Healing My Inner Child: When Love Finally Felt Safe
Following My Healing Journey | By Raquel Perez, LPC
Have you ever felt like love is something you have to earn?
Like even when someone shows you care, there’s a part of you that tightens, braces, or quietly pulls away?
For many of us, this reaction doesn’t come from logic or conscious choice. It comes from a much younger place inside — a part of us that learned, early on, that love could be inconsistent, conditional, or unsafe.
I’m Raquel Perez, a licensed professional counselor and the creator of Everyday Therapy, my YouTube channel where I share therapy-informed reflections, guided meditations, and conversations about healing, relationships, and emotional safety. Alongside this work, I run my private practice, Intima Couples and Sex Therapy, where I support individuals and couples navigating anxiety, depression, intimacy, relational wounds, and deep emotional healing.
This post is part of a series I call Following My Healing Journey — a space where I share my own healing as it unfolds. Not as something polished or complete, but as something lived, embodied, and ongoing. My hope is that in reading this, you might recognize something within yourself and feel a little less alone.
Why Inner Child Healing Is So Powerful
Inner child healing has long been a cornerstone of my therapeutic work. Long before we had words, our nervous systems were learning about safety, connection, and love. We learned whether it was safe to express emotion, to need comfort, or to rest into closeness.
Most childhood wounds are not the result of cruelty. Often, caregivers were doing the best they could with the tools and awareness they had at the time. And still, both truths exist: they did their best and we were impacted.
Our bodies adapted in intelligent ways.
We learned how to protect ourselves.
How to stay alert.
How to not feel too much.
How to guard love when it didn’t always feel safe to receive.
These protective patterns are not flaws — they are survival strategies. But over time, they can follow us into adulthood, shaping how we experience intimacy, vulnerability, and emotional connection.
The Moment That Shifted Everything
Recently, I found myself moving through a wave of big emotions — the kind that feel raw and tender at the same time. Instead of pushing them away or analyzing them, I stayed present with my body.
A gentle thought arose:
What if the most vulnerable parts of us were met with so much love that they no longer had to protect themselves?
As I sat with that question, an image formed. My inner child appeared — about three or four years old. She collapsed into my arms, sobbing. She shared how cold the world had felt, how lonely, how unsafe it had been to need.
I held her.
I stroked her hair.
I kissed her forehead and whispered,
You don’t have to be brave right now. I’ve got you.
For the first time, I didn’t just understand safety — I felt it. Deeply. Embodied. Real.
When Protection Begins to Soften
After that experience, something subtle but profound shifted inside me.
I’ve known for a long time that my relationship with love felt complicated. I’ve explored it personally and professionally. But now, my body understood what my mind already knew.
Love had always felt like a risk.
That protective part of me had been doing her job for decades. And when she finally felt seen and held, her grip loosened — just a little.
The next day, I noticed the change in small but meaningful ways. I felt more grounded and present with my grandson. Later, during a conversation with my partner that would normally activate defensiveness, I stayed open. I could recognize the familiar pattern without needing to armor up.
I could simply be there.
This is how healing often unfolds — not in dramatic breakthroughs, but in quiet moments where the nervous system realizes it doesn’t have to work so hard anymore.
When Love Starts to Feel Safe
Healing the inner child doesn’t mean erasing the past or suddenly trusting everything. It means creating safety within yourself — the kind of safety that allows love to land without fear.
I can’t say my inner child is fully healed. But I can say this: something inside me has begun to trust love again. And for me, that’s where healing begins.
When love no longer feels like something we must earn.
When connection doesn’t require self-abandonment.
When closeness feels possible.
A Gentle Invitation
If this resonates with you, I created a guided inner child meditation on my Everyday Therapy YouTube channel to help you gently meet these younger parts of yourself with compassion and care. This meditation focuses on creating emotional safety, not forcing memories or change.
I’ve also shared a free resource, Sacred Spaces: Creating Safety for Insight, designed to help you understand how nervous system safety supports healing, emotional regulation, and deeper self-connection.
Walking This Path Together
Thank you for being here with me and witnessing this moment in my healing journey. Sharing this work is tender, and it’s an honor to walk alongside you.
If you’re seeking deeper support, my private practice, Intima Couples and Sex Therapy, offers individual therapy, couples and relationship therapy, sex therapy, and ketamine-assisted therapy for adults navigating depression, anxiety, intimacy concerns, and relational healing. My approach is trauma-informed, relational, and rooted in creating safety for insight — because the wisdom you’re seeking already lives within you.
I’ll see you next week as we continue walking this path together, one layer at a time.
