Healing the Inner Child

On March 10-11, 2018, a total of thirty (30) participants composed of our own brothers and sisters and a few guests joined the Healing of the Inner Child process facilitated by Sister Maria Lourdes S. Veloso, RVM at Betania Retreat House, Cebu City.

Retreat participants writing words of affirmation for one another during one of their activities.

The process may be divided into two major parts:

• Assessment
• Healing

At around 8:30am of the 1st day, Sr. Lourdes started the event with a prayer  and orientation. Through the orientation, it can be said that the healing is far from an ordinary two-day retreat. It requires the participants' 'adult selves' to accept his/her inner woundedness beforehand and have the willingness to be liberated and healed from it. After the orientation, participants were then lead to an assessment of their woundedness at different life stages, namely:

• Infancy
• Toddlerhood
• Play age
• School age
• Adolescence

The assessment was through recollection of the participant's memories and those stories shared to them by the people around them during each life stage. It was then followed with an exchange of words between the participants and their Inner Child. It was a conversation in a form of written letters which was meant to allow the Inner Child to voice out whatever emotion, thought or question he/she may be supressing or repressing within or to simply cry out and release the burden of being wounded. In exchange, it allowed the participants' adult self a chance to listen and answer as if reparenting their Inner Child.

The next day, the participants had another assessment which was aimed to identify their degree of woundedness (from being slightly to extremely wounded). It was one of the event's highlights as it allowed the participants to track down their past experiences which may be the reason for their current personal core issues (i.e, self-doubt, insecurity, anxeity, dependency, incompetence). 

Then the actual healing treatment proceeded next. It involved a lot of things, from affirmation of the  wounded person's strengths to identifying concrete steps to heal further and lastly, the emotional part of silently trying to once again remember the people and/or instances which may have caused woundedness to the participants and writing a letter of forgiveness for each of them. The letters were then silently prayed for and burnt to signify the liberation from the bondage of pain and woundedness.

Healing is a process. Healing takes time. And so, the Healing of the Inner Child, as beautiful as it can be would only be a tool and significant start of the actual healing process itself. 

The healing at the solemn place of Betania was closed with a prayer and with the 30 participants bringing home with them not just memories of the shared laughters during conversations over meal and snack times but also with a different perspective and self-care plans as to how to continuosly treat and tame their wounded inner  selves as taught during the entire event.

About the Writer:

Tessa Jane Palmiano hails from Tacloban City and has been working in Cebu since 2016. She's been with the community since then. She loves poetry and late night coffee talks. Currently, she serves in the Evangelistic Ministry of Lingkod-Cebu.