I received an ARC from Netgalley

Matilda Simakaj's Healing Your Inner Child offers guidance on overcoming childhood traumas and fostering self-love through diverse healing techniques. The book explores reparenting ourselves, self-evaluation, and inner peace, providing a solid introduction to self-empowerment and profound healing.

4.5 ⭐️
A great introduction to exploring your inner child traumas, full of tips, inspiring quotes, and lots of food for thought backed by studies.

❤️‍🩹 I’ve been in a healing journey for quite some time, and the more I’ve researched, the more I’ve come across how our bodies can be effected through stored up trauma and emotions. (So, you may have noticed a pattern on my GR profile in some of my self-help books lately) I’m really digging down into my inner child. 🥰

👥 I’ve learned that a key part of healing involves revisiting our past selves (various ages) without resentment or judgment, but with compassion and forgiveness of burdens, and free them from controlling our present happiness. So I was extremely excited to read this book!

👉🏼 This book and topic is great for those dealing with things like:
- Attachment issues
- Perfectionism
- Low self-esteem
- Highly reactive (emotional, defensive)
- Self sabotaging
- Negativity / Anger
- Anxiety / Depression
- Always putting others first
- Fizzled dreams and passions
- Chronic health issues (although this particular book does not address that, I can recommend one that does)

🎭 This book helps you understand how our past shapes our current behavior, identify triggers, and adopt healthier coping habits and forgiveness.

“Always remember—when you forgive someone, you’re not accepting what they did. But, you are setting yourself free.”

📝 It covers a variety of ways to tap into your inner child and start healing through: rewriting your story, writing a letter to your younger and older selves, mindfulness meditation, journaling, conscious reparenting, and mirror work.

“There is scientific evidence behind the reparenting theory that suggests its effectiveness in treating various mental health disorders like borderline personality disorder (BPD) (Darcy, 2023), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety disorders, among others (Clarke, 2022).”

“Healing isn’t about becoming someone different; it’s about letting go of the things that aren’t truly you and enabling your authentic self to emerge like a phoenix from the ashes!”

⏳ This is a book I will be referring back to, and highly recommending to friends that have been following my healing journey. I have already been practicing some of these methods, but plan to put level-up my methods and carve out more time as a priority.

Thanks to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial, and Matilda Simakaj for providing me with a complimentary ARC to review!

I think this book talks a lot about childhood trauma and how it can affect you in the day-to-day life and I don’t really good because it’s standardising it for a lot more people but unfortunately it is really good but I just didn’t really connect with that it was put in such a way that I just didn’t take as much as I probably should’ve away from this book, but I also don’t think of these types of books are for me as well. I’m learning so potentially it could just be that I’m not the right person for this book to be marketed to.

I’ve been working on healing so I was familiar with inner child work before reading this book. However, I was able to learn even more facts and tips about the process after finishing the book! That was a good feeling. I liked the clear layout and examples from other people that have faced trauma and their journeys. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This book helps you understand how to work on yourself when you didn't even know you needed to work on yourself. It's not easy, but once you read it, your eyes open to realities you weren't aware of. It's not therapy, but it helps tremendously.

This was a decent introductory guide to inner child work. There were some insightful prompts, but it left me wanting more depth.