Inner Child Healing Through Safe Enough Connection: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Therapeutic Touch
How therapeutic touch and nervous system regulation can help you stop outsourcing safety and start letting love in
If the phrase inner child makes you roll your eyes, you are not alone. A lot of people have a strong reaction to it. Sometimes it feels too “woo.” Sometimes it feels embarrassing. Sometimes it feels like it belongs to someone else’s healing journey, not yours.
And still, many of us are living with the impact of our younger parts every day.
In my work as a therapeutic intimacy specialist and somatic practitioner, I support people who are healing from childhood trauma, sexual trauma, attachment wounds, and CPTSD. A big part of that healing is learning how to create safe enough connection, the kind that helps your nervous system settle and helps you come back home to yourself.
This post is a personal story from my newest Intimacy Lab episode, along with a trauma-informed way to think about inner child work that is practical, grounded, and consent-based.
What is inner child healing? Inner child healing is the process of reconnecting with younger parts of you that learned survival strategies in childhood, so you can respond from your wise adult self with more safety, choice, and emotional regulation.
Can therapeutic touch help with trauma? For some people, consent-based therapeutic touch can support nervous system regulation and repair experiences of isolation by offering safe enough connection, clear boundaries, and co-regulation.
What “inner child” really means (in plain language)
You do not have to picture a literal child inside you to benefit from inner child healing.
Here is a simpler way to say it:
You have younger parts of you that learned how to adapt to survive.
Those parts still show up in adult relationships, especially when you feel unsafe, uncertain, rejected, or alone.
They are not “bad.” They are not broken. They are human.
One of the simplest questions I have ever heard is this:
Who is in front of me right now?
Is it my wise adult, or is it my adaptive child?
That question can change everything because it helps you notice when you are reacting from old pain instead of responding from present-day reality.
The moment I realized I was outsourcing safety
Years ago, I was in a long-distance relationship and my partner had just moved to San Diego while I was still in Michigan. I wanted reassurance constantly. I wanted him to say the right thing, in the right tone, at the right time, enough times, to finally make me feel secure.
But it never worked.
Eventually, he said something like: “There’s nothing I can say that will make you feel better, and it’s getting old. I think I need a break.”
That moment scared me, and it also woke me up.
I realized I was asking him to do a job that was never his. I was trying to get him to regulate a younger part of me that was terrified of being abandoned.
That younger part needed me.
The first inner child conversation that actually helped
I did not grow up with inner child language. I did not even know what it was for a long time. But I tried something simple: I spoke out loud to my younger self.
I apologized.
I told her I was sorry for abandoning her for so long. I told her I was ready to take care of her now. I told her she did not have to look to my partner to feel safe.
It sounds small. It also felt awkward.
And it made a real difference.
Because healing is often simple and hard at the same time.
When love feels safest from “fatherly energy”
A couple years later, I noticed something else. When I hugged certain men who carried a steady, grounded, “dad-like” presence, I would fall apart. I would cry hard, like full-body sobbing.
A colleague reflected something that landed deeply:
“You’re really good at loving other people. You’re not as good at letting love in.”
He suggested I spend more time getting to know my inner child, not just talking to her, but engaging with her.
So I asked myself: What did I love as a kid?
My answer surprised me because it was so ordinary.
I loved coloring.
I loved little stuffed animals.
I loved playing basketball.
I loved simple joy.
And those were not random details. Those were doorways back to myself.
A trauma-informed way to “spend time” with your younger parts
If you want a practical way to start, try this:
Notice the moment you feel activated
You might feel clingy, shut down, panicky, numb, or desperate for reassurance.Ask: “Who is here right now?”
Wise adult or adaptive child?Offer one small act of care
Not a lecture. Not a self-improvement project. Care.
Examples:
Color for 10 minutes
Hold a soft blanket or stuffed animal
Put on music you loved as a teenager
Shoot hoops, take a walk, swing at a park
Make yourself a snack and eat it slowly
Put a childhood photo as your phone lock screen (if that feels supportive)
The goal is not to force healing. The goal is to build trust with the parts of you that learned they were alone.
Trauma is often overwhelm, not weakness
One idea I have been holding lately is that trauma can be understood as overwhelm.
Overwhelm that was too much, too fast, too soon, or too alone.
When we approach healing through that lens, the question becomes:
What helps your nervous system feel less alone in the overwhelm?
For many people, the answer includes safe enough connection, co-regulation, and consent-based touch.
How therapeutic touch can support inner child healing
In my practice at Human Connection Lab, I work in the middle space between cuddle therapy and traditional surrogate partner therapy. My work is trauma-informed, consent-based, and non-sexual.
That matters, so I will say it clearly:
There is no sexual contact in sessions.
We focus on boundaries, nervous system regulation, and relational safety.
Touch, when included, is collaborative and consent-led.
For some clients, therapeutic touch becomes a reparative experience. Not because touch “fixes” you, but because safe, boundaried connection can help your body learn something new:
You can be close and still have choice.
You can be cared for without owing anything.
You can receive without performing.
You can feel and still be safe enough.
That is the kind of learning that reaches the younger parts.
Freedom is the ability to choose
One of the most important shifts in healing is moving from survival adaptation to choice.
When you have more choice, you have more freedom.
And sometimes the bravest choice is simply this:
“I’m not ignoring my needs anymore.”
If inner child work feels cringey, start here
You do not have to call it inner child work.
You can call it:
younger parts
adaptive child
old survival strategies
nervous system patterns
the part of me that learned to cope
The label does not matter.
What matters is this: something in you learned to survive without enough support. And now you get to practice support, slowly, consistently, in a way that feels safe enough.
Want support with this work?
If you are healing from trauma, struggling with intimacy, touch aversion, skin hunger, or feeling stuck in relationship patterns, you do not have to do it alone.
I offer virtual and in-person sessions through Human Connection Lab, serving Southern California (San Diego and Los Angeles) and select travel locations.
If you are curious about working together, you can reach out through my website and we will explore what support might look like for you.
