When your inner child is wounded, this can manifest into emotional and mental symptoms such as feeling stuck or overthinking. It’s important to connect with your inner child and allow a space for healing so that you can move through and experience life in the way it was intended – with joy.
Lise Lønsmann is a somatic inner child healer who helps women mend their wounds and live healthier, happier life. You can learn more about Lise and her work here:
About Lise and her work:
I am a somatic practitioner, a somatic inner child healing facilitator, and an intuitive movement guide. Before I started doing this work, I taught dance, movement, and embodiment for many years. I also have a BA in philosophy and religion.
I wanted to dive deeper and be able to support the women I work with to heal the inner wounds they carry, which so often show up in the body, their movement, inner experience, creative process, relationships, and their everyday life. I have found that the resistance, fear, hesitation, stuckness, stress, and overwhelm that show up for so many women are often connected to inner child wounds and the stories that their bodies carry.
[The best part of this work is] Supporting women in becoming empowered in their healing journeys by helping them reconnect with their body, their inner world, and younger wounded parts of themselves. Seeing women slowly heal old trauma wounds that have impacted them and held them back for years or decades.
About Somatic Inner Child Healing:
Somatic inner child healing is healing that starts in the body and supports the client in connecting with younger inner parts of themselves. One of my favorite things about this work is that there is no typical way a session looks. They are all different because the work is client-led, meaning I follow and support what comes up for the client. I work 100 % online though, so all of my sessions are done via Zoom. It can be really helpful in creating safety for the client that they are in their own home while doing the session. It often allows them to lean into vulnerability because they are in their own environment. A session is a mix of grounding practices to connect deeper with the body and guided somatic exploration to explore how the inner children show up for the client. Sometimes it is through body sensations, sometimes through emotions, and sometimes through images; it looks different for each client. I facilitate all sessions from a place of curiosity and non-judgment, and we always go slow and gentle.
Inner child wounds can show up in many different ways, so healing them can help with a lot of health challenges. I often see sleep issues, anxiety, worrying/overthinking, low self-esteem, and feeling stuck in my clients. Learning to understand what your inner children are trying to communicate and learning to support those parts of yourself can be very powerful and shift the way you show up in your relationship with yourself and with others. Deep inner wounds from past trauma often make us show up in survival mode. Learning to re-regulate our nervous system and shift into more balance, calm, and flow can profoundly impact our energy, mood, drive, and overall well-being.
Slowing down often has a profound impact on the way we present and experience something. I often hear from clients that slowing down – their movements, their thoughts, our conversation, etc. – creates a significant shift for them. They start noticing things they did not notice before; subtle nuances, sensations in the body, emotions, and stories that are present below the surface. Slowing down is central to how I approach my healing work.
From the patient’s point of view:
My clients would say that it is deep work they did not know how to access before. Some might call it abstract. They would probably mention relief and gratitude. Gratitude for learning to connect with younger inner parts of themselves that have been screaming for help for decades.
I would say [to skeptics] that it is not as ”woo-woo” as it sounds. The inner child parts are the parts of our psyche that have helped us survive childhood by adapting to our environment.
Resistance to vulnerable healing work like inner child healing can sometimes be the way a hurt inner child parts shows up in our experience. ”I don’t believe in that. I don’t think it will help me.” That might be an inner (for example) 12-year-old part showing resistance because the person was not supported emotionally as a child and thus finds it difficult to trust, be vulnerable, ask for help, and be supported by others as an adult. A common belief of a wounded inner child is that it is broken and cannot be ”fixed”. That belief is often based on childhood trauma of emotional neglect, which is sadly very common.
One way to notice if an inner child part is present for us is by noticing the language of our inner dialogue. If we have thoughts on repeat (shame, overwhelm, rigidity, harsh judgments), it is often inner child thoughts. It is often inner child thoughts if we describe challenges with oversimplifying or childlike words or phrases (like good-bad, broken-fixed, right-wrong).
Lise’s well-being tips:
Prioritizing slowing down, connecting with nature, resting, sleeping, being fully present at the moment and your relationships and interactions, connecting with like-minded, supportive humans and communities, and learning to support yourself.
Know that it is possible to heal inner wounds. It is possible to be and feel supported. It is about connecting with the right professional healers for you. If you have not found them yet, keep looking and ask for help with finding them. It is all about finding the right fit. Be patient. They are out there; the right healer, practitioner, therapist, support group, and community for you.
Lise’s resources:
If you want to understand more about body memory and holistic trauma healing, ”The Body Keeps The Score” by Bessel A. Van der Kolk is a good place to start.
If you’re struggling to sleep, spend hours worrying, and struggle with anxiety, chances are you have some deep-rooted wounds that need to be addressed and healed. This is where somatic inner child healing comes in, and practitioners like Lise are utilizing their techniques, talents, and knowledge to help others heal.
Learn more about Lise and somatic inner child healing here:
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