Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women

(#73) Your Nervous System is Not Broken: Inner Child Healing for Anxiety and Inner Critic

• Rae The Somatic Coach • Episode 73

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If you’ve ever felt like something is “wrong” with you because of your anxiety, perfectionism, or emotional patterns—this episode is a loving reminder: you are not broken. You’re human. And your body, mind, and inner world are far more intelligent and adaptive than you may realize.

In this episode, we explore:
🌱 Inner critics and old identity roles (people-pleaser, perfectionist, caretaker) and how they shape your emotional landscape
🌱 Why you are not your anxiety—it’s a survival strategy, not a flaw
🌱 The power of inner child healing and emotional repatterning to shift your experience from the inside out
🌱 The emotional healing triad and how these parts work together in your nervous system
 🌱 Real client results and what’s possible when you repattern your emotional responses

Whether you’re managing everyday stress or navigating deeper emotional layers, this episode will help you understand how to alchemize anxiety into clarity and compassion, and why you’re more resilient than you’ve been led to believe.

“Your anxiety is not the enemy. It’s trying to help you and there’s another way forward.”

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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Radiant Life Podcast. I'm your host, rae, the Somatic Coach, and I'm here to support you in healing your past, living in the present and creating your future so that you can become the most centered, embodied and happiest version of yourself. Each week, I'll be bringing you episodes to help you navigate life's challenges, ease stress and tension and learn more about holistic healing, spirituality and wellness. If you're interested in becoming the best version of yourself so that you can live the life of your dreams, then you're in the right place. Subscribe to the podcast and the monthly newsletter and follow me on Instagram and TikTok to know when new episodes are released each week. I am so happy that you've landed here. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the podcast. If you are new here, I'm Rae, I'm a somatic coach, I'm a breathwork facilitator, and if you aren't new here, welcome back. I'm so glad that you're tuning in for today's episode.

Speaker 1:

So for today, we're going to dive right in to our topic, which is really working with this all of the other parts that may arise when it comes to navigating anxiety, so things like the inner critic, old patterning, emotional repatterning, things like this, repatterning things like this, and it's building off of how we ended our last episode around how your body knows exactly what it needs to do and your breath knows exactly what it needs to do too to alchemize, to metabolize the experience of anxiety. And so often we can try and approach anxiety from the mind. We can start there and in this approach, we really want to work with anxiety in the body first and then move our way up and into the mind. So in my world, when it comes to anxiety and worry, it can feel really challenging, but I believe that there gets to be another way. I believe that emotional suffering is optional. I believe that anxiety and emotional spirals don't need to be the thing that's driving the show. The show and my belief is that your consciousness and your gifts know exactly how to alchemize and work through anxiety, and it's just a matter of discovering what those are and discovering exactly how to, how to do that and the stories that we receive through society. Over time. Growing up, everyone has received something different about anxiety specifically. Maybe it was something in your family that nobody talked about. Maybe you had a parent that was really anxious and you're kind of modeling their behavior.

Speaker 1:

No-transcript, remember and I tried to find it the celebrity that I'm referring to, but there was a celebrity who was on tour. He ended up having to like cancel the show and it was because he was having some like mental health challenges, like anxiety, and instead of them just allowing him to cancel the one show and just have the one show for himself and whatever he needed to do, they go into it in the documentary and I can't exactly remember it right now, but the media had a frenzy and the media ran with it and every headline was like he's going to an institution, he's you know, he's, he's gone off the deep end, like things, like just totally outrageous things. And he's in this documentary like no, I just needed like a night off. Like he's like I was on tour and I was exhausted. And he's in this documentary like no, I just needed like a night off. Like he's like I was on tour and I was exhausted, and he's like it was affecting my mental health and I needed a night off. And it wasn't this like huge thing that they had made it into. And this happens all the time with celebrities and more and more you're seeing people that are in the spotlight taking that time for themselves to take care of themselves, and it doesn't always have to get to that point. But these are just some examples of the stories that we've received through society over time and ultimately I believe that you are not broken, that there is nothing wrong with you. Your nervous system isn't broken. It's that you're actually very mentally sound and that you're aware and you're noticing that something is happening in your experience, in your perspective, in your body, and it feels uncomfortable and that's actually really good awareness. That's actually a really good thing to have. So, although it's uncomfortable, it doesn't mean that you're broken. It doesn't mean that anything's wrong, doesn't mean you need to be fixed. It's not. It doesn't have that flavor.

Speaker 1:

I believe, and growing up, there can be all of these early role experiences that are kind of in collaboration with anxiety. So you see it with people pleasing, you see it with the good girl syndrome of let me put everybody else before myself because everybody else needs to be happy so that I can be happy. Yeah, that's going to cause some anxiety. It's definitely going to cause some worry thoughts, some anxious spirals, some catastrophic thinking, because you're really worried about how other people are receiving and how other people's experience, but you're not checking in on yourself and you're not thinking about what you might need. You also see this with perfectionists. So things need to be a certain way because that feels safe. And if things aren't a certain way, or if you don't know all of the things, then things feel unsafe and that also can cause anxiety.

Speaker 1:

You can see it with the caretaker role, so similar to a little bit of a different flavor, but similar to people pleasing. The caretaker role is taking on a lot and potentially from a very young age. Maybe you were the one in the house that had to, yeah, take on more than what was required as, like someone of your age at that time. And even as an adult, if you're in a caretaker role, you can be. Maybe you're caretaking for older relatives, your parents or siblings, or maybe you have, or even younger siblings, maybe you have responsibilities that, yeah, are going to cause some anxiety. And all of these roles, whether they're from early childhood or today as an adult, they can be in collaboration with anxiety, and this is where inner child healing and the emotional repatterning comes into play.

Speaker 1:

So inner child healing is this concept that through the ages 0 through 14, you had these lived experiences and they could be anything. They could be little, t, big, t, trauma. But what happens is an event happens and you experience that event, and then it gets internalized and there's something that's received from that experience and meaning is created from it. And then we carry this meaning throughout our adult life and lives. And this is all subconscious. So we don't know that this is happening. And then we have these beliefs and these inner children that are kind of running the show. They're kind of driving in the front seat of the minivan. Maybe you like to drive a different car, maybe it's like an Escalade or something, who knows? Whatever your car of choice is, the inner child sometimes can drive and we don't know that the inner child is driving. And then we're like, oh my god, what is happening? Like why does this feel the way it feels? And we end up in these spirals.

Speaker 1:

And the reason why inner child healing works is because what you're able to do is bring awareness to these old patterns and old way of thinking and old emotions and meet them today as your loving adult self with more awareness, with more capacity, and you're able to one, release and meet the need of what that inner child might need in that moment. Maintain that connection. So now you have awareness around it, now you can meet with that inner child whenever you need. You're also able to rewrite a new narrative. So now there is possibility, now there is creativity, there's curiosity, there's compassion. It opens up all these other things that may have not been there previously.

Speaker 1:

And why I love this work and why I think it's so important is because so often we're walking around life looking for these needs to be met again. Subconsciously, we don't know that we're doing this, we're not aware of it, and when we're able to have that awareness and meet those needs ourself, everything else just gets better. Everything else just becomes like the cherry on top. It's like nothing can really sway you, nothing can really affect you, because you have you, you have your own back, you have your own awareness, you have, you're grounded, you're feeling whole and complete and alive. And anything from that place feeling whole, complete and alive I mean like what could be better? It's like, okay, great, like I have full access to life now, because I feel like I've shed those people-pleasing tendencies or the perfectionist or the caretaker or you know whatever it might be for you, and there's actually like a I could, I should, probably, maybe I'll pause this and I'll read all the, all the different.

Speaker 1:

There's so many different options of like what those roles might be for different people, and it's really interesting and really cool to see, like, oh, that's a pattern that I have, or that's a pattern that I had, or something like that. Okay, I paused it and now I'm back and a few of the other roles also known, as you know, coping strategies or protectors is what I sometimes call them are these are things that are that have a part like an inner child need is underneath the protector, trying to get a need met, and so some of these protectors could be the people pleaser, the dramatic one, the manipulator, the avoider, the victim, the controller, the projector, the seducer, the aggressor, the addict, the projector, the seducer, the aggressor, the addict, the hyper aware, and there are so many of these and they could all be a little bit different. So for everyone they're a little bit different, and what's helpful is that there is a part like an inner child part, a need that is trying to be met through these protector, coping strategies, defense mechanism parts. So it's really interesting stuff. I can go into it more in another episode, actually, because I I can see that this is something that could be helpful, uh, but Basically it's like a triangle, it's considered like a triad.

Speaker 1:

You have that protector, which is the coping strategy the people pleaser we'll use as this example. Then you have the part, which is the inner child need. This could be the worrier, the anxious one, the one that doesn't feel worthy, doesn't feel safe, doesn't feel loved, and then you have the emotional need. So this is what that part is looking for. So you have the protector, the people pleaser, the inner child that feels anxious or is worried or feels unsafe, and then you have the emotional need, and they might need safety, love, comfort, validation, appreciation, belonging, purpose, connection could be anything. It depends on what your lived experience is, but that is the idea around the three parts. So you have the inner child, the need and the protector. And if this is making sense and this is something that you want to dive deeper into on your own you can always, you know, book a session with me and then also you can invitation to write a letter or sit with the part of you that is anxious. So that part of you, that that inner child part of you that is anxious, and from a place of you know safety and compassion, you can write this part of you a letter. You can let them know that they're seeing, that you're with them. You know anything that they might need to hear, whatever that sounds like. You can write them a letter as your loving adult self today and ultimately, what this experience will provide for you is, hopefully, some insight around that.

Speaker 1:

You are not your anxiety. Your anxiety is a part of your lived experience. That might be in the van or in the Escalade and we get to decide if it's in the driver's seat or somewhere else in the car. We get to have a conversation with the part, we get to see what it might need, we get to show up for the part. But ultimately, your anxiety is actually a very brilliant survival strategy that you learned from a past experience to help you to feel safe, to help you to feel loved, to help you to feel seen, whatever that might be, and it can be rewritten.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't get to be the default setting. It doesn't have to be the default setting. It was something that served you in a past lived experience and there gets to be another way and that is really exciting and beautiful. That means that they're on the other side of that. Like. Anything is possible and I've shared in a previous episode about the anxiety iceberg, which is an experience that I also had, was I understood, I learned more about my anxiety and then, underneath my anxiety, I learned about all those parts, all those other parts that were that were there for me to kind of explore and dive deeper with, and it was a really, really great experience because, on the other side of it, you end up feeling more whole, more whole, complete and alive, and that is exactly what I do with my one-on-one clients, and it's just pretty amazing. And so that is what I have for you for today's episode.

Speaker 1:

I'm so glad that you tuned in to listen. If you have any questions, you send me a DM, send me an email. I love hearing from you and, yeah, I hope you have an incredible rest of your day, an incredible rest of your week, and I will talk to you soon. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. If you were moved or inspired, please share with me by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It means the world to me and I am so appreciative for your support in helping my podcast grow. If we aren't already connected on social media, head over to Instagram and TikTok and follow me at RayTheSemanticCoach. Make sure you check out the show notes of today's episode for links to freebies, opportunities to work with me and ways we can stay connected outside of the podcast. I'm so happy that you're here and I can now wait to talk with you on our next episode of the Radiant Life podcast.