Inner Child Reconciliation

Crying Out For Me

Something I noticed during my inner healing journey, specifically while working on healing childhood trauma, is that I would often change my profile picture on social media to a photo of myself as a child. I also noticed that I wasn’t the only one who did this. Quite often, friends of mine on social media would replace a photo of their current selves with one from their younger years—and for a long time, I didn’t think much of it. I just assumed that I, and they, had come across a childhood photo we liked and wanted to share it.

But I’ve noticed that since I healed my core childhood wound, I no longer have any desire to make my profile picture a photo from my childhood. The more I reflected on this, the more I realized that when I did use a childhood photo, I was usually going through something heavy or trying to understand something about myself. Suddenly, it made perfect sense. Our profile picture is the most important image we share on social media because it serves as the primary visual representation of our online identity. So, choosing a photo of ourselves from childhood as our profile picture is, in a way, unconsciously saying, “This is how I see myself right now.”

And isn’t that extremely interesting? Isn’t it interesting that an adult, with all the rights and privileges that adulthood brings, would feel so drawn to a prior era that they would choose to represent themselves with a photo from their youth? In my opinion, it’s not really about nostalgia at all. What it actually is, is the inner child crying out for acknowledgment, validation, and probably healing. So, my theory is that when we switch out our profile pictures for a photo from our adolescence, it’s our inner child trying to reach the present adult for some reason. And that reason, more than likely, is reconciliation—to be made whole once again.

Love does not come in parts

To be fulfilled is to be whole and to be whole means not existing as a fragment of oneself. Until we consciously and intentionally go back for and heal the wounded child within us, we can only be a fragment of ourselves. And in my opinion, the least interesting, fun, courageous, creative, or inspiring version, at that. So many people falsely assume that once we hit a certain age, all of our childhood issues no longer matter. After all, so many of our childhood traumas only happened because at the time we weren't big enough, smart enough, or wealthy enough to solve them. And now that we're bigger, smarter, and richer, those issues should no longer have any affect on us, right? Wrong!

Consciousness never ages—and what we are, beneath and beyond these slowly decaying flesh-suits, is consciousness. Consciousness also never forgets. So no matter how much time has passed between now and when you were originally harmed, what was done to your inner child still lives in you, waiting to be seen, processed, and healed.

One of the most jarring aspects of getting older is how this body of mine is clearly being affected by time—and yet, "I", who I know myself to be, doesn't feel to be aging at all. Two weeks from today, I will turn 35 years old—and let me tell ya, I do not at all feel like a 35 year old person. I couldn't even tell you what a 35 year old person is supposed to feel like. I don't have many of the markers of an established adult. No marriage. No mortgage. No established career. None of that. But even without those things, I don't feel lost or purposeless. I handle “adulting” just fine, yet I don’t fully relate to many adults because, deep down, I still feel like a kid.

I’d be willing to bet that deep down, you still feel like a kid too—because, in many ways, we are still kids. Beneath everything, what we all desire more than anything is love, support, comfort, safety, and to play. And I think that when we change our profile pictures to one from childhood, it’s because we’ve consciously or unconsciously recognized that the adults we’ve grown into are missing something—something essential to our happiness and well-being. That “something” is our childhood selves. Or rather, our authentic selves—selves we often neglected or abandoned to conform to our families or society. To feel whole again, we have to journey back to those childhood selves, pick them up, comfort them, apologize for abandoning them, and integrate them so they can walk with us on our journey.

Inner child reconciliation is a phrase that came to me while doing my own inner work, after realizing that so much of what I sought in the world to complete myself was really just a reflection of what I had been neglecting to give myself. So much of what I chased in the world was really a reflection of what my parents had failed to give me. I fully acknowledge that not everyone had a happy childhood. But even so, I feel confident in asserting that our childhood selves can identify true happiness much more accurately than our adult selves.

So even if we had not-so-great childhoods, reconciling with our inner child is still important because our inner child remembers what we truly need to feel safe, seen, and loved. Beneath the wounds and unmet needs, there is a clarity in the child’s heart about what matters most. Reconciliation is not about trying to reclaim a perfect childhood we never had, but rather acknowledging that despite our childhood not being perfect, despite our parents not being perfect, and despite the world not being perfect, we are still worthy of love, joy, and wholeness.

It is about realizing that the parts of us that were neglected, criticized, or silenced are still within us, waiting to be seen and embraced by the adult we have become. By reconciling with our inner child, we can finally stop seeking outside ourselves for what we were missing from the adults who mattered most to us at the time. Instead, we can become the adult we always needed—and provide our inner child with the care, acceptance, and freedom we have always deserved.

Steps to Reconciliation

1) Seeing your inner child fully and clearly

This means seeing your inner child in its totality, not just the hurt parts we tend to focus on. Why is this important? Because it pulls us out of the victim story. When we’re stuck there, we only remember the terrible parts of childhood and forget the moments of joy we also experienced. This isn’t to discount those who had truly difficult childhoods but to help us remember what happiness felt like, even if it was rare.

2) Listening deeply to unmet needs, fears, and desires still influencing your present

This step requires radical honesty about the motives behind your behavior. For example, many who call themselves “relationship people” jump from partner to partner, claiming it’s just who they are, when often it’s a fear of being alone rooted in abandonment wounds.

Personally, I once craved being desired by as many women as possible, thinking it was just a “man thing.” But no matter how much attention I got, I still felt inadequate deep down. I eventually realized that beneath my desire to be wanted by women was a deeper desire to be wanted by my father.

3) Forgiving the adults who neglected or abandoned you—including yourself

This one is hard and can’t be rushed or forced. They say the first cut is the deepest, and many of us can relate to not being hurt by anybody as deeply as we were by our parents. Still, forgiveness is necessary. Without it, we remain stuck in victimhood, unable to reclaim our childhood happiness while resentment dominates how we view our past.

4) Welcoming back innocence, curiosity, wonder, and joy—without bypassing grief, anger, or fear

This is the fun part. It’s about reintegrating activities and attitudes that made life joyful as a child. For me, this meant buying a bike—an expensive one. It served two purposes: it reconnected me to the freedom and wonder I felt riding as a boy, and it validated in me I am no longer the “poor boy” I once felt I was, and that I deserve nice, quality things.

5) Rediscovering the happiness that is your birthright

This final step happens naturally and unexpectedly. It's not so much the result of adding anything to our lives but rather comes from removing all of the false ideas we've gained as adults about what it means to be happy. It demystifies happiness—something that is truly only mystical to adults—by revealing that it never truly left our lives in the first place. It's just that we got so distracted by our ideas of what it means to be a "successful adult" that we forgot something as natural and essential to our being as breathing.

Symptoms You May Need Inner Child Reconciliation

1️) You never reflect on childhood or, when you do, you only see your childhood through the lens of pain

If you never think about childhood or if your childhood memories feel like a highlight reel of trauma while joy feels distant or irrelevant, it may indicate your inner child is asking to be seen in wholeness, not just as a victim.

2️) Your adult choices are driven by hidden fears and unmet needs

If you find yourself stuck in cycles—chasing validation, avoiding loneliness, or overachieving to feel worthy—it may be your inner child’s unacknowledged fears quietly shaping your decisions.

3) You carry deep resentment toward your parents or caretakers

If you feel unable to move forward because of bitterness toward those who failed you, it may indicate the need to heal the wound, not for their sake, but so you can reclaim your peace.

4️) You’ve lost touch with joy, wonder, and play

If life feels heavy, overly serious, or transactional, and you struggle to remember what truly brings you lightness, it may be your inner child longing for reconnection to joy without bypassing the pain that still needs to be felt.

5️) Happiness feels distant, complicated, or conditional

If happiness feels like something you have to “earn” or “figure out” rather than something natural to your being, it may indicate you’ve lost touch with the part of you that knows happiness as your birthright.

If any of this resonates with you and you feel like you'd benefit from having a guide to assist you in your reconciliation efforts, I recently opened up three spots on my calendar this coming week for free, hour long Grow Your Light sessions where we can discuss anything that you feel is preventing you from embodying your highest self, and I currently still have two spots open. If you're interested in grabbing one of the remaining spots, you can find the link to sign up here. And you can learn more about Grow Your Light here.

Better Late Than Never

Well ladies and gentlemen, I finally did it! I uploaded a Youtube video today and I intend to do so at least five days a week, every week. It's nothing too crazy, but it's a start. Something I discovered about myself is that one of my biggest obstacles to doing Youtube consistently is wanting every video to be perfect. Of course I told myself that the reason why this is was so that I created the best product but the real reason is because I am vain, lol. Which means, every time I messed up a word or if I blinked too much, or if I didn't look at the camera, or if things didn't look cinematic, then I wouldn't upload. This made making videos such a draining process between re-recording over and over again and editing for hours—only to get 5 views.

What's changed is that I don't care about how I look anymore. I'm not a videographer and I'm not on Youtube to show how great my video or editing skills are: I'm on Youtube to broadcast a message—not to the masses—but to whoever is looking for it. I don't need to make a perfect, interesting thumbnail, or think up a click-baity title because I'm not looking to steal anybody's attention. I want to be found, only by those looking for me, and I'm confident that those who are looking for me will find me and that Youtube will do what it needs to do which is help me connect with community.

If you're already familiar with my story, you won't find today's topic particularly novel. I've decided that, at least for the first batch of videos, I'm going to follow my newsletters since the Youtube community hasn't been exposed to them. This week we're talking 'Worth and Worthiness' and today's video is entitled "You Self-Sabotage Because You Secretly Feel Unworthy of Success." You can check it out below!

Direct Link: https://youtu.be/B7ys_-51C_k

My first week back in Laurens is in the books and... I have some thoughts, lol. Lots of thoughts that I'll share next week. Until then, be well.

With love,

Micheal Sinclair 💜