Healing your inner child: Giving yourself the love you seek

As a coach, I often see this pattern in relationships: when we feel unloved, we instinctively turn outwards, seeking validation from our partners. 

This can lead to behaviours like neediness, desperation, clinginess, or even controlling tendencies. But these actions rarely bring the love or security we long for. Why? Because the real source of the pain is not in the present — it’s rooted in the past and very often in childhood.

The truth is that our unmet needs in childhood can manifest in adulthood as emotional desperation in relationships. When we felt unloved, unseen, or invalidated as children, those wounds didn’t disappear. They stayed within us, silently shaping how we give and receive love. The feelings of rejection or abandonment we experienced as children resurface, often triggered by our romantic relationships, leading to patterns of seeking love externally.

But here’s the empowering truth: you can meet your own needs.

Meeting your own needs

Instead of turning to your partner to fix your emptiness, turn inward. Do your inner work instead of projecting your unresolved issues onto your partner. Go back to the very first time you felt unloved, unseen, or unworthy. Close your eyes, visualise your younger self, and ask, what does this child need? Love, safety, reassurance, acceptance, validation? Give them those things — through words, affirmations, and even physical gestures like hugging yourself.

This process, called inner child healing, is transformational. When you begin to give yourself the love you’ve been seeking from others, you heal the wounds that create desperation in relationships. You stop trying to extract love from your partner and instead show up from a place of wholeness, which strengthens the connection rather than straining it.

What can you do today to heal your inner child?

Start with awareness

When you feel unloved, pause. Ask yourself, What am I feeling? Where does this feeling really come from?

Use self-soothing practices

Talk to your inner child. Reassure them that they are loved, safe, and valued.

Try affirmations

Remind yourself: I am worthy of love. I am enough, just as I am.

Set boundaries with compassion

Loving yourself means not allowing your triggers to control your behaviours toward your partner.

Healing your childhood wounds is not a one-time fix; it’s a journey. But every step you take to love yourself is a step closer to showing up as the powerful, whole, and deeply loving person you’re meant to be. When you fill your own cup, the love you give and receive becomes healthier, richer, and more fulfilling — for both you and your partner.

This is the work I guide my clients through: healing the past, meeting their needs and creating relationships that feel aligned and deeply nourishing. Watch your romantic relationship transform when you give yourself the love that you deserve instead of being needy. It begins within you.