Healing Your Inner Child
Anyone else feel like an abandoned circus freak as a child? Just me? Or… maybe not. Maybe you know what it feels like to be so unseen and yet so judged, so alive inside and yet so contrived in a thousand tiny ways that make you question the validity of your own existence. No, I wasn’t the product of Ed Gein’s family tree. My parents were normal—whatever “normal” meant back then. It meant they were checked-in just enough for me to know I was loved, but checked-out just enough to have no clue what was actually happening in my mind or in my world.
To be fair, they had five other kids. My mom was a stay-at-home mother with babies perpetually strapped to her body or tugging on her sleeve.
So what happened? I built myself a whole inner universe. My imagination was my safe place. I played alone a lot, the middle child wedged between three older brothers and one younger one, with only Leah trailing behind as the baby. “The boys,” as my mom and I called them, felt like their own species. So I lived in a world I invented: I was an only child, brilliant beyond measure, living in a penthouse in NYC, rich as sin, adored and unstoppable.
Meanwhile, in reality, I shared a room with two siblings and we were so broke we couldn’t afford Kool-Aid. But here’s the wild thing: that fantasy gave me life because some part of me believed it could come true. The plan was simple: move to New York at 18, become a famous actress, meet the love of my life, have zero children (which is hilarious now, because being a mom and stepmom is the most joy I’ve ever known), live in our penthouse overlooking Central Park, sign autographs, film movies, float through life on champagne bubbles and caviar dreams.
If you’ve read my memoir, you know that my life became a real-world example of that old saying: “You wanna make God laugh—tell Him your plans.” I got pregnant and married at 16, divorced at 22, and spent the next decade wrestling with a self-esteem so low you’d need mining equipment to locate it—and a bank account to match. And even after doing the inner work, after embracing what Robin Sharma calls APR—Absolute Personal Responsibility, I realized there was still an 8-year-old in me carrying wounds like bricks in a backpack.
There was a sadness so heavy it could tranquilize a lion. Because that fantasy life wasn’t just a fantasy; it was my promised future. In my mind, I was just waiting for it to arrive—like standing at the bottom of the escalator. You never question whether those moving stairs will take you to the top. You just step on.
But at 21, instead of stepping off into a penthouse life, I was stepping into courtrooms for divorce hearings, onto welfare lines, and out of college because I couldn’t juggle the crushing reality of feeling like I had failed my 8-year-old self who believed in magic.
And then my youngest daughter said to me recently: “You need to let go, Mommy. You treat me and Miné like we’re little kids. Miné is an adult, and I’m about to be one. You worry too much.”
I had two immediate thoughts:
Is this true?
Or is this a Jedi mind trick to loosen my grip so they can ruin their lives?
…And if I’m questioning like that, doesn’t that prove she’s right?
The truth settled in: there’s an 8-year-old girl inside my 35-year-old body who thinks she can save herself through her children. If they don’t start life pregnant by cheating abusers, maybe they won’t be as emotionally damaged as I was. Writing that sentence felt like ripping my chest open, but it’s true.
So how did my emotional damage show up?
1. “I don’t need you.”
I hated help. Hated checking in. Hated needing anyone. Independence was my religion.
2. “Dirty anything, please.”
Dirty martini, dirty cocktail—just give me a decent pour. If you’ve seen Sideways, you know the tone. If not, stop reading and go watch it. I medicated with alcohol. I drank EVERY. SINGLE. DAY—in my early twenties. And when poison is the only thing you can rely on… welcome to the ride of insanity.
3. Pretending to be strong.
Want to know if you’re pretending? Look at who you attract. If the five closest people around you aren’t warriors, then your strength is performance, not truth. Real recognize real. Strength recognizes strength. And when you finally commit to radical responsibility and real execution, you instantly know who’s sharpening your blade and who’s dulling it.
My unhealed inner child was steering the ship. And here’s the thing: all health starts in the mind before it ever becomes reality. Before you grab an apple, you think about grabbing an apple. Before a workout, you think about working out. Before you experience beauty, your soul whispers gratitude.
Thoughts are more real than reality because reality cannot create itself—your thoughts create reality. The car you're sitting in, the chair beneath you, the clothes on your body—on a quantum level, none of this is solid. It’s all vibrating energy projecting into form.
So if you’re vibrating at the frequency of an unhealed childhood wound, you’re only one energetic shift away from healing, course-correcting, and walking toward what I call The GOOD Life:
G – Gratitude (living in the promised land of appreciation)
O – Overjoyed (not just thankful—radiant with joy)
O – Ownership (radical responsibility for everything)
D – Dependability (your people can lean on you, and you on them)
All these practices these begin in the mind.
Which is why I realized: I cannot keep living as a grown woman with an 8-year-old running the control room. I can’t take her into 35, and I definitely can’t take her into 62. So I created a compass — a way to guide both of us forward. Here is why being GOOD is important.
GRATITUDE —
Practice your gratitude personally by romanticizing your life — and I don’t mean in the Pinterest-aesthetic way. Romanticizing your life is about creating deliberate, micro-moments of beauty that teach your nervous system what safety, softness, and presence actually feel like. It’s not just candles or fuzzy slippers or singing your favorite song while you walk (though those help). It’s deeper. It’s therapeutic. It’s you becoming the safe parent your inner child always needed.
Because when you light a candle on purpose, when you slow your pace during a walk, when you take five seconds to breathe in a moment instead of rushing past it, you’re whispering to that eight-year-old inside you, “See? We’re okay now. We’re not in danger anymore. We can breathe here.” Romanticizing your life is how you give her something she never had: gentleness without conditions, joy that isn’t tied to performance, peace that isn’t earned through survival. It’s gratitude in motion — gratitude that is felt, not just written in a journal.
And when you intentionally craft these pockets of beauty, your mind begins to believe that life can be soft… not because it magically became easier, but because you finally learned how to meet it with tenderness instead of tension.
OVERJOY —
And when I say be overjoyed, I don’t mean wait around for joy to land on your doorstep like an Amazon package. I mean force yourself to feel it — summon it like a muscle memory you're trying to rebuild. You know that saying “fake it till you make it”? People love to roll their eyes at it, but it’s not fluff, it’s neuroscience. Studies show that the physical act of smiling — even a fake, goofy, exaggerated one — actually triggers your brain to release dopamine and serotonin, the same chemicals tied to real happiness.
In other words, your body doesn’t always know the difference between a practiced smile and a spontaneous one; it just responds. So be intentional. Smile at yourself in the mirror. Smile while you walk. Smile when your first instinct is to cry or shut down. Not because life is perfect, but because your nervous system deserves a fighting chance at joy. Overjoy isn’t just a feeling — it’s a chosen vibration, trained into your body until it becomes natural.
OWNERSHIP —
And then there’s ownership — the practical, boots-on-the-ground kind. You practice ownership by creating a life improvement timeline, not some massive overnight overhaul that leaves you exhausted by Wednesday. You cannot change your entire life in a day, but you can absolutely change your direction in a day. That timeline becomes your compass. It shows you where you’re consistent, where you’re slipping, and where you’re lying to yourself in the soft, quiet ways that stunt your growth.
Here’s what mine looks like: I set daily goals that align with the woman I’m becoming — tied to small rewards I actually enjoy but don’t need to indulge in. Social media. Movies. Those delicious little digital guilty pleasures. If I complete my tasks for the day, I get the reward after work. When I hit my weekly targets, I get a bigger reward. It’s simple, but it trains discipline while still honoring desire. And the beautiful part is this: consistency becomes easier when your present self is being rewarded and your future self is being built at the same time. It’s a partnership between who you are and who you’re becoming.
DEPENDABILITY —
And finally, the intention of being dependable — really dependable — to your family, your partner, your circle. This isn’t about martyrdom or being everything to everyone. It starts with asking your people what they actually need from you, so you don’t just give love in the language you understand, but in the language they receive. Dependability is not about doing more; it’s about doing what matters. It’s a two-way street paved with humility, listening, and honest communication — the kind where you put your ego in the passenger seat and let curiosity drive.
When you ask your people, “What would make you feel more supported by me?” you open a doorway into their world. You give them permission to be honest about their vulnerabilities. And in return, you get to show up not as a mind-reader, not as a fixer, but as an anchor — someone who meets their needs instead of projecting your own. Dependability is sacred because it nurtures trust, and trust is what allows families to breathe easier, love deeper, and grow without fear. It is the quiet miracle that turns relationships into sanctuaries.
And here’s the existential truth I’ve come to—the one that blows my mind every time:
Your inner child isn’t behind you. She isn’t a memory.
She is the architect of the life you’re living right now.
And healing her isn’t about the past—
it’s about freeing the future that’s been waiting for you all along.
Because here’s the thing no one tells you: healing your inner child isn’t about becoming some enlightened, perfect version of yourself floating on a cloud of essential oils and mantras. Healing her is about finally turning around and looking that little girl in the eyes—the one who was waiting at the bottom of the escalator with her suitcase packed for the life she thought you’d give her. It’s about kneeling down, taking her tiny face in your hands, and saying, “I’m sorry it didn’t go the way you dreamed, but I promise you will love the ending.”
And when you say that with all your heart, something shifts. Not a small shift. A tectonic, continental shift. The kind of shift that makes your soul exhale for the first time in decades.
Because at the end of the day, dear reader, healing isn’t about erasing who you were.
It’s about realizing that the dream wasn’t the penthouse or the fame or the movie scripts; the dream was becoming whole. Becoming someone you actually recognize when you stand in front of the mirror. And the mind-blowing part? The second you choose wholeness, the universe reorients itself around you—and you become the adult your inner child prayed for.
You become the safe place you never had. You become the proof that even broken beginnings can lead to a boundless destiny.
Until next time,
Maria 🌹
