Parts Work & Inner Child Healing: Stop the Trauma Cycle and Finally Come Home to Yourself
Let’s get brutally honest for a second: you can’t “positive vibes” your way out of trauma. You can’t out-hustle it, out-diet it, or out-organize it. And yet, so many hyper-independent women (hi, I see you) keep trying to bulldoze through life pretending the old wounds don’t exist. Spoiler alert: your inner child—the little feral gremlin still living in your nervous system—will drag your ass down every time you ignore her.
That’s where parts work and inner child healing come in. No, it’s not fluffy Instagram self-care. It’s deep, messy, and honestly uncomfortable AF. But it’s also the thing that helps you finally stop gaslighting yourself, calm the chaos, and feel like a whole-ass human instead of a broken one.
What the Hell is Parts Work Anyway?
Parts work is basically therapy’s way of saying: “You’re not crazy for having different sides of yourself that argue, shut down, or show up at random times.” You’ve got a whole damn inner committee; your perfectionist, your overachiever, your angry protector, your exhausted burnout self, and yes, your scared little inner child.
Instead of fighting these parts, we get curious about them. Parts work helps you understand that every part—no matter how messy, bitchy, or over-the-top—is trying to protect you. Even if their methods suck (hi, avoidance scrolling, rage-texting, and wine-for-dinner nights).
When you learn to listen instead of shame, those parts stop running wild and actually start working with you. It’s like finally calling a dysfunctional staff meeting where everyone gets to air their grievances and you, as the adult self, get to be the damn boss.
Inner Child Healing: Meeting Your Crotch Goblin Self
Your inner child isn’t just about “reparenting” or hugging a teddy bear. It’s about facing the younger versions of you that felt abandoned, silenced, or forced to grow up way too damn fast.
That little girl who learned she had to earn love by being perfect.
The teenager who numbed out because feeling was too dangerous.
The version of you who learned it was safer to have “no needs” than risk being disappointed.
Those versions are still living inside you, pulling the strings. That’s why you can crush it in your career but completely lose your shit when someone doesn’t text back. That’s why you over-function, over-give, and over-apologize, because your inner child still believes her survival depends on it.
Inner child healing is about going back, meeting those parts with compassion instead of judgment, and letting your adult self finally give her what she needed but didn’t get.
Why Hyper-Independent Women Need This Work
Hyper-independence is a trauma response dressed up as a personality trait. You tell yourself, “I don’t need anyone,” while simultaneously drowning in exhaustion, loneliness, and resentment. Sound familiar?
Parts work and inner child healing are game-changers here because:
They explain why you can’t relax even when nothing’s wrong. Your nervous system is still scanning for threats like it did when you were a kid.
They help you stop abandoning yourself. Every time you dismiss your feelings with “I’m fine,” you’re reenacting the same invalidation you hated growing up.
They give you tools to lean on others without spiraling. Because yes, asking for help feels like free-falling into hell when your inner child thinks it’s unsafe.
They show you you’re not broken. You’re burnt the fuck out from carrying everything alone, and these parts are proof of your survival, not your failure.
What Healing Actually Looks Like (Hint: It’s Not Pretty)
Healing with parts work and inner child work isn’t about erasing the past or becoming some zen monk who never loses her cool. It’s about building a relationship with yourself that isn’t based on shame and denial.
Here’s what it actually looks like:
Dialoguing with your parts. Yep, you literally talk to yourself. Out loud or on paper. It feels weird as hell at first, but it’s also powerful AF.
Recognizing when a younger you is hijacking the moment. Like when you flip out over not getting a text back—it’s not 35-year-old you, it’s 12-year-old you who felt rejected.
Offering comfort you didn’t get back then. You learn to say, “I see you, I hear you, and I’ve got you now,” instead of telling yourself to shut up and move on.
Integrating, not eliminating. The goal isn’t to kill off parts of you, it’s to bring them back home so you feel whole.
My Own Feral AF Journey With Parts Work
I’ll be real with you; this isn’t theory for me. I’ve sat in the client chair, ugly crying, arguing with the voices in my own head. I’ve told my therapist, “This feels insane,” while secretly knowing it was the first time I wasn’t abandoning myself.
Parts work helped me stop bulldozing over my own needs and pretending I was “fine.” Inner child healing let me grieve the shit I didn’t even know I was still carrying. And EMDR (my ride-or-die modality) helped me reprocess the stuck trauma so those parts didn’t keep hijacking me every damn day.
Now, I use these tools with my clients, and I watch them go from “I hate myself for being this way” to “Holy shit, I understand myself for the first time.” That shift is everything.
How to Start Your Own Inner Child Healing
If you’re reading this thinking, “Okay, this makes sense but where the hell do I start?” here’s the deal:
Get curious, not judgmental. Next time you overreact or shut down, ask, “Which part of me is showing up right now?”
Name the part. Give it a role; Perfectionist, Protector, Exhausted Mom. When you name it, you can talk to it instead of being taken over by it.
Try a journal dialogue. Write as your part, then respond as your adult self. It feels cheesy, but it’s like therapy in a notebook.
Seek support. This shit is deep. Working with a trauma-informed therapist (hi, that’s me) can help you navigate it without getting lost.
Final Truth Bomb
Your inner child isn’t the enemy. Your parts aren’t proof you’re broken. They’re proof you survived. But survival mode isn’t the same as living.
Parts work and inner child healing help you stop gaslighting yourself, stop bulldozing through life like a one-woman army, and finally come home to yourself. Because you deserve more than survival. You deserve wholeness, freedom, and the kind of self-trust that no one can take from you.
If this hits you right in the gut (or in the inner crotch goblin), that’s because you’re ready. Ready to stop carrying the world alone, ready to heal the parts of you that still hurt, and ready to finally meet yourself with compassion instead of criticism.
This is exactly the work I do in therapy and EMDR Intensives. If you’re sick of surface-level coping and ready for deep transformation, let’s get into it. Learn more about EMDR Intensives here.
About the Author
Jessica Brooks is an EMDR-Certified Trauma Therapist and owner of Untamed Therapy and Consulting in Cape Coral, FL. She helps emotionally exhausted, hyper-independent adults heal from burnout and reconnect with their fire through EMDR intensives, personalized trauma care, and real talk that cuts through the BS.
