What to Do when Your Inner Child has a Tantrum

No matter how much self-development work I do, there are times when those inner wounds get triggered, bringing up intense old pain that cause my inner world to tremble into an inner state of mush. My inner child pain body aches in its suffering and begs to be listened to. I lose my Adult logic and react from the imprint of beliefs those inner wounds created. My inner child has a tantrum and instead of behaving like a 43 year old empowered woman, I end up behaving like a 3 year old child desperately trying to find her power.

The inner child holds all of our first experiences. The inner child holds our childhood memories which make up our internal mapping of who we are and how we came to be the person we are. These are our imprinted beliefs and each and every one of us is different because of this unique mapping.

From the moment we began to interact with the outside world we began to form beliefs of who we are, how we fit or don’t fit in, what makes us good enough or not enough. We make decisions about people and relationships and these decisions shape our perceptions of the world around us.

I love how Ian Gawler refers to the inner child as the space in our body connecting our throat to our lower abdomen. He refers to this internal centreline as the space in our cellular memory where every experience and memory is stored. And when we understand this concept of cellular memory, we can understand that when we are triggered and those internal memories are brought to our conscious awareness we relive them as if we are the 3 year old experiencing the pain for the very first time.

So our inner child has a tantrum, we lose our centre, we lose our adult logic and the body experiences the wound of the pain locked in our cellular memory.

The good news is that I believe these memories and wounds rise to the surface in order for us to heal them. And by heal I mean we make ourselves whole again and develop into the mature adult instead of the stuck child. Having the necessary awareness and knowing what tools to use to heal will help you soothe the inner tantrum and uncover greater levels of yourself and your higher awareness.

Here are 5 ways to self soothe your inner child:

1.     Connect to the pain by asking yourself what am I feeling and What is this really about? This will help you ACE your feelings: Attend to your feelings, Connect with them, and Express them. Attending to your feelings means you connect to exactly how you are feeling and where in your body you are feeling them. By having this awareness we can ensure we do not DEPRESS emotions into the subconscious but remain aware of them.

By having the awareness, we can connect to the emotions, we can feel them in the pain body and can send our breath into the body to soothe the feelings. Having this connection to your feelings brings them up to the surface and allows you to attend to the them.

Once you attend to them you can express them. This expression is the opposite of depressing or suppressing emotions. We can either talk them through to ourselves, write out the feelings and the awareness or talk it through in therapy or in a supported environment. 

(Check out a previous blog post on how to challenge your beliefs and ace your thoughts)

2.       Give your inner child an internal hug. Create an imaginary line from

your throat to the base of your belly; this is your Inner child which I was referring to above. When you focus on breathing into the discomfort or pain and helping the pain leave the body, we heal the inner child.

Imagine that your breath is like two hands caressing your inner being and hugging it tight. See it like wings holding your inner child tight and knowing that you are safe and taken care of. Focus your breath around your heart and squeeze as if you are giving yourself a great big hug.

3.       Connect with your adult self. Imagine the adult version of yourself. This is you in your power. This is your wise woman or master, your inner sage guiding you along the way. Allow your inner master to hold your inner child and tell her that she is safe, that you can protect her and will guide her forwards. By connecting with your inner wisdom you connect with the knowledge and the values of your higher intelligence which can guide us in the most magnificent ways when we connect with it.

4.       Let go of outdated beliefs which are hurting you. Let go of them by knowing it's an inner wound, it is your imprinted beliefs which were created at a very young age and no longer serve your adult growth. As we let go we grow and we gain a sense of empowerment knowing that as we detach we are in control of the perspective we choose.

5.       Breathe and self care. The deepest portrayal of love towards ourselves is to nurture ourselves, be our own parent and love ourselves more than anyone could possibly us knowing that the best love affair is the one we have with our self. There are many ways we can self-care and give ourselves nourishment and attention. Keep it simple and light knowing that even by giving ourselves some quality alone time we can recharge and reconnect.

The key here to remember, and a big lesson for myself is that when we are tired the inner child will tantrum, so when we self-care we fill up our tanks and have the energy to do this deeper work.


The simplest, easiest and fastest way to self-care is to stop and connect to your breath and allow your breath to sooth the inner child, eliminate toxins from the body, calm your nervous system and activate your frontal cortex which is the area of the brain we access our higher intelligence.

Sometimes these wounds have deep scars that could take years and even lifetimes to heal, so be gentle, be brave and keep growing with every layer you heal and every tantrum you let go of. 

To your truth and freedom with lots of love,

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