This Is What Healing The Child Archetype Looks Like
We are being asked to heal our inner child. To hold the light up to our childhood wounds and welcome them home.
The child archetype is one of the four Jungian survival archetypes. The other three are prostitute, saboteur, and victim.
The child archetype shows up in our lives in a myriad of ways. It relies on dependency and for others to take responsibility. The paradox of the child archetype is that it requires you to be responsible and maintain your innocence and fluidity.
Within the four directions, the child is located in the east. She governs your innocence, your senses, and your first chakra (your root chakra). When our inner child is active from a shadow standpoint, the child archetype is active unconsciously. It can show up by avoiding responsibility and blaming others for our circumstances. It is important to meet our own child archetype, not only weave into our life new waves of consciousness, but also into the world.
If you find you still have some inner child work to meet, do not feel discouraged. Your child is likely showing up in less than desirable ways because the child in you feels wounded and is trying to protect you.
Healing your child archetype is not a one-time event. The child archetype, like any child, is seeking a relationship. Initially, there may be some healing work to tend to.
Particularly archetypal child healing work may include:
- Regaining your self-esteem
- Setting strong boundaries
- Carving out the fears that dictate the direction of your life
- Learning to love yourself and feel safe and secure.
These are big changes. Go easy on yourself. The journey is a hard one but a vital one. The world awaits the mature adult.
To continuously tend to our child archetype, we must begin to slow down, settle into the sensuous moment and meet with the day instead of rule the day. The child knows how to play well; for a child, play is serious business. Yet, many of us have lost this sense of imagination and wonder. Our curiosity is a tap we have turned off.
What could emerge if you opened your heart and mind to the mysteries of your world, your loved ones, or yourself?
Now is the time to go back, to do the work, to offer ourselves the love that we longed for but maybe never quite received. To dialogue with your younger self, revisit the joys of your youth, play, make art, and read fairytales. To set boundaries and find stability in your own self-made-secure sanctuary.
Healing your child archetype is a beautiful journey.
Take it one day at a time, let the tears flow, and the laughter come as you grieve and open to the many gifts of your child archetype.