Healing Inner Child Wounds: Why Do We Need to Find the Root Cause
KIDS
Halina Nguyễn
7/19/20267 min read
Contents
The symptoms at the “branches”: Don’t mistake symptoms for the cause
Why must we go all the way back to the “root”?
The journey to the root: Understanding psychological mechanisms and exploring deeper self-healing approaches
To the souls visiting this little space of mine, I am an adult carrying within me the “wounds of the inner child.” Yet throughout my younger years, I never realized that this wound existed. I lived a seemingly normal life and did not feel that anything was particularly wrong—except that I remained completely single as I approached my forties. At the time, I simply shrugged it off and thought that perhaps my “destiny” had not yet arrived.
It was only later, when I began studying the subject more deeply and encountered the term “inner-child wounds,” that everything suddenly became clear. The child I once was had actually been on a very long journey to learn how to love herself.
When I was young, I was separated from my parents. Although my parents’ home was very close by, how could a little child have possessed enough understanding and life experience to comprehend the struggles and hardships of adults? In that immature little world, the child could understand only one thing: She had been abandoned.
Then, when I was eventually brought back home, the distance somehow grew even wider. Because I had not been held and nurtured in my parents’ arms from an early age, the emotional bond became fragile. Instead of receiving the natural affection that my younger siblings seemed to receive, I was subjected to years of comparisons. Throughout childhood, I lived under the shadow of “not being as good as my younger siblings.” Pulled away from the safety and security of my parents, that little girl simply grew up quietly and alone. She told herself that she did not need her family. She did not need friends. She put on a suit of armor, raising her metaphorical hedgehog spines to protect herself from any relationship that carried even a hint of insecurity.
The peak of that fear came when she wrote a letter to her parents herself, “asking” them not to care about her anymore. How heartbreaking it is for a child to reject love simply because she is too afraid.
She was afraid that their care would one day disappear again—just like the day she clung to the window of her grandmother’s house, watching her parents’ figures grow smaller and smaller in the distance until they finally disappeared from sight. Even now, those scratches have never truly disappeared. My journey today is to search for my own answers and learn to comfort myself. Healing the inner child is not merely a personal longing; it has also become the guiding light for the master’s thesis research topic I am pursuing in Psychology.
Through my own story and through the perspective of an educator, I have come to recognize one enduring principle: If you want a tree to be healthy, you must care for its roots. If you want to heal pain at its deepest level, you must find its root cause.
1. The symptoms at the “branches”: Don’t mistake symptoms for the cause
When a tree’s leaves begin to wither, a knowledgeable gardener does not painstakingly paint each leaf green. Human psychology is much the same.
The behaviors we see every day—pushing people away by “raising our hedgehog spines,” feeling guilty and trying to please everyone, or hiding behind a cold exterior that says “I don’t need anyone”—are essentially only the “branches.”
They are defense mechanisms that the inner child developed years ago in order to survive in an environment that felt unsafe, where she felt unheard or abandoned. If we focus only on treating the “branches,” the actual wound at the “root” remains untouched, continuing to bleed beneath the surface and waiting for another opportunity to emerge.
2. Why must we go all the way back to the “root”?
Breaking the cycle of trauma
If we fail to recognize the root of our pain, we may continue to recreate it in our present relationships. Someone who experienced abandonment as a child may repeatedly push away people who love them because they fear experiencing separation all over again. When we find the root—when we realize,
“Ah, I am reacting because of the fear I experienced by that window years ago, not because of what is actually happening right now.” —that is the moment the cycle can begin to break.
True empathy instead of forced acceptance
No child is born wanting to curl up behind a wall of thorns. When we discover the roots of our wounds, instead of tormenting ourselves with questions like “Why am I so cold?” or “Why am I so weak?”, we can begin to develop compassion toward ourselves: “Poor little one. You had to carry that fear all by yourself for far too long.” This kind of empathy is not judgmental. It is nurturing, embracing, and compassionate.
3. The journey to the root: Understanding psychological mechanisms and exploring deeper self-healing approaches
To truly touch the roots of a wound that has remained frozen for decades, we cannot rely solely on superficial positive advice. From the perspectives of developmental psychology and psychotherapy, childhood experiences of abandonment and comparison can become deeply embedded patterns of emotional and nervous-system responses. The journey of self-healing therefore requires deeper reflection and structured practices.
3.1. Naming and decoding “Defense Mechanisms”
The first step is to recognize how the child we once were may still be influencing the behavior of the adult we are today.
Isolation of Affect: Writing a letter asking our parents not to care about us anymore, or simply accepting being completely single as something determined by “destiny,” may function as a powerful defense mechanism. The child chooses to cut off the desire to be loved before someone else has the chance to reject her. Looking more deeply, this may be associated with Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment. You push others away not necessarily because you do not need them, but because your nervous system may have learned to associate “connection” with “danger and emotional pain.”
The “Hedgehog” Armor (Reactive Formation): The cold, withdrawn exterior that says “I don’t need anyone”can become a protective shield. When you recognize that this shield may once have protected you in the past but is now contributing to loneliness, you may gradually become willing to lower it.
3.2. The 4-step transformation process: From awareness to release
Drawing from principles of cognitive psychotherapy and mindfulness, the following is a practical process for learning to comfort yourself and work with deep-rooted emotional wounds:
Step 1: Separating the “Adult Self” from the “Wounded Child” (Ego-State Therapy)
Whenever a relationship begins to feel unsafe and you want to “raise your hedgehog spines” and run away, pause for three seconds and practice this separation.
Practice: Tell yourself:
“The one who is afraid and wants to push this person away right now is the six-year-old child standing beside the window all those years ago. The person I am today is a woman approaching forty, with knowledge, inner strength, and the ability to keep herself safe.”
This separation can help prevent old emotional patterns from taking over and allow you to regain greater control over your present behavior.
Step 2: Writing a two-way dialogue with the Inner Child (Dialoguing with the Inner Child)
Free writing or journaling can be a useful tool for expressing emotions and processing experiences that have been suppressed for a long time.
Practice: Use two colors of ink—or even two hands—to write. One hand takes on the role of the child from the past, expressing all her frustration, jealousy, pain from being compared with her siblings, and fear while looking through the window.
The other hand, using a different color, takes on the role of the compassionate adult, responding with warmth, reassurance, and affirmation:“I’m here with you now. You are no longer abandoned. You do not have to be better than anyone else to deserve love.”
Step 3: Cognitive Reframing
Children tend to have an egocentric way of thinking, meaning that they may interpret events as being caused by something they did or something that is wrong with them.
The child I once believed that she had been separated from her parents and compared with her siblings because she was not obedient enough or not good enough.
Practice: Use the perspective of your adult self to look back at the past.
Understand that your parents’ decision to separate you from them when you were young may have been influenced by economic pressures, limited circumstances, and the parenting knowledge and skills available to them at that time.
It was not evidence that you were unworthy of love. When you can finally defend that child against the blame she carried, the guilt and feelings of inadequacy rooted in the wound may begin to loosen.
Step 4: Healing through the body and natural soothing practices (Somatic Experiencing)
Psychological distress does not exist only in memories. It can also be experienced through bodily tension, shallow breathing, and heightened nervous-system arousal.
Practice: When loneliness or fear suddenly returns, turn toward gentle, nurturing practices. Preparing yourself a warm cup of ginger tea, breathing in a comforting natural aroma, or sitting quietly while listening to a soothing rhythm can become ways of calming an overwhelmed nervous system.
Place your hand over your chest, breathe deeply, and notice the warmth of your own hand against your body—the place where the little child inside may still be hiding.
Conclusion
Finding the roots of our wounds is not about blaming the past or accusing those who came before us.
Children cannot fully understand the suffering of adults. And sometimes, adults themselves carry wounded inner children from previous generations who never had the opportunity to heal. Finding the root is about understanding, loving, and freeing ourselves in the present.
When the layers of mud around the roots are cleared away, new vitality can begin to flow. The old belief that “I am single because destiny has not yet brought someone to me” can now open into a new chapter: Perhaps being single is a chance to devote these years fully to one of the most sacred reunions of all—the reunion with oneself. When the inner child begins to heal, the bell beside the quiet lotus pond can finally ring again—clear, peaceful, free, and ready to welcome the genuine connections that life has to offer.
With love, I wish you—and the little child within you—great courage on the journey home to embrace yourself.