Inner child healing isn’t one-size-fits-all
Wounded Inner Child Archetypes: Your Inner Infant
We don’t have just one inner child. We have many.
Most people hear “inner child” and think of it as one abstract little version of themselves — but that’s a massive oversimplification.
The truth is, your inner child isn’t a single part of you. It’s a collection of parts, frozen at different ages and stages, each one carrying specific wounds that were never seen, validated, or healed.
This is why so many of us feel stuck even when we’re doing the work. If you’re trying to comfort your “inner child” without knowing which part of you is actually hurting… you’re going to miss the mark.
That’s where this series comes in. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to walk through the wounded inner children you might still be carrying — from the infant who never learned to trust the world, to the school-aged child who learned that their worth came from performance.
We’re digging into it all — what they needed, what they didn’t get, and how you can finally begin meeting those needs today. So let’s start at the very beginning — with the inner infant.
8 Signs Your Inner Infant Still Needs Healing
You might not remember your infancy — but your nervous system does. If you relate to any of this, your inner infant may have a few things to say.
1️⃣ You crave closeness — but never feel fully safe with it. You long to be held, seen, valued… but the moment someone gets too close, panic sets in. Trust feels like a risk you can’t afford to take.
2️⃣ You ignore your body until it screams. You don’t notice you’re hungry until you’re faint. You don’t realize you’re exhausted until you crash. Your body’s needs often feel like an afterthought — or an inconvenient.
3️⃣You struggle to believe your needs will be met. You’re hyper-independent or clingy — or both. Deep down, you believe you’ll either have to do everything yourself… or find someone to save you.
4️⃣ You feel like an outsider everywhere. You walk into a room and brace for rejection. You assume people don’t want you there — or worse, that they don’t even see you at all.
5️⃣ You try to earn love by being "useful." You over-give, overextend, over-function — hoping that if they need you, they won’t leave you.
6️⃣ You obsess over being wanted or validated. If someone doesn’t text back fast enough, it’s gutting. If you’re not praised or acknowledged, it’s like you vanish. You constantly search for proof that you matter.
7️⃣ You isolate — or perform. Or both. In social situations, you either disappear into the background or overcompensate by being hyper-social, charming, or “on.” Either way, being real doesn’t feel safe.
8️⃣ You carry a deep, unnamed grief. There’s a part of you that still aches with a hunger you can’t name — a sense that something essential was missing… even if you can’t explain what.
💔 What Your Inner Infant Needed (But Maybe Didn’t Get)
As an infant, your most important task wasn’t walking or talking — it was learning whether the world could be trusted.
Psychologist Erik Erikson called this the stage of trust vs. mistrust — a time when your nervous system was wiring itself around one core question: “When I have a need… will someone show up?”
If the answer was yes — consistently and tenderly — your system began to settle. But if the answer was no, or came with anger, shame, or unpredictability, your system learned to live in permanent mistrust.
And that mistrust didn’t just apply to the world — it got internalized as mistrust of your own body, needs, and emotions.
Here’s what your inner infant was wired to need:
To be responded to, not managed. You needed to be picked up when you cried — not left to “self-soothe.” Your cries weren’t noise. They were a request for safety.
To be mirrored, not molded. You needed to be seen in your raw, messy state — and still feel lovable. To be looked at and felt: “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
To feel calm nervous systems around you. You absorbed the emotional state of your caregiver. If they were anxious or resentful — you felt it.
To be held, touched, cooed at — warmly and consistently. Not when it was convenient, but when your body called out for connection.
To exist without performance. You weren’t meant to be good or easy. You were meant to be — and still be loved.
When these needs weren’t met, your system didn’t move on — it adapted. It learned how to suppress, how to self-soothe in unsafe ways, and how to seek safety in all the wrong places. But those needs never disappeared. They just went underground. Your inner infant has been waiting for repair ever since.
👶 Reparenting Your Inner Infant
Reparenting your inner infant isn’t about talking your way into healing — it’s about giving your body and nervous system the experiences it never had.
Here are three ways we begin to do that:
Breathwork helps regulate a nervous system that’s lived in survival.
It teaches your body how to feel held, soothed, and safe — without needing someone else to do it for you.Somatic practices help you reconnect to your physical needs and signals.
You begin to notice when you’re hungry, tired, or overstimulated — and learn to respond to those needs without shame or delay.Parts work gives a voice to the infant part of you that never got to be heard.
It allows you to show up as a nurturing presence within — one who says, “You matter. I’m here now.”
👉 This is exactly what Breathe to Heal is designed to do.
This 6-week course isn’t about talking about healing — through breathwork, somatic practices, and parts work, we’ll help you reconnect with the younger parts of yourself that never got what they needed… and start giving it to them now.
Led by trauma-informed somatic and breathwork practitioner Teresa Napierala (aka a fellow Shitshow member), we start Wednesday, August 13th at 8:30pm ET. Can’t make it live? Replays are available.
Grab your spot here — don’t sleep on this shit!
xo,
Andrea