unfreeze.
And so we ask how do we beginto unstuck ourselves First.
We begin by listening, notfixing and not doing, which I

(04:59):
know is the most frustratingpart of this, and as a clinical
therapist, my clients are alwayslike that sounds great, but
like so what do I do?
And I understand.
I was there too and stillsometimes try and rebuff this
part when I hit my own stuckness.
But here are four ways to beginstilling yourself, to start

(05:20):
unfreezing and opening up to theguidance that only the inner
child can bring us to.
And this is the part thatbrings about change.
And I encourage you to journalor record or note what comes up
for you as you make a point ofcreating and spending time
within.
The first one is to pause andcreate stillness.

(05:41):
Try to find a place in yourbody where you feel like the
little one may be speaking from.
Maybe it's your heart, maybeit's your belly, your throat.
There's no right or wrong.
It's the place that comes toyour mind first and in stillness
, in a way of quieting your mindand your body, place your hand
over your heart and ask whatdoes this stuck part need me to

(06:06):
know right now?
It doesn't need to be pushed orshamed, it doesn't have to do
it right or wrong.
Just give it time to be seenand heard and permission Write
whatever comes up first.
Number two create safe micromoments of intentional care.
Let safety build in small ways,doing breath work or movement

(06:30):
in nature, speaking kindly toyourself when you're conscious
of your inner bully.
Think intentional co-regulationbefore transformation.
Change cannot occur when we arechaotic within ourselves.
Number three use play toreconnect.
Your inner child speaks thelanguage of play.

(06:51):
Even something as small ascoloring or dancing or making
eight-year-old jokes or noisesstill one of my go-to or talking
in a British accent or usingyour imagination in any way
communicates the language ofchildhood in play that the world
is not as scary as you oncethought.

(07:12):
And number four work with aguide, if you can, whether
that's therapy, a trusted mentoror group work.
Often our inner child needs tobe witnessed by someone else
first before we can witness itwithin ourselves.
I use the analogy of a toddleroverwhelmed and overstimulated
will become dysregulated andinconsolable.
It is in these moments a childneeds an adult to attune and

(07:37):
attend to them, and the adult isable to determine what the
little one needs.
Maybe it's a hug, maybe it's asnack, maybe it's some chicken
nuggies and a nap.
This is the role of a healingguide.
They hear the need when otherscan't, and sometimes not even
you can yourself.

(07:59):
In closing, you don't need torush, you don't need to be
healed tomorrow.
You are not behind.
You are called to do this workat a time just as this and it is
a loving call.
When you begin to honor whatyour inner child never got or
wanted or needed, you slowlybegin to move forward, not

(08:23):
because you forced yourself, butbecause you finally felt safe
enough to be you.
And that's the realtransformation when you're
moving from your inner childsurvival to love-based,
authentic connection withinyourself.
You can then find it withothers.
Now I understand this conceptcan be very, very wide and it's

(08:48):
a very holistic look at it.
But if you'd like to take thestep into healing your inner
child, I invite you to reach outto our practice, to the link at
the bottom of this page, so wecan match you with a therapist
or a coach or a guide and pointyou in the right direction.
And as an inner child therapist, I offer gentle, grounded ways

(09:13):
to work together so that youknow you're not alone on this
path.
Thank you, and we'll see youguys next time.