Inner Child Healing: Would you tell your kid that she’s stupid?
Inner Child Healing: Would you tell your kid that she's stupid?
Emotional Regulation & Nervous System • March 21, 2021
SUMMARY
You carry an inner critic shaped by relational trauma that speaks to you with the same cruelty you would never direct at a beloved child, revealing a deep disconnect between how you treat yourself and how you treat those you love. Your inner critic is not some abstract enemy but a harsh internalized voice that repeats damaging messages rooted in childhood wounds, making it essential to recognize this voice as a product of past relational harm, not objective truth. Healing begins when you deliberately speak to yourself with the same kindness and compassion you offer your child, rewiring your self-talk through consistent, neuroplasticity-based practice that helps reclaim your self-esteem and fosters true self-love. You deserve the same kindness and compassion you would give to a child you love. Harsh self-talk often stems from relational trauma and can deeply impact your self-esteem.
Relational trauma occurs when the hurt or harm happens within close, important relationships, especially those with caregivers or family, during your formative years. It is not about single traumatic events alone, nor is it a sign of personal weakness or failure to ‘get over it.’ Instead, it’s about the lasting impact these relational wounds have on your sense of safety, trust, and self-worth as an adult. This matters here because the harsh self-talk you experience often stems from these early relational injuries — the very voices that should have nurtured you instead left you feeling unlovable or flawed. Understanding your struggles through the lens of relational trauma invites compassion and opens the door to healing those younger parts of yourself who never got the care they deserved.
You carry an inner critic shaped by relational trauma that speaks to you with the same cruelty you would never direct at a beloved child, revealing a deep disconnect between how you treat yourself and how you treat those you love.
Your inner critic is not some abstract enemy but a harsh internalized voice that repeats damaging messages rooted in childhood wounds, making it essential to recognize this voice as a product of past relational harm, not objective truth.
Healing begins when you deliberately speak to yourself with the same kindness and compassion you offer your child, rewiring your self-talk through consistent, neuroplasticity-based practice that helps reclaim your self-esteem and fosters true self-love.
“Would you tell your kid that she’s stupid?”
SUMMARY
The things we say to ourselves that we would never say to a child we love reveal the harshness of the inner critic that many women carry from relational trauma backgrounds. This post uses the simple, stark contrast of child-directed kindness to illuminate just how brutal adult self-talk can be — and to begin asking what a different voice might sound like.
“What?! No. Never.”
My client and I were wrapping up a session and she had just begun being incredibly critical to herself.
“Okay,” I said, “Why not?”
“Well,” my client said, “Because she’s just a child, she’s my child!, and she’s *not* stupid, and I love her and-”
I interrupted her. “Exactly! You love her and you would never in a million years say that to her. So why are you saying it to yourself?”
Client pauses. “Well, it’s different with me. I am stupid. Plus, I’m an adult so it’s different.”
I take a deep breath.
“It’s not, actually. It’s not different. You’re not stupid and it’s your job as an adult to treat yourself with the same kindness that you give to your actual child. With the same patience, and love, and compassion as you would have ideally been shown when you were a child. And I think if you could give yourself even one fraction of what you give to your child, if you could turn that love back on yourself even a tiny bit, you’d experience powerful shifts in your self-esteem and confidence.”
The inner child is a psychological concept representing the part of the psyche that retains the feelings, memories, and experiences of childhood. When early emotional needs go unmet, the inner child carries those wounds into adulthood, influencing patterns of behavior, emotional reactivity, and relational dynamics in ways the adult self may not consciously recognize.
Inner Child Work
Inner child work is a therapeutic approach that invites adults to recognize, acknowledge, and heal the younger parts of themselves that were shaped by early wounding, neglect, or difficult experiences. Rather than dismissing these younger parts as ‘the past,’ inner child work treats them as living aspects of the present self — parts that still carry old needs, fears, and longings that deserve compassionate attention.
Over the last ten years of clinical psychotherapy work, I must have had a conversation like the one in this blog’s opening at least 300 times.
I never fail to be amazed at how many of my clients are wonderful, loving, instinctually compassionate, and supportive parents to their own children despite coming from adverse and outright tragically abusive backgrounds where almost no one showed them even a modicum of the care they show their own children. They do not like speaking kindly to themselves.
It brings me to tears to think about how good my clients are at parenting their children despite the lack of “good enough parenting” they received.
But it also makes me so sad to see that, despite how wonderful they are with their own children, they still deeply struggle to speak and treat themselves well.
It seems ironic and disconnected, doesn’t it?
You can be a wonderful parent to your flesh and blood children but a terrible inner parent to yourself.
But I see this all the time.
That’s why one of my very favorite therapy tools to use when I’m dealing with a particularly self-critical client and I know that they’re a wonderful parent, is to invite them to start speaking kindly to themselves as they would to their own child(ren).
Why does this matter?
In a word: neuroscience.
To elaborate, I’m sure you, like so many of us, have heard the term “neurons that fire together, wire together.”
This phrase and contribution to the field of neuropsychology were first used in 1949 by Donald Hebb, a Canadian neuropsychologist.
Effectively, Hebb’s rule teaches us that each thought (spoken or unspoken), every habit, every feeling, and physical sensation we experience triggers the firing of neurons which, in time, creates a neural network in your brain.
Associated channels of memory and habit as it were.
And when you repeat something again and again – consciously or unconsciously – you reify (meaning, strengthen) that neural network.
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So for anyone that’s particularly self-critical who has spent a lifetime lambasting, degrading, and being outright unkind to themselves, they likely have strong neural pathways to reinforce this behavior.
To achieve the change that that client ultimately wants from our therapy together, we have to, effectively, rewire their brain.
We have to form new neural pathways around treating and speaking to themselves more kindly, more compassionately.
And a very large amount of this “rewiring” can come from teaching and supporting my clients to actively talk to themselves more kindly in between our sessions.
Talking to and about themselves as they would speak to and think about their own children.
Here’s how the exercise looks in practice.
How to actively speak more kindly to yourself.
The way I teach my clients to actively speak to themselves more kindly happens in three steps:
Moment to moment, catch yourself being unkind to yourself.
Pause. Instead of being unkind to yourself, think of what you would say to your own child in that moment.
And then actively say that to yourself instead.
It sounds simple, doesn’t it?
It is a simple exercise.
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I think this is probably one of the most challenging exercises I offer clients.
“aw-pull-quote”
Why?
Because first of all, it requires you to bring a heightened awareness to how you’re talking to yourself moment to moment.
Each time you get out of the shower and see your loose skin and belly hanging down, each time you get interrupted by your less-than-supportive manager on a Zoom call, each time you see the state of your chaotic garage and yard and start berating yourself for not having a tidier home… you need to bring awareness to all of these moments through the day when you’re on neural pathway autopilot and starting to beat yourself up about yourself/your capacities/your life.
This level of mindfulness takes work and it’s not always comfortable to do.
THEN, when you do catch yourself in those moments when you’re about to be unkind to yourself, you need to pause, as much as possible and stop yourself from saying something unkind/unsupportive/mean to yourself, and instead think, “What would I say to my own child?”
You might tell your son or daughter:
“It’s okay honey, you’re doing a great job and you’re working so hard. It’s okay not to have everything be perfect.”
“Your body is strong and healthy and beautiful. I love your body!”
“You’re scared and anxious right now, that makes sense. I’m here with you. I got you.”
And then, here’s where it gets even more uncomfortable: you then say those things to yourself.
Yes, really.
Out loud. Silently. It doesn’t matter.
You just have to say that alternative, kind, supportive thought to yourself to get those new, different neurons firing.
It will feel awkward. It will feel forced. It will feel fake.
Remember: you’ve spent decades speaking and treating yourself unkindly.
Those self-critical neural pathways are strong.
It’s going to take time and some discomfort to create new neural pathways and to have those new neural pathways start to feel as automatic as the old ones.
But if you keep practicing the above exercise, day after day, you will create new neural pathways for yourself and you will support the transformation of your self-talk, which in turn will lead to a cascade of positive psychological impacts.
This is the work of change.
It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
And never once have I had a client come back to me after I assign this exercise and say, “Wow, Annie that was really easy to do. A breeze.”
But also, every single time I have assigned this exercise, my clients have come back and said, “Wow, that was powerful. Uncomfortable, but powerful. I can feel some difference already.”
So again, the work of change, particularly when we come from adverse early beginnings, is not easy. But it is so worthwhile.
Rewiring Self-Talk Through Neuroplasticity-Based Trauma Therapy
When you tell your therapist you’d never call your daughter stupid but can’t stop calling yourself that, describing the disconnect between your loving parenting and vicious self-talk, you’re identifying why understandingneuroplasticity is crucial—your brain has spent decades strengthening self-critical neural pathways that now run on autopilot, but these can be deliberately rewired through consistent practice of self-compassion.
Your trauma-informed therapist recognizes that this split—being wonderful to others while cruel to yourself—is classic trauma patterning where early experiences taught you that you were the problem, not the circumstances. They understand that asking you to speak kindly to yourself feels like asking you to speak Mandarin when you’ve only known English; the neural pathways simply aren’t there yet, making self-compassion feel fake, uncomfortable, even dangerous to your trauma-conditioned nervous system.
The therapeutic work involves not just understanding but actively practicing new neural firing patterns. Your therapist might have you speak self-critical thoughts aloud in session, then immediately rephrase them as you would for your child, helping you feel the stark contrast. They guide you through the discomfort of saying kind words to yourself, normalizing how foreign it feels while celebrating each moment you catch and redirect harsh self-talk.
Together, you explore the resistance—what feels dangerous about being kind to yourself? Often it’s the fear that self-compassion equals weakness, that you need harsh criticism to stay motivated, or that being gentle with yourself means you’re letting your guard down. Your therapist helps you recognize these as trauma-based beliefs, not truths.
Most powerfully, therapy provides a living laboratory for neural rewiring. Each time your therapist responds to your self-criticism with compassion rather than agreement, each session where you practice gentleness with yourself while witnessed, you’re creating new neural pathways. Eventually, the kind voice becomes as automatic as the critical one once was—proof that your brain remains capable of profound change, regardless of how long you’ve been cruel to yourself.
The invitation.
So now, my invitation to you is this:
If you identify with this essay today, if you struggle speaking to yourself or thinking about yourself kindly, if you struggle with treating yourself well – with respect, love, and care – I want you to practice this exercise – actively talking kindly to yourself – at least once a day for the next week.
If you have a child that you deeply love, it is very powerful to use them as a resource here when and if you struggle to find something kind or caring to say to yourself.
If you don’t have a child but there is a child in your life you really love – a niece or nephew or little neighbor child – imagine them into this exercise. How would you talk to them?
And if you can tolerate this and if you want to make this exercise even more powerful, find a childhood photo of yourself from an age of your youth. Imagine speaking kindly and supportively to this child.
And then, if you’re willing, please share how this exercise felt for you here in the comments of the blog.
We get over 20,000 blog visitors each month and they might benefit from hearing your experience and insights so that they can feel less alone.
So again, if you feel inclined, please share about your experience using this exercise here in the comments of this blog.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
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). The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion. Self and Identity.Hebb, D. O. (
). The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory. Wiley.Kandel, E. R., Schwartz, J. H., &#
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). Principles of Neural Science. McGraw-Hill Education.Gilbert, P. (
). The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life’s Challenges. New Harbinger Publications.Schwartz, R. C. (
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I’m a successful woman, but I often feel like I’m not good enough. Is this connected to my inner child?
Many high-achieving women experience feelings of inadequacy despite external success. This often stems from unmet needs or emotional neglect in childhood, leading your inner child to believe they must constantly strive for validation. Healing involves acknowledging these old wounds and offering yourself the unconditional acceptance you may have missed.
How can I start healing my inner child when I don’t even know where to begin?
Starting inner child healing can feel overwhelming, but it often begins with simple steps like acknowledging your past experiences and how they shaped you. Try to identify moments when you feel disproportionately emotional or reactive; these can be clues to your inner child’s unmet needs. Gentle self-compassion and curiosity are your best guides.
I find myself constantly people-pleasing and struggling with boundaries. Is this related to my childhood experiences?
Absolutely. A strong drive to people-please and difficulty setting boundaries are common patterns developed in childhood, often as a way to gain approval or avoid conflict. Your inner child may have learned that their needs were secondary, leading to a lifelong pattern of prioritizing others. Reclaiming your boundaries is a powerful act of reparenting your inner child.
What does it mean when I feel anxious in relationships, even when everything seems fine?
Feeling anxious in relationships, even when things appear stable, often points to attachment wounds from childhood. If your early caregivers were inconsistent or emotionally unavailable, your inner child might have developed an anxious attachment style, leading to a constant fear of abandonment or rejection. Understanding these patterns is the first step toward building secure connections.
I often feel a deep sense of loneliness, even when I’m surrounded by people. Is this a sign of childhood emotional neglect?
Yes, a persistent feeling of loneliness, even in company, can be a profound indicator of childhood emotional neglect. When your emotional needs weren’t consistently met as a child, your inner child may carry a sense of isolation. Healing involves learning to connect with and nurture your own emotional landscape, building a secure internal attachment.
Helping ambitious women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
As a licensed psychotherapist, trauma-informed executive coach, and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, she guides ambitious women — including Silicon Valley leaders, physicians, and entrepreneurs — in repairing the psychological foundations beneath their impressive lives. Annie is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited. A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information. She is currently writing her first book with W.W. Norton.
Trauma often disrupts self-compassion while leaving compassion for others intact. You learned early that you were "bad" or "unworthy," but you can clearly see your child's inherent worthiness. This split allows you to be a wonderful parent while maintaining harsh self-criticism.
Neural rewiring varies by individual, but consistent practice over weeks to months creates noticeable changes. The pathways took decades to build, so be patient. Most people report feeling "different" within days, though automatic kindness takes longer to establish.
Use any child you care about—a niece, nephew, neighbor, or even find a photo of yourself as a child. The key is accessing the natural compassion you'd feel toward any innocent child and redirecting it toward yourself.
After decades of self-criticism, kindness feels foreign to your nervous system. Your brain literally doesn't have strong neural pathways for self-compassion yet. The discomfort signals you're doing something new and important—creating pathways that didn't exist before.
Absolutely. Many trauma survivors become excellent parents precisely because they know what NOT to do. You're already demonstrating the compassion you never received—now you're just learning to give it to yourself too.
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