How to heal your inner child’s body shame

Can you remember the first time that you felt uncomfortable in your body?

For many people, self-consciousness about the body begins in childhood.

Commonly, it starts with teasing, bullying or a body critical parent.

If left unchecked, this childhood hurt is carried into adult life and can have a profound impact on the way you feel about your body.

In today’s post, I’m sharing a technique I used to heal the shame and hurt that my inner little girl experienced.

It’s a powerful technique that will help you move past childhood body consciousness.

Watch or read below:

Body beliefs in childhood

Most of the beliefs we have about ourselves are formed by the age of seven years. As a child, you soak up the environment around you and make meaning out of the things that you experience.

For many people, this is when concerns and self-consciousness about their body began.

Do you remember the first time that you felt uncomfortable in your body?

Perhaps you were being teased about some aspect of your appearance by your school mates, or maybe you had a parent who was highly critical of your body.

My early body shame

I can clearly remember the moment when I felt that my looks weren’t acceptable. Up until that moment, it had not occurred to me to be self-conscious about the way I looked.

I was standing in the playground at the age of seven being teased about my appearance.

I can remember the hurt and shame that I felt and desperately not wanting to be in that situation.

Body shame in adulthood

These kinds of experiences can profoundly shape the way you feel about yourself in adulthood.

As a child, you don’t have the experience to deal with these incidents in a psychologically healthy way.

For some people this means that they carry around their childhood hurt and shame all their life (what’s called their inner child), because they haven’t been able to process and release the emotions.

How I healed my inner child’s shame

When I realised the significance of this early event to the way I felt about my body in adulthood, I set about finding ways to help, support and soothe the little girl who felt that she wasn’t accepted or lovable.

I closed my eyes and saw myself in that playground and imagined my adult self-standing beside her holding her hand.

I asked the younger version of me, “What do you need right now?”

She told me she needed a hug.

I gave her a hug and told her the following:

• Everything was going to be okay – that what she was feeling right now wouldn’t last forever;
• She’d come to realise that she was valuable regardless of how she looked;
• The people who were teasing her were also hurting, and that their teasing was a way to feel better about themselves.

This visualisation was incredibly powerful. It helped to comfort the wounded little girl within me who had been carrying around the belief that she wasn’t acceptable.

Over to you…

So think back to that moment when you first felt that your body or looks weren’t acceptable (I guarantee it’s there if you have ever felt bad about your body).

Close your eyes and go back into that moment and ask that little girl what she needs. Give her all the comfort and support that she never had at the time.

Once you done this ask yourself these questions:

How did it feel to support your inner child?
What does your inner child feel now?
Does your adult self feel feel any different about what happened now?

This exercise is incredibly powerful, so give it a try.

I’d love to know what it’s like for you to comfort your inner child.  Please leave a comment below.