Help! My inner child just ate my inner peace

The Ice Cream Incident So there I am, chakras aligned, heart open, just trying to get a scoop of spiritual nourishment (Rocky Road ice cream). And someone cuts in front of me. Adult Blaine smiles. Inner Child Blaine grabs the mic: “EXCUSE ME, SIR—THERE ARE RULES!” Suddenly, I’m in a full courtroom drama over ice cream. I get my rocky road cone, sit on a bench outside, and realize this isn’t about ice cream. It’s about inner peace getting hijacked by the little guy inside who just wanted to feel seen. Sound familiar?

Thesis – Co-Parenting Your Inner Child This talk isn’t about silencing your inner child. It’s about co-parenting them—meeting emotional pop-ups not with judgment, but with curiosity, compassion, and love.

Who Is the Inner Child? Your inner child isn’t a mythical fairy floating on a rainbow. They’re the emotional memory bank of your life—the one who remembers rejection on the playground, the sting of not being picked for the baseball team, the ache of “Am I enough?” The inner child isn’t a problem to fix—they’re a portal to healing, an invitation to love yourself where you are.

The Brené Brown Story Brené Brown’s inner child once panicked when her husband went quiet while swimming. She spiraled into, “He’s mad at me,” when really, he was timing how long he could hold his breath. The lesson? Our inner child writes horror stories when it could just ask for the plot. That’s why we pause, breathe, and ask instead of assuming.

Why Your Inner Child Hijacks Your Peace The inner child isn’t trying to ruin your day; it’s trying to protect you with the emotional toolkit of a 6-year-old: mostly crying, yelling, and stomping. They don’t know you’ve grown up. Your job isn’t to evict them, but to reassure them.

The Healing Practice: Loving the Child Instead of Judging the Reaction Healing begins when we stop reacting and start relating. We become the loving adult the inner child never had—not with lectures or shame, but with warmth, presence, and humor.

The Hungry Ghost – A Buddhist Metaphor The “Hungry Ghost” has a giant belly and a pinhole mouth—always starving, never satisfied. Our inner child can be like that, desperate to be loved, seen, and accepted. We don’t shame the hungry ghost—we sit beside it and say: “I see you. I’m here. You are enough.”

Call to Action – Three Spiritual Practices When your inner child throws a fit, don’t throw yourself under the bus. Pause. Breathe. And:

• Turn your triggers into teachers.

• Let your reactions become revelations.

• Instead of silencing your inner child, become the loving grown-up they’ve always needed.

  
  

Closing – A Hand-in-Hand Kind of Peace Spiritual growth isn’t about being calm all the time—it’s about knowing how to return to peace, with humor, humility, and your inner child skipping beside you. Because peace isn’t the absence of a tantrum; it’s the presence of love—even at the ice cream store.

“I embrace my inner child with tenderness.”