🌱 Be the Parent to Your Inner Child

Photo by With Elli

There is a quiet, ongoing conversation within each of us — an inner dialogue that shapes how we think, feel, and act. Most of the time, it happens unnoticed. Yet, it is this dialogue — the words we say to ourselves, the tone we use, the comfort or criticism we offer — that adds to our emotional world.

To “be the parent to your in
ner child” means to become conscious of that inner conversation and learn how to nurture, protect, and guide the childlike part within you that still longs to feel seen, safe, and loved.

Understanding Our Inner Structure

Psychiatrist Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis (TA), described the human psyche as composed of three ego states: the Parent, the Adult, and the Child.
These inner roles are not abstract ideas — they are living parts of our inner world, shaped by early experiences and the people who raised us.

• The Inner Parent represents the voices, attitudes, and behaviors we absorbed from our caregivers. It can be nurturing — offering safety, warmth, and permission to be — or critical, repeating messages of shame, perfectionism, or fear.

• The Inner Child is the emotional, creative, and spontaneous part of us. It carries our joy, wonder, and sensitivity — but also the pain, insecurity, and unmet needs from our earliest years.

• The Adult functions as the balanced observer, the part of us that can stay grounded in the present moment and respond to life with awareness rather than reaction.

In a healthy inner dialogue, these parts cooperate. But when we’ve experienced trauma, neglect, or ongoing criticism, our inner Parent may turn harsh, and our inner Child retreats in fear or pain. The result can be depression, anxiety, or a deep feeling of being “not enough.”

The Power of Inner Dialogue

This ongoing conversation between our inner Parent and inner Child is what psychologists call intrapersonal communication — communication with oneself.
It’s that internal voice that says, “You can’t do this,” or “You’re safe now, take your time.”

Research shows that negative self-talk — when our inner Parent becomes overly critical — is strongly linked to stress, anxiety, and depression. Healing begins with awareness: noticing the tone of your inner voice, questioning its truth, and slowly replacing it with compassion.

Learning to “be the parent” to your inner child means becoming the loving, patient, and protective voice that perhaps you once needed. It means saying to yourself:

“You’re safe now. You can rest. You don’t have to be perfect to be loved.”

This is the essence of emotional self-regulation — the ability to care for your own needs, offer reassurance, and make choices based on your Adult wisdom rather than your childhood fears.

Healing the Old Scripts

Berne believed that every person is “OK” — that we all have value, the ability to think, and a natural drive toward growth and love.
But many of us carry a “childhood script” — a set of unconscious rules and emotional patterns written long ago. These scripts guide how we relate to others, how we react to conflict, and how we treat ourselves.

Healing under Transactional Analysis is about rewriting that script — moving toward autonomy, spontaneity, and intimacy. It means freeing ourselves from internalized criticism and rediscovering our authentic voice.

As Berne emphasized, all emotional difficulties are curable. The goal is not perfection, but self-direction — to become the caring, wise inner Parent who encourages rather than condemns, guides rather than controls.

Reconnecting with the Authentic Self

Modern trauma research, including the insights of Dr. Gabor Maté, Bessel van der Kolk, and Marisa Peer, deepens this understanding. Their work shows how trauma can rewire the brain, disconnect us from our authentic self, and keep us locked in patterns of fear or self-blame.

You can explore these perspectives through the following sessions:

• Healing Days – Day 1 | How Trauma Rewires Your Brain (with Gabor Maté, Tim Fletcher & Marisa Peer)

• Healing Days – Day 2 | How to Release Trauma Stored in the Body (with Bessel van der Kolk)

• Healing Days – Day 3 | How to Reconnect with Your Authentic Self (with Gabor Maté)

These talks offer compassionate guidance on how trauma shapes the mind-body connection and how healing begins when we reconnect with ourselves — with curiosity, patience, and love.

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💛 Closing Reflection

To be the parent to your inner child is not to erase your past, but to become the safe home you always needed.
It’s to speak to yourself with kindness instead of judgment, to listen when your inner child cries, and to guide yourself forward with gentle strength.

Freedom comes when the Adult within learns to mediate the dialogue — when the critical Parent softens, and the fearful Child begins to trust again.
That’s when healing starts: not from perfection, but from presence.

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