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Unlocking the Inner Child

• THeresa Marie

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What if the most courageous thing you do today is listen to the smallest voice inside you? We shine a light on the inner child—curious, bright, unashamed—and explore why that part of us became obedient to survival and how we can welcome it back. Through raw personal stories, including a childhood moment of feeling lost in a crowd, we map the invisible thread between early wounds and adult triggers like social anxiety, constant urgency, and the belief that we’re “always late” or “not enough.”

From there, we get practical. We share simple tools that actually work: acknowledging your inner child by name, keeping a photo nearby to rebuild connection, using warm self-talk under stress, and praising yourself for small wins to retrain safety. We lean into play—swings, ping pong, finger painting, laughter—as serious medicine for a tense nervous system. You’ll hear how memory work balances painful flashes with chosen moments of joy, how journaling helps pull roots from old stories, and how gentle meditations can call back the light and energy you lost to shame, fear, or silence.

This is a guided path from programming to presence, from armored performance to authentic living. If you’re ready to trade survival scripts for wonder, these steps will help you feel more seen, more brave, and more you. Subscribe for more on the authenticity series, share this with someone who needs a kinder voice today, and leave a review to tell us which practice you’ll try first.

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SPEAKER_00:

Inside each of us lives a child, appreciative of life and curious towards change. One who trusts fully, loves fearlessly, and is able to show emotions, both good and bad. Happiness can be found right here. And today we're going to learn how we can choose to let this inner child of ours live each and every day. And I welcome you back on this tremendous Tuesday morning to Free to Just Be, the podcast attempting to empower humanity to courageously step out of old familiar patterns, childhood traumas, matrix programming, false beliefs, and embrace new ways of being. And this will help us all collectively as a human race usher in a brand new world as well. And I hope this finds you in the greatest health today with vibrant energy because you and I have chosen to accept the full responsibility of our body, mind, and souls. And here on Free to Just Be, I'm gonna inspire each of us to truly be who we came here to be: authentic, free, and aligned with our highest potential. So join me, Teresa Marie, an ambassador of God Chi, on this transformative journey to rewrite our narratives and live lives of purpose and passion. And I do so appreciate you showing up and giving me some of your valuable time. And if my content hits you in the heart or makes you think, please hit the like button so that we can raise the algorithm up and more people can see this information and listen to ways that they too can become free to be who they are. And today I'm gonna continue my series of authenticity and the acrostic. And yesterday we talked about the A of authenticity being how to appreciate the divinity that we are. And today, you can tell by the opening quote, we're gonna look about how to unlock our inner child. And I'm gonna share with you some of the ways that my inner child came out over the last 20 years, and um how we can help each other to not only see him or her, but have our inner child help us along this awakening journey. Yes, the inner child. Oh my goodness. Think about it. Have you ever wondered where that little boy or girl went? Remember, just think about it for a minute. Close your eyes for a second and think about maybe your two or three-year-old self. Shiny and bright and curious, loving everything, so excited to wake up and and experience a brand new life. Everything was brand new and exciting. And do you remember how happy it was of it of part of your life? You didn't have a care in the world. All of your needs were met. Some of us might have had some real traumatic childhoods. Maybe our needs weren't met, but inside there is a child that is literally seeking you out, trying to help you to remember innocence and how much God loves you. And this child often had to come up with ways to protect him or her, right? We all we're not gonna spend time talking about the childhood traumas. There's lists of them, and all of us know what uh that caused us to do when you're hit with physical pain or emotional pain or emotional neglect, when uh your needs aren't acknowledged or met, or if uh you're feeling sad or anxious was met with things like you're not gonna cry, are you? Oh, you don't have to worry about that. Monsters aren't real, and all of these things shuts down that curiosity, that shininess, that that joy of life, and little by little you become more and more obedient to what your particular situation needed. Because you see, our child inside us never ever dies, it's always with us. It's it's just learned how to become obedient and how to survive those traumas, right? So, whatever trauma that you faced, you are probably now exercising those same survival skills as an adult. If, for example, um your trauma was that you never felt seen. So now you might be full of anxiety going into a meeting room or a party or a family event where you don't know everybody and you just feel like you disappear. And that could trigger those thoughts of being a two or three-year-old. I'll I'll give you, I'll give you one of mine. When I was a young child, I was probably under four, we went to a local um parade, um Veterans Day, Memorial Day parade, one of the parades that our community would have. And it it was no doubt a parade that um one of my siblings as a boy or a girl scout was in. And my mom took me to this parade. And I remembered she was waiting to take pictures of my my sibling, whichever one it was, that was going to be marching past us. And she had her camera out and she was following them. You know, you know how you do, you know, you have the and back then, I'm sure it was intimatic cameras, so you had to take a picture and then move the the camera rig or you know, slide it or whatever. And so she was following that segment of the parade. And in in the midst of that, you know, I know she probably told me, stay right here. Well, I I was curious, and I moved away from that area, and then suddenly I didn't see my mom anywhere. And I remember saying, Mommy, mommy, and and she was not anywhere to be found. And and as a little child, and I I have distinct memories of this. See, I I can remember things that occurred when I was in diapers, and um this particular memory, uh, even now as I'm retelling the story to you, I remember looking up and I could just see people's waists, and and people were looking at the parade and they were laughing, and and there were people next to me, and and I remember seeing little kids, and they were holding their mom's hands and they were looking at me like, where's your mommy? And and I had all this fear and all this anxiety, and it was one of my biggest um feelings of abandonment that I ever experienced as a child. And of course, um, you know, we were reunited. It was a police officer that saw me crying, and and you know, my mom was only a few pegs down the road further, or what have you, and it wasn't just just a couple of minutes, and we were reunited, but I even to this day in my 64-year-old body can easily recall that feeling of abandonment. And you know, those feelings would come back up when um I would be at a family event, and I would say something, and maybe the people didn't hear what I said, but I had already spoken it, and then everybody was just ignoring me, whether that was the truth or not, that kind of trigger would come up, feeling abandoned, feeling like I wasn't seen, feeling like nobody cared. So that's an example of how something that happened in our childhood can damage our child. And then as we become grown-ass adults, now we're using those tactics that we did as a child. Um, abandonment is a very big one. Um, and you too can have these triggers, and it it behooves us now, if we're learning how to let that inner child come back out, because see, that child has spent years. Um, in my case, it was 50 plush years, that I kept her locked away in the proverbial closet or basement or whatever, or just the inner chambers of your heart, so protected, nobody was going to hurt her again. But you see, the hurt was still there. The hurt was still in my inner child, and that hurt, because I never dealt with it, no band-aid was going to affect those hurts, right? And that's what happens with you and I. We have things that happen to our inner child as children, and then we begin to learn, just like the quote where it says, you know, if you neglect the inner child and leave it wounded, that is an absolute perfect recipe for human misery. Um, if we don't deal with that hurt child, then it's going to repeat and repeat and repeat, as you know. So how do we heal it and get it back to that light and strength and energy and joy into our present life? You know, there's so much. If you if you're not sure if your inner child was affected, just just Google it. Just say, what are some of the signs of uh having a wounded child inside me? You will find all sorts of lists. You'll also find lists on what you can do to help your inner child heal. And some of them I'm going to share with you that that literally helped my own particular life. Um, and that the first one obviously is that you have to acknowledge that that inner child that was hurt is still in there. You can say, Oh, the past is the past, but guess what? If your inner child was not healed, it is still inside your heart and soul and your spirit crying, please, please heal me, please heal me. And the first thing to help that healing is to say, Hey. Now, I often call my inner child Teresa, because that's what my dad called me. And I argued as a preteen, as a teenager, that I was not a tree. But now, as an adult that's healed, when I talk to my inner child, I call her Teresa because that's where Tess, my brother called me Tess when I was a little kid. So my inner child is either Tess or Teresa, and as she gets older, she becomes that hippie freak of the South. So you acknowledge that person. Hey Tom, hey Tommy, hey Danny, hey um Helen, or whoever your little inner child was, you address her and um maybe bring up the pictures of the little girl that got lost at the parade, or um the little little the little girl that said you're that heard uh you're not gonna cry, are you? And and picture that child. And um if you have photographs and you can find a picture of that little child right about at that age, and so I have a um picture of myself as a kindergartner, and I had my front tooth missing, and I I pushed my tongue in between that hole, and you can see it in the picture. And I had a pixie haircut that I absolutely hated, and I had flips in the front of my hair, and and I remember that picture so well, and I I hated the way it looked, and and yet she was smiling so big at the camera. So it's a good way to acknowledge your inner child by finding a picture, especially right about at the age when that child um got traumatized, right? Whatever the trauma was, you're not that trauma, but it's time to address that inner child and look at pictures of of the of the child, and that's kind of how you begin to heal, right? Um, one of the other things that I started to do, um, I've shared with you about um trying to heal myself by picking pictures out of my family members. And I I literally even took them out on the target range one time, and then then I had to go through all the grief of grieving a second time over those family members because I had shot holes in them. And whatever way that you're feeling like you need to deal with the traumas and the hurt and the pain and the wounding of that child is gonna be what's perfect for you. And I'm just sharing some of the things that still to this day work for me. And I've been working on my inner child for 20 years. Um, one of the things I do often now, um, for example, uh, for years I called myself wrong way late mom. And that's uh that's the wounded child that you hear right there. Um, because I always felt like that's, you know, I was always told, you know, hurry up, hurry up, and you're gonna make us late. And and I just live that, you know, for a lot of my adult years. And um I was told that, you know, uh, and it came back from I got lost at that parade. Um my dad wanted to lose me and drop me off at the weeds. So all of these um experience, experiences had me hold on to the fact that I was not capable and that I was always going to be lost. So now door dashing, um door dashing really helped me get over that wrong way lost mom concept. Because I go in whatever city I'm in and I can dash and I'm not afraid of getting lost. Now, granted, I do have the GPS on the app, but there have been many times that I've had to find my own way, and I did it with full capabilities. And so when those opportunities come and I say to myself, oh, that's Manson Pike right there. And then I come up to the street, and indeed it's Manson Pike. What I do is I take my hand and I pat myself on my back and I say, Good job, Teresa. See, you're such a good girl. You you did it, you found out how to get to the location and you did it again. Good job. So I hug myself and I praise my child often. Another thing I do is um I talk to her a lot. Um, a lot of times, if I am hurried, if I am um anxious, I say, Terry or Tessa or Teresa, it's okay. You got this. Remember, we've done this before. I talked to her just like she's that three or four-year-old. Just like I would talk to one of my own children when they were little, or just like I would talk to some of the hundreds of kids that I I used to take care of when I ran daycares. Um I talked to her the way I wanted to be spoken to. Um, when the tears come up, I say I tell myself it's okay to cry. Let them out. You always feel better after you cry, right? Now, did I do a good job at that with my children? I don't know. My children would have to tell you. But I can tell you that with my grandchildren that I have been allowed to form um strong bonds with, they know that they can cry in my presence, that they can share anything in my presence, because I know how important that was for me as a child that I never had. So I always tried to give it to my grandchildren because by the time my GB showed up, I had already healed a lot of my wounded child. And so now I knew that for them, when they were exhibiting these emotions that maybe they didn't feel safe sharing with their parents, I wanted to make sure that they felt safe with their Grammy to do so. So you talk to your inner child. Um self-compassion. Um learning how to love your child. I try, um, and I haven't done this in a while, so I'm I'm preaching to myself right now, but I try to go and do a fun thing. The last fun childlike thing I did was I painted with my um then 20-year-old granddaughter Ayla, and we just pulled out the tubes of paints and we finger painted, and it was so much fun, and we really not only enjoyed the experience, but enjoyed having it together and um recalling how we used to paint a lot when she was a little girl. So find things that a child would like to do and go do them yourself. Maybe you liked um the swings. So um I always would try to swing with my grandkids when I would go to the playground to evoke that feeling of freedom and showing them how to let your hair just fly in the wind and uh tell them, you know, oh, we're swinging and we're gonna fly like a bird, right? So play. Allow yourself to experience the thrill and the joy and the laughter of playing. Uh, that's what my husband and I discovered when we went on our trip to um Tybee Island, Georgia, with my daughter's family. Uh, there was a ping pong table there, and it was so much fun. We were paddling that ball and we were being competitive and we were bantering at each other and we were laughing, and it was so childlike, and we enjoyed it so much that we are literally going to buy ourselves one so that we can play. You know, we have tense moments, having just come back together. Um, we're only back together two months now, and there are moments where we are triggering each other. And I always say, where's the ping pong table? Because that would be a perfect time to go and hit that ball back and forth a couple of times and get back into that childlike play stance. It really, really helped to um bring the laughter back into the room. And um, so find the things that you like to do as a child. Maybe it's roller skating. Um, when I teach my moving meditation class and I uh I am teaching the side-to-side figure eight, and I explain to them it's like roller skating or downhill skiing or hula hooping, like when you were a kid, and you're just going side to side and remember that joy. So find those things that you like to play and try it as an adult. You might be amazed at the shift that you'll feel body, mind, and soul. Then you also need to allow those memories to come up. Now, we've talked about having a love tool belt, a joy tool belt, which is kind of one and the same for me, is very important. So for the inner child, you want to evoke memories. All right, one of my most fond memories is my dad picking me up. This is I I only have one or two memories of my dad that are happy for me. And um, and I love my dad, and one day I'm gonna get to sit on a cloud and talk to him all about this. But one day he picked me up from PS 100 in Richmond Hill, New York, and um in kindergarten. And he took me to a pizzeria, um, which was right across the street from the school. And I'll never forget when he picked me up from school, he put out his pointer finger. To me, that was like the size of a sausage, it was so big, right? Because my dad was 6'5, and I was a kindergartner, and I wrapped my hand around that finger, and he guided me with his pointer finger all the way across the street to that pizzeria. And so that memory evokes joy. Even now, I feel my body happy and relaxed, and I'm smiling as I'm telling you that memory. So it's important to have happy childhood memories because there are gonna come times when those triggers come up. And maybe something happens to you as an adult and you're thrust back to the back of the car when XYZ was being said to you or yelled at you or whatever. And here's where it's real important if you truly want to heal, to allow that memory to come up and just breathe and just know that it's just a memory, it's just energy rising up. Why? For you to look at it. So now you're gonna look at it with adult eyes, and you're gonna breathe yourself through it, and you're gonna feel that emotion of anxiety or depression or sadness or fear or shame or guilt, whatever it was that was coming into your body, mind, and soul as a child, and you're gonna just breathe yourself through it, and you're gonna ask, what do you need right now in this moment? You're gonna ask your child, I need to be hugged, I need to be told I'm safe, I need to be told that I won't ever be left, I need to be told I'm safe, whatever it is, that's a key pivotal moment that you can turn inwardly and tell your little boy or girl self, whatever affirmation, whatever point of truth that you didn't hear as a child, and begin that process of healing. Um, another thing that you can do is journal. When you have those moments of recollection, write about it. Write a letter to your little girl. Say, I know that you wanted so much for somebody to hear you crying upstairs in the dark when the hall light got turned off. Whatever it is for you, get it out of your system so that now it's exposed to the light and you can begin doing what? Disconnecting it or um um not disconnecting, um, dismantling it and taking it back to that source where it first came in and the root of it, and you can begin to look at it and pull those roots out. Now it may take a little bit of time, and you may have to do it multiple times, but little by little those memories do get healed. Another thing for the inner child is laughter. One of my husband and I's favorite things to do is to watch old shows, Leave It to Beaver, I Dream of Jeannie, um, All in the Family is one of my favorites right now because that was one of the ones I was not allowed to watch. You know, it's not good for you. Um, Johnny Carson monologues. Um, we were never allowed to watch those things, and they're so freaking funny. And we can just laugh and laugh and laugh, um, which also I shared that the ping pong does. Laughter is excellent uh medicine. And when you go through these things um and and the triggers come up, then find yourself the opposite. Find something that causes you to laugh every day because it'll evoke that childhood inner spirit that's there waiting for you uh to see him or her again. She doesn't want to be uh known as the child with her head down or hiding behind um a pantry with bread, butter, and sugar. She wants to come out and and be the curiosity seeker, the the light bearer, the uh the one that says why. And she wants to be seen and heard again. So let her come out, laugh with her, dance, skip, um, play jacks again, whatever it is that's going to raise her up, do it for yourself. And um the other thing that that really often helps is meditations. Um, John Bradshaw has a really good one called the Inner Infant Meditation. And Lori Ladd um just did one. I just talked about it. And she she has a meditation where you call in all that energy, all that she that was given to the negative experience as a child. You can just close your eyes and breathe and begin to remember those hurtful moments that traumas were caused to your inner child, and just say, I am so sorry that you had to go through it. And I remember how shiny you were. And right now I'm calling back that energy. I'm I'm letting aside, I'm deleting the energy of fear or guilt or shame or whatever it was of not good enough. And now I'm calling in all that light that was robbed from you at that moment and bringing it back into you. So all of these different ways of healing your inner child are very, very important. And um we need to be very cautious to never let age extinguish our inner child because her inner child lives even now at 64. She's there and and she's laughing and she's saying, right now, you're talking about me. I hear, I hear you talking about me, and it feels great. That child never dies, remember, it just becomes obedient to the survival skills that he or she needed when she was growing up, and healing it will bring back the light, the strength, the energy, and joy to your present life. So don't be afraid to acknowledge your inner child. Find ways that work for you to help heal that inner child, and notice how the joy begins to grow in your life again. So as we journey through the word authenticity, we now have gone through the A of authenticity. Which was appreciate your divinity. You are sparks of God, humanityville. Find that spark again. And one of the best ways to find that spark is the you and authenticity. Unlocking your inner child. Let him or her free to be who you always were. Curious, shiny, bright, full of energy, full of why, full of curiosity and awe of life. And I will see you the next time when we talk about trusting your inner voice. Until then, I love you, humanity. Peace.