Getting to Know Your Inner Child

What this is

About the workbook

Part of you still carries feelings, needs, and memories from earlier in life, and that part tends to respond to genuine curiosity and warmth rather than to being dismissed or told to grow up. This two-page practice sheet gives you questions to ask it directly — where you notice it, what it has been carrying, what it needs from you now — with as much care spent on how to ask as on what.

It is deliberately careful about how you use it: grounding comes before any question, stopping early is treated as doing it right, and it is explicit that memories of harm are for working through with a therapist, not for exploring alone. Written as a between-sessions practice to sit alongside therapy, though the questions reward a slow read on their own.

What is on the two pages

Two pages, labelled on their face as a between-sessions practice. Page one opens with a short introduction, then a boxed section called How to use this — five numbered steps that carry most of the method — and a note underneath saying you don't need to use every question, just the ones that draw you in. The questions themselves come grouped under plain headings. Page one holds the first two groups: Getting acquainted, which starts with locating the part — where you notice it, whether it has an image or a name, how old it is — and Understanding what it carries.

Page two goes deeper in a deliberate order: Its history, which opens with its own caution before three questions about when the feeling began; a short section called Letting it know you heard it, which is not questions at all but an instruction to say so when something the part has shown you makes sense; Its hopes and needs; Building a different relationship, the one group gated behind a readiness condition; then Afterwards, on jotting down whatever you noticed, and a closing paragraph headed Good to remember. Crisis numbers are printed on both pages.

How the five steps work

The first step is grounding, before any questions — the sheet has you look around the room, name a few things you can see, and feel both feet on the floor, keeping your eyes open if closing them makes you lose the room. Only then do you notice the younger part, which the sheet says may arrive as a feeling, an image, a place in the body, or a sense of being smaller than you are now. The second step is the subtle one: check how you feel toward it. Anger, fear, or "I just want this gone" is another part of you reacting, and you gently ask it to step back for a few minutes. The sheet also names the opposite case — if what you notice is agreement, a sense that "this is just how I feel," that is the younger part speaking in your own voice, and the work is finding even a little space between you and it. And if something in you doesn't want to step back, you don't force it; you get curious about that part instead, or stop for today. Either way, the sheet says, you haven't done it wrong.

The remaining steps are shorter. The third is to ask one question inward, then wait — answers don't always come in words, and can arrive as images, memories, feelings, or body sensations; the instruction is not to force or invent one, because whatever comes, including nothing, is useful. The fourth is thanking the part for whatever it shows you, even if it stays quiet — a later section on the second page calls this kind of acknowledgment more important than any question on the page, because younger parts soften from being understood, not from being questioned. The fifth step is knowing when to stop, and the sheet's grounding instruction returns there nearly word for word.

The lines it draws

The sheet is careful about its own limits. Stopping early is framed, in its own words, as doing it right — the work can always continue in session. If a memory of harm starts to open, the instruction appears twice — once in the how-to note and again at the top of Its history, which widens the caution to fear, or something never told to anyone — and it is the same both times: stop, bring it to session, do not explore it alone. The final group of questions, Building a different relationship, carries its own gate: only try these if the part has felt noticeably softer toward you during the conversation, and if it hasn't, staying curious is the whole practice — a full success, not a failure.

There is also a rule about promises. If the part asks you for something, you keep your side of it only if it is small, kind, and possible — and never an agreement to go into old memories alone. The reasoning is given plainly: a younger part that is promised the world and then forgotten will have a point. Both pages print the same crisis information: call or text 9-8-8, the Suicide Crisis Helpline, anywhere in Canada, with the same number working in the US; 911 in an emergency; and Kids Help Phone (for young people) at 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868.

What the sheet is for

This is a practice sheet written for the practice's own clients — the introduction begins "In our work together" and the whole thing assumes there is a session to bring material back to. It still reads on its own: the method, the questions, and the stopping instructions are all complete on the two pages, and the Afterwards section says outright that never getting around to it before the next meeting is completely fine too. What it asks you to do between sittings is modest — jot down whatever you noticed, including the fact that nothing came, with nothing to fix and no right answer.

The closing paragraph states the point of the whole exercise. The younger part is not trying to make you small; it is almost always still holding something that was too much to hold at the time, waiting for a safer moment and a you who can stay. And the goal, in the sheet's own words, is not to make it grow up — it is to build a relationship where it no longer has to carry everything by itself.

This workbook is educational. It is not therapy, not an assessment, and nothing in it is a diagnosis. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. In Canada, the Suicide Crisis Helpline can be reached by calling or texting 988, at any hour.

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If you want to go further

Working on this with someone

A workbook can take you a surprising distance on its own. If you would rather not do it alone, TEO offers virtual therapy in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland & Labrador — evenings and weekends, with a free 15–20 minute consultation first and no obligation afterward.

Related: Childhood trauma therapy.

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