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You’ve probably heard of inner child work. If not, it’s basically about reconnecting with and healing the younger, wounded parts of yourself—the parts still holding onto old pain, unmet needs, and emotions that never got fully processed. It’s not about changing the past but about finally giving yourself now what you needed back then.
Losing someone we love is one of the hardest things we go through. Whether it’s a person or an animal, that kind of grief can shake us to our core. And for those of us who love our animals with everything we have, losing them can feel just as devastating as losing a human we love.
In some ways, grieving an animal can be even more powerful for inner child healing. Because animals are so pure and innocent, their love is unconditional. And when we lose them, it often brings up a lot more than just missing them—it can stir up old grief, guilt, or wounds we didn’t even realize we were carrying. But as painful as it is, that kind of deep grief can also open the door to real healing.
When Ellie crossed that rainbow bridge she took me straight into the depths of my grief. But she also led me to a kind of self-love I had never known. She showed me how to care for the most vulnerable parts of myself—the way I had always cared for her. And through that, I started to heal in ways I never expected.
We try so hard to be adults—staying responsible, keeping productive, always working on ourselves. But no matter how much we “adult,” there’s still a part of us that feels like a child—full of big emotions and even bigger needs.
Losing a loved one—especially a pet—can bring out emotions that feel overwhelming, raw, and even childish. Some parts of grief make sense, like missing them or feeling deep sadness. But other parts can take us by surprise—like feeling completely lost, untethered, or unable to function.
But here’s the thing: Grief isn’t supposed to be logical. It’s supposed to be felt.
If we don’t allow ourselves to experience the full, sometimes irrational, nature of grief, we miss out on the deep healing and transformation it can bring.
When we stop judging our emotions and instead allow ourselves to grieve fully, we give ourselves a life-changing gift—the freedom to meet all of our feelings with kindness and support. And in doing so, we don’t just move through loss with more ease—we move through life with more energy, flow, and joy.
Instead of pushing ourselves to “hold everything together” and get it all right, we start to live from a place of natural innocence—more like a child. And children have energy. They wake up excited for the day, full of enthusiasm for the present moment.
I often tell my clients that when we allow our emotions the way we did as children, we free up our energy the same way, too. Life stops feeling like a constant push, and instead, we move through it like a child on a playground—intuitive, engaged, happy, and naturally productive.
When you put a child on a playground, they don’t need someone telling them what to do. No one has to push them to go play. They just go—straight to the sandbox, then onto the monkey bars, full of energy and joy.
And when we stop fighting our emotions and start allowing them, we get to live with that same kind of freedom.
Big emotions can feel irrational, even immature. As adults, we’re conditioned to believe that we should handle life logically and calmly. This belief can lead us to suppress our vulnerable emotions and only express what seems "appropriate.”
Take this example: A friend cancels your coffee date without explanation. Rationally, you know it’s not a big deal. But it feels like one. You feel really hurt, rejected, maybe even betrayed. Why? Because the feeling isn’t just about the canceled coffee—it’s likely tapping into something deeper, an old wound from your past, a time when you felt unseen or unimportant.
Grief works the same way. It doesn’t just show up as sadness about losing your loved one. It can spill into other areas of life, triggering big emotions that seem completely unrelated.
If we ignore those emotions or try to push them away, we miss an opportunity to heal. Instead, we keep repeating old patterns, reacting strongly to situations that don’t seem to warrant it. But when we pause, acknowledge, and meet those emotions with love and compassion, we start breaking free.
Grief invites us to do this. It asks us to stop filtering our emotions through the lens of what’s “reasonable” and instead let ourselves feel—fully, freely, even when it doesn’t make sense. Because healing doesn’t happen through logic. It happens through love.
Relating to our emotions as if they belong to a small child—or connecting with our own inner child—can be incredibly healing. It allows us to experience real self-compassion, kindness, and support.
No matter how hard I try, I find it hard to show the same love and kindness to 47-year-old me as I feel for the 4- or 7-year-old version of myself. There’s something about the innocence and purity we feel when we connect with small children. It’s a natural, compassionate energy.
This is the kind of love and support we need to give ourselves during grief—something deeply kind and understanding, just like the care we would offer to a child.
To truly release our emotions, we have to experience them as pure and innocent. Often, we don’t fully process our feelings because we feel "at fault" in some way. This is especially common with pet grief, where we might unconsciously believe we didn’t do enough or feel guilty.
While it’s important to address that guilt, we can also heal by relating to our grief as we would to a small child. By doing this, we realize that we are not at fault. We are pure and innocent in this experience, and because of that, we deserve all the love and support in the world.
I can’t always drop everything and process my emotions in the moment—life still happens. Work, responsibilities, and adulting don’t stop. But I’ve learned to recognize when it’s time to sit down with my Week 1 [Experience] Book & Space for some deep emotional healing.
Here’s my simple rule of thumb: If my emotions are Recurring, Irrational, and Big, it’s time to pause and feel.
If my emotions check any of these boxes, it’s a great time to actively feel and heal. And if they check all three—Recurring, Irrational, and Big—I know I’m being given a powerful opportunity to release deep grief and probably old childhood wounds.
I’m sorry if this is hard to read—it’s definitely not easy to share, but I’m so grateful to be sharing it, and I’m so incredibly thankful that you’re here with me, and Ellie.
There were many moments of profound healing while I was caring for Ellie, but I want to share one in particular.
In Ellie’s final weeks, she would go into these violent spirals on the ground. Her limbs would flail uncontrollably, and she would spin in circles, her body moving a million miles an hour. I tried to help her nap every couple of hours to prevent it, but sometimes she would get so frustrated or over-tired, and she would need to zoomie. Since she couldn’t get up on her own when she was tired, she would end up spinning in place on the floor. I couldn’t hold her up during these moments because it was too dangerous. If I let go, she could easily hurt herself.
After these tough episodes, I would finally put her down to nap and then I would just lose it.
Sometimes with my husband holding me and I would share this process outloud with him.
Or I would crawl into bed, or my sacred healing chair, and I would do the Week 6 [Experience] 4-Step Feeling for Healing™ Guide.
This happened many times.
Both while she was alive. And after she passed over that Rainbow Bridge.
The first time was a few weeks before she passed.
I was allowing myself to feel and express this outrageous pain inside, and all of a sudden I had this vision of being held down while being raped when I was 16. It was the first time I had intercourse. And I was really drunk, alone on a dark beach with no one in sight. I knew my abuser, and so after saying no, and pushing back, I didn’t fight, or scream. I just let myself be pinned and raped.
Without any prompt or precursor I had clear flashbacks of being pinned to the ground. Of this energy in me violently wanting to escape. But of being held down, both by his body weight, but also by my decision not to fight, not to scream, but to take it.
In some wild way, that I only pray that you’ll understand, Ellie’s fury freed me.
Ellie’s violent struggle somehow awakened the violent struggle in me.
I didn’t fight violently the way I wanted to back then. But Ellie helped me find that part in me that was ready to struggle, scream and stand up for myself.
And so I screamed. I raged. And I allowed that 16 year old still living within me, to say what she needed to say. And I heard her. I honored her. And I loved her.
This same memory of being raped kept resurfacing as I was grieving Ellie after she passed.
My inner experience shifted—from rage and fury, to deep sadness and shame.
[This is actually a natural and healthy emotional flow. Beneath all anger lies sadness. So if we find ourselves moving from anger into sadness, it’s a powerful sign that emotional blocks are beginning to clear.]
I want to share a raw, verbatim feeling from one of the healing processes I wrote in my Blue Healing notebook, a few months after Ellie passed. This follows the same form you’ll be diving into in the guided experience at the end of this chapter Week 7 [Experience] Feeling for Healing & Inner Child Rewiring
I had just been working on a video about her—watching clips of her flailing and falling—and it was just too much. I stopped editing, crawled into bed with my healing book, and let myself sob for a while. Then, I opened to a clean page and began, as I always do, by setting an intention.
Intention – I am healing as much as I can for the highest good.
I continued letting myself feel everything that was coming up—giving those feelings words, naming where I felt them in my body, and describing their texture and weight as best I could.
[Feel you feelings] I am broken. I am floored. I am lost. I am heartbroken into a million pieces. My heart feels broken, bruised, like a deep dark black bruise thats deep and matte.
I now usually do this step silently—closing my eyes and genuinely speaking the words into myself. I stay aware of any part that might be fighting or resisting fully feeling, and I gently release any distraction or resistance as it arises.
[Embrace your feelings] (said silently to myself) I have so much time, space and love for you right now. I see you, I hear you, I welcome you.)
Now it’s time to express that—freely and fully, in the most healing and honest way.
I write down my feeling form, again to reconnect to the heart of that emotion.
[Express your feelings first from your feeling form] Broken, bruised black heart: I’m done. I’m never getting back up again. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do it. I’m done. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to keep loving and living it’s too much. I just don’t understand. It’s not fair. I hate this and I hate everyone. I want to help her. I want her to have fun and to run and to feel the joy she gives to me. I want her to get up. I need her to get up.
Again the memory of being raped at 16, held down, not being able to get up flooded every cell of my body. And again I embraced it, allowing my inner child to come front and center in my consciousness. And I begin to allow my ‘inner child’ to share freely, without judgment, without censorship in anyway.
[Express your inner child] 16 year old Zoë: I’m dead. I give up. I’m not here. I can’t do this. I can’t escape. I’m broken. I’m broken forever. I’m wrong now. I’m tainted. I’m black and dirty and every color of wrong. I’m disgusting. I’m forever bruised and broken. I’m so afraid. I’m so lost. I don’t know what to do and I don’t know where to go. I don’t exist anymore. I’m not here. (sobbing and then stillness)
Whenever I reach that stillness after fully expressing an old, painful moment, I ask myself two questions. These are part of the inner child process I share in this chapter:
What did you start to believe about yourself in this moment?
What did you start to do from this moment forward, to cope and to deal with your big feelings and needs?
So instead of answering these questions from my head—by thinking or analyzing the situation—I take my time to truly connect with the feeling. In this case, it was my broken, bruised, black heart. I consciously reconnect with that emotion, because it's the core of my 16-year-old traumatic experience.
My mind always wants to jump in, to fix or figure things out. But it's a subtle yet important shift—to stay with the emotion itself—so that 16-year-old Zoë can answer the questions from the most emotionally authentic place.
What did you start to believe about yourself in this moment? 16-year-old Zoë: That I was wrong. That I wasn’t important. That I wasn’t valuable. That I wasn’t precious. (More tears flooding at this point) That I wasn’t worthy of being held, and taken care of. That I wasn’t worthy of love.
What did you start to do from this moment forward, to cope and to deal with your big feelings and needs? 16-year-old Zoë: Keep my distance. Never trust men ever again. Not let them in. Not let them get close. Not trust people that want to get near to me.
When we speak from our raw, uncensored emotions, it’s wild what unconscious blocks we can uncover and release.
Great Job! That’s Week 7 Reading Complete 🏆 🎉 😁 🙌
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