Love's Vision: A Healing Journey of Remembering Love's Truth

By Rev. Maureen Yarbrough

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Who Is the Inner Child?

Almost everyone has heard of “inner child” work. But what does it actually mean? Who exactly is the inner child?

I remember when I first heard the concept—I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes. To me, it seemed like a way of holding onto the past, which I already had a difficult enough time letting go of. I was not a fan.

Until I was.

My inner child, it has been revealed to me, is not a spoiled brat sucking her thumb and throwing fits until she gets her way. Rather, my inner child is full of wonder, innocence, creativity, and trust. My inner child is my beautiful, authentic, emotional self. Why would I not want to connect with that truth?

This world teaches us fear and self-protection. The ego develops as a survival mechanism. It is not “evil”; it is the frightened protector of the wounded child within us. The ego is our armor. The inner child is the one wearing it. To heal our inner child, we must remember who we were before fear taught us to hide.

I recall that as a small child, I lurked around silently, observing. I was meant to be seen and not heard—and probably not seen too often either. I had a biological mother who did not want me, a father who was out to sea, and aunts and uncles who were forced to help care for us against their will. There was definitely a thread of “unlovable” and “unwanted” woven through my childhood.

So, the armor went on.

When you are a child navigating a world where you feel like a burden, you quickly learn how to survive. My ego stepped in to protect that unwanted little girl. It told me to stay quiet, stay strong, not need anyone, and never let them see me cry. For decades, that armor served me. It kept me safe.

But eventually, the armor gets heavy.

You realize that while the suit of steel keeps the arrows out, it also keeps the love, the joy, and the wonder from getting in.

For a long time, I carried that thread of fear into adulthood, tightly knotted inside me. That is exactly why I rolled my eyes when I first heard about “inner child” work. I thought looking back meant drowning in those old feelings of rejection all over again. Why dig up the ghost of a little girl who wasn’t wanted?

But my turning point came when I realized that ignoring her did not make her disappear. It only kept her trapped in that silent room, still waiting to be seen. Healing did not mean wallowing in the past—it meant going back to rescue her, setting her free.

The world lied to me back then. The narrative that I was “unlovable” belonged to the adults who could not show up, not to the child who was surviving. Beneath the heavy silence of my childhood, that little girl was still a creature of immense creativity, observing the world with deep intuition.

When I finally stopped looking at her through the eyes of the people who did not want me, and started looking at her through the eyes of truth, I saw her for who she really was: whole, resilient, and ready to create.

Ahhhh… freedom.
Join me next week when we explore the ego as a defense mechanism.

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