Healing Childhood Trauma: Embrace Your Hurt, Reparent Yourself

Healing childhood trauma is a worthy and transformative endeavour. As the trauma expert and author of The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel vander Kolk wrote:

“The challenge of recovery is to reestablish ownership of your body and your mind—of yourself. This means feeling free to know what you know and to feel what you feel without becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed, or collapsed.”

Van der Kolk’s quote emphasizes the importance of reclaiming self-compassion and emotional safety. It includes diving into your internal world of thoughts, emotions, body sensations, light and sometimes darkness. It may include professional support of reparenting and methods of trauma healing. 

Healing from  childhood trauma is a journey that requires emotional courage, vulnerability, and deep self-compassion. It’s about being present with your pain, rather than avoiding it. Being present to the pain may include a good cry. Some people are terrified of tears as they were shamed to do so. But as my mentor, Gwendolyn Jansma said to me, “Better to cry on the outside than drown on the inside.”

This journey involves building emotional safety both within yourself and through nourishing connections to become a support circle. Let’s explore ways to create inner peace, reparent your inner child, and find meaningful ways to heal from past trauma.

The Power of Emotional Safety: Nurturing Yourself from the Inside Out

Creating emotional safety is essential for healing from trauma. It begins by developing a compassionate relationship between your present self and the parts of you that feel wounded or neglected. This means recognizing and stopping old judgmental thoughts. Practicing “thought-stopping” helps to interrupt these negative patterns and replaces them with kinder, more empowering beliefs.

Thought Stopping: Breaking the Cycle of Negative Self-Talk

Part of healing childhood trauma involves noticing and interrupting harmful thought patterns. These negative thought-worms are often unconscious and often stem from wounds inflicted in childhood. They can become deeply ingrained. By practicing techniques like thought-stopping, you can break these negative cycles.

Thought Stopping is especially useful for those dealing with anxiety, negative self-talk, or rumination related to trauma.

How Thought Stopping Works

1. Awareness: The first step is recognizing when negative or intrusive thoughts arise. It’s about becoming aware of the moment your thoughts spiral into negativity, self-doubt, or irrational fears.
2. Interrupting the Thought: Once you identify a negative thought, you actively stop it. You can do this mentally or verbally by saying, “Stop!” This signals your brain to pause and shift away from the unhelpful thought pattern.
3. Replacement: After stopping the thought, you replace it with a more positive or neutral one. This could be an affirmation, a self-compassionate statement, or simply refocusing on the present.

Example 1: Stopping Negative Self-Talk

• Negative Thought: “I’m not good enough.”
• Thought Stopping: You recognize this thought as unhelpful and internally say, “Stop!”
• Replacement Thought: Replace it with a positive or neutral statement like, “I am doing the best I can.”

Example 2: Halting Anxiety-Induced Thoughts

• Negative Thought: “Something terrible is going to happen if I don’t finish this perfectly.”
• Thought Stopping: You recognize the thought, mentally say “Stop!” or take a deep breath to interrupt the thought cycle.
• Replacement Thought: Shift to something like, “It’s okay to take one step at a time.”

Example 3: Combating Ruminating Thoughts

• Negative Thought: “Why did I say that? Everyone must think I’m incompetent.”
• Thought Stopping: Catch yourself spiralin and tell yourself “Stop!” and take a few deep breaths.
• Replacement Thought: Refocus with, “What’s done is done. I’m learning to be kinder to myself, and others aren’t focused on my mistakes.”

Note:  clapping your hands when a negative thought arises can reinforce the interruption. Imagining a stop sign can also be helpful.

• Visualization: Imagine a stop sign or a red light whenever negative thoughts surface. This visual cue helps create an instant mental barrier.
• Mindful Breathing: Take a few deep breaths to create a mental and emotional pause before replacing the negative thought.

 Here’s a helpful video on retraining your brain:

Hold Yourself Tight

I sometimes say to clients, “You are the one you’ve been waiting for.” You can help calm your nervous system by holding yourself tightly during moments of emotional turmoil. Yes, cross your arms, place your hands on your shoulders, and embrace yourself. This practice of self-soothing will nurture your inner child and offer you the safety that might have been missing in your past.

Then tell yourself, “I decide what messages I take in or let go of.” By making this shift, you can slowly build inner peace and emotional security. 

Finding Nourishment in Safe Connections

While creating internal safety is crucial, finding emotionally safe and nourishing external connections is equally important. As children we may not have had emotionally safe people to give us a sense of safety and comfort. Expanding your circle to include emotionally supportive people can add moments of calm, peace, and joy to your life.

This step may involve seeking meaningful contributions—whether paid or unpaid—that offer fulfillment and connection. You might consider seeking out a career counsellor. In Calgary we have Ann Nakiska, whose work on constructive career planning offers guidance for those seeking purpose in their work. You can learn about Ann’s work at Constructive Career.

Reparenting Yourself: Becoming the Role Model You Needed

One of the most empowering aspects of healing childhood truama is the opportunity to become the person you needed during your childhood. Reparenting yourself is an act of love that transforms the internal narrative from self-criticism to self-compassion. This might involve replacing thoughts like, “I never grew up,” with affirmations like, “I am reparenting myself every day. Each day, I give myself what my family was unable to give me.”

When you reparent yourself, you also model this strength and resilience for your children. It’s a beautiful goal to become the person you want to model for your loved ones separate from the many voices in your head. It’s a path of self-discovery and healing that not only helps you but sets a powerful example for future generations.

Here is a helpful video that explains Inner Child work:

Going Deeper into Healing Childhood Trauma

As you continue this journey, you might want to explore past distressing events that still hold emotional weight. Healing requires diving into these painful memories when you’re ready, to release their grip on your current life. This decision usually requires seeking out an experienced and skilled therapist.

A Final Thought: Compassionate Self-Parenting

Healing childhood trauma can be a long process, but each step brings you closer to emotional freedom and inner peace. As you create internal emotional safety, break negative thought patterns, and surround yourself with nourishing connections, you are actively reparenting yourself in ways that build resilience and strength.

Healing childhood trauma is possible, and you can begin with some of the ideas shared here. So, hold yourself tight, practice thought-stopping, and continue to seek the peace and joy that’s within your reach.

Please check out these related posts:

• Explore Your Childhood Wounds to Be a More Resilient Adult
• Stress and Trauma: Understand the Difference in Meaning and Experience