Hi everyone is Kaysonger.

Just a reminder that you can listen to all of our podcast ad free on the Headspace

app. Space Studio. Hey everyone. I'm Alex L. your guest host this week.

Welcome to Radio Head Space and to Tuesday.

If you listened yesterday, you know that this week is all about healing and finding ways to take

care of ourselves through the process.

And one way that we can do this is by showing up for our younger

selves or as some people like to call it our inner child. So today let's talk

about what inner child work actually means, how to recognize the impact of our

childhoods, and why it's important to experience joy in the process. Inner child work for me is showing up for myself in a way that my

caretakers didn't and so it's showing up for little Alex who actually is adult Alex in a way that feels

useful and kind and honest. And something that I tell my students and clients all the time is,

be a mentor to your younger self. Our younger self is us, but a lot of us as adults, we don't go back to that place,

especially those of us who have had a tough time growing up.

And if you're someone who's struggling with childhood trauma, I would highly suggest reaching out to a therapist

to help support you as you lean into your inner child work.

I started leaning into inner child work by way of writing. I had a tumultuous childhood and a painful childhood.

And so a big part of my healing work was allowing adult me to kind of go back and I learned this in therapy go back to certain stages of my life

and take my inner child in my hands

and speak words of love and kindness and gentleness to her.

That is how I found the practice of gentle reminders to my younger

self. A lot of my notes to self when I'm writing in my journal a love letter to myself or a gratitude letter to myself.

...