You've probably heard of the concept of inner child, and if you're at all like me, it probably made very little sense to you while everyone around you seemed to just get it. They got to harvest the fruits of this mental trick while you were left behind feeling like a cold hearted bastard. Well, I come bearing good news. I think I've got it, and I think I can explain it in detail for people like me. I hope it helps.
Say you're living your life, and you have some kind of feeling that just bogs you down. You don't know what it is nor do you know what to do with it. It just sits there like a paperweight that has no other purpose but to make your day worse. Yeah? Yeah. Now take a moment to stop and become aware of that feeling. No, this is really as simple as it sounds. Just look within and observe the feeling with your mind's eye. Doing this causes a sort of glitch to happen. That feeling, in a way, is no longer yours, because you are the one looking at it. You cannot be the subject and the object at the same time. We're going to exploit this glitch with this inner child thingamajig.
Okay, so You are the observer right now, and we'll give that pesky feeling for someone else by picturing it is our inner child that is suffering from it. No, you don't have to picture them being a pathetic snotface or whatever they tell you to do to inspire sympathy you simply may not have access to. What's important here is to give the feeling a symbolic vessel so our mind won't be puzzled by who that bad feeling belongs to. We want to keep the self separated from the feeling for this to work.
Done? Cool. You're now divided into an observer and a feeling, and pretending the feeling is actually someone else's. The next step is to try to get the feeling to express itself. Not out loud, but inside your mind. This happens in similar mechanism as, say, if something spooks you, you might spontaneously have "What the fuck" pop up in your mind. This verbal expression is inspired by the feeling of being spooked. In similar way we're now trying to get some words out from the bad feeling the inner child is holding. If the feeling is bad, you can be pretty damn sure there is some kind of need underneath. That's what we are interested in, and that's what we were having difficulties getting to when we were the ones feeling that bad feeling.
Once you get some words out, take them as they are. They're most likely correct. Sometimes you might have a different feeling expressing themselves in your mind, but be careful to not mistake those for the inner child's feeling we're trying to focus on. Now, even though we're now separated into an observer and a feeling, our attitude matters. Our inner child knows if we're mocking it or approaching it with an attitude, because they're the one feeling what we feel. It's us, after all. So, be as you would wish an ideal listener to be. You're essentially dealing with a mind reader, so don't try any tricks and be aware of any attitudes that may arise. The inner child responds to those more than it responds to your words.
Once you get into a sort of dialogue with the inner child, you probably learn pretty fast what the problem is. The observer version of you can now take on the role of an adult and be there to support the inner child you with whatever struggles it is having. If you do it correctly, chances are the feeling will dissipate and you have a clearer image on what to do next.
The point of doing this is to process your feelings and gain insight to the underlying need if you're the type of person who feels confused and stuck with their emotions a lot.