When your pain stays locked away in difficult memories, you can’t do anything about it, and the pain festers, coming out in unhelpful or unexpected ways (like anger).

Imagine yourself at a time when you were going through hurt, with no one to help you. Think about how you might’ve wanted to be spoken to at that time. What did you need to hear? What support do you still, to this day, wish you had received in the moment?

Download Now: Write A Letter To Your Younger Self

Take as little as 10 minutes to complete this worksheet by: 

  • Printing it, or
  • Writing your answers on a separate piece of paper, or
  • Typing your answers into Notes or a word document

Who can this help, and how?

This worksheet is good for people who have experienced:

  • Loss
  • Grief
  • Marginalization
  • Trauma
  • Gaslighting
  • Rejection
  • Abandonment
  • Heartbreak
  • Abuse
  • Identity struggles
  • High emotional sensitivity
  • Family dysfunction

Connecting with your inner child (or an imagined version of your younger self) can help you resolve self-criticism, imposter syndrome caused by marginalization, and negative self beliefs from problematic relationships.

Writing a letter to your inner child helps you explore unresolved feelings, emotions, and self-beliefs from your past. When you write a letter to your inner child, you use your current adult body to comfort the part of yourself that felt helpless as a child.

This letter-writing exercise helps you process and mourn any difficult events from the past. It helps you remember that while you felt helpless back then, you are now in an adult body capable of defending yourself and honoring your needs.

Need motivation?

“Yes, there’s really a little dude inside you and he needs your help…Trauma is bound to happen somewhere in any normal boy’s childhood. Perhaps it’s a parent who’s not around, maybe it’s a bully or a coach with a mean streak.” It all gets stored away with your inner child, shares writer and life coach Sean Hotchkiss.

“If you have unmet #emotional needs from childhood, one way to meet them now is to write your inner child a letter telling them everything they need to hear. This activity can help you #reconnect with your #inner child and remember the emotional quality of being a child.” – @open071

“I wrote a letter to my inner child and it was so soothing and groundbreaking.” – @Themagicmuir

“Journaling taught me to bear witness to myself – to validate that I was born innocent – unfairly deprived of a child’s birthright to be loved. Through no fault of my own, I got the joker from the parenting deck. Journaling helped me grieve this terrible loss… Through continually evolving my ability to nurture, love and protect myself and my various child selves, I customarily feel a sense of safety and of belonging in the world.” – therapist Pete Walker, MA on the power of writing to one’s inner child

Download Now: Write A Letter To Your Younger Self

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