Are you feeling burned out or tired all the time? Do you trust yourself to make the right decisions for yourself, or are you constantly seeking validation from others? Have you abandoned yourself and your needs to make someone happy, or just to keep the peace?

Maybe you’ve built your life around your career to the point of ignoring your personal life? Or forgotten you can create personal goals to attain a work/life balance?

If you answered yes to any of the above, it’s time you reclaim your relationship with yourself and start a practice of Inner Child Dates™.

Most people are never taught how to truly care for themselves emotionally. You may have learned to go after your goals, be tenacious, take care of others, or go into sacrifice, but were never shown how to tend to the most important relationship—the one with yourself.

Instead of being supported to express your feelings, you may have been told to “grow up,” “be strong,” or “get over it.” These messages create emotional patterns that follow you into adulthood, often leaving you stuck in burnout, resentment, or emotional numbness.

One of the most powerful ways to reconnect with your emotional life and interrupt this destructive pattern is through reparenting—learning how to show up for yourself in ways your caregivers didn’t.

An Inner Child Date™ is a weekly ritual that builds self-worth, confidence, and connects you with your emotional life so you can create connection with other people. These regularly scheduled events give you a simple, practical way to heal from emotional neglect and create trust in yourself and a new emotional foundation that grows your self-esteem.

When you’re running on empty you cannot be of service to others because your cup is empty. With a weekly practice of Inner Child Dates you can fill your cup, not just to full—to overflowing. What’s in your cup is for you, and what’s in the saucer is the overflow that allows you to give to others you care about. This practice teaches you to make yourself a priority.

The Inner Child Date™

An Inner Child Date is a once-a-week appointment, scheduled in advance on your calendar, to spend two to three hours engaged in an activity with your inner child.

The commitment to consistently set aside time for an Inner Child Date is a key pillar of this practice that allows you to reparent yourself. Engaging in an activity with your inner child occasionally, or on a whim is not effective.

Children love to have something to look forward to, so booking an Inner Child Date in advance is imperative. The activity itself is not as important as being consistent.

Having fun may or may not occur during an Inner Child Date, what’s more important is to discover about yourself. Is your inner child happy or sad? Do they trust you or are they suspicious? Do you find it uncomfortable or selfish to take time for yourself each week?

As a child you were in the care of other people and the capacity of those who raised you may not have been sufficient for you to feel loved and safe. A regular practice of Inner Child Dates is your opportunity to reparent yourself, so you no longer make decisions limited by your upbringing.

Creating a connection to the younger parts of yourself can connect you with your creativity, spark more joy, and allow you to be more productive at work, more focused, and a better communicator.

How To Do An Inner Child Date

The instructions for an Inner Child Date™ are as follows:

Once a week for 2-3 hours engage in an activity selected by the little child inside of you. This activity is done by yourself and for yourself—there is no multitasking allowed. For twelve consecutive weeks the activities must be unique. At the end of twelve weeks reflect on which activities refueled you the most and you may repeat the ones that your inner child is fond of.

These dates must be a top priority and treated as if they are the most important event scheduled on your calendar with the most important person. There are severe repercussions for cancelling an Inner Child Date.

If you have an actual emergency and must reschedule a date with your inner child you can only do so if you had to interact with a doctor, policeperson, or firefighter. If you did not have to engage with one of these types of people during the time of a scheduled date, it was not an emergency.

1. Schedule the date in advance with a specific activity with a reminder as you would for an important meeting or a doctor’s appointment.
2. Do it alone (no guests allowed). This is about building a relationship with yourself.
3. Choose something playful or restorative — a coloring book, flying a kite, browsing a toy store, walking barefoot in the grass, etc.
4. Don’t turn it into self-help or being productive. Skip the gym, errands, or reading a book on trauma recovery.
5. Observe what feelings arise. Not all Inner Child Dates will be fun. Guilt, discomfort, or resistance are all signs you’re interrupting the old patterns and creating a new connection with yourself.

Who Should Consider An Inner Child Date?

Anyone who may be feeling burnt out, stuck, stagnant, resentful of responsibilities, blocked creatively, time challenged, over-worked, over-burdened, and/or stressed out to name a few.

If you are easily connected to your thoughts, but have trouble identifying your feeling state, a regular practice of Inner Child Dates will reconnect you to your emotional state. By knowing how you feel you can more easily create connection with others.

Ideas For Low Cost To No Cost Inner Child Dates:

Draw with crayons.
Make paper airplanes and fly them.
Spend time in nature – beach, mountains, river.
Lie on grass and look at the sky. Do you see animals in the clouds?
Take a train ride.
Make a fort with blankets.
Dress up your pet.
Go to the beach.
Go bike riding.
Make a sandcastle.
Go to a park and swing on the swings.
Send postcards to friends.
Make a collage.
Visit a museum.
Go to the bookstore, hang out and read in the children’s book section.
Make a list of 50 things you love.
Go to an aquarium.
Visit an amusement park.
Go to a petting zoo.
Buy balloons.
Write a story about your pet.
Compliment strangers.
Make a lemonade stand.
Go ice-skating.
Go roller-skating.
Play solitaire.
Take a pottery class.
Sing in the shower.
Take a dance class.
Sing into your hairbrush and dance around the living room.
Buy “lucky socks.”
Drink a chocolate malt.
Wear a fake tattoo.
Make jello.
Dress up for no reason.
List 100 people you love.
Read a joke book.
Put glow-in-the-dark stars on your bedroom ceiling.
Write a letter to Santa Claus.
Buy and complete a puzzle.
Watch The Wizard of Oz or any other children’s movie.
Dress up like a Rock Star and sing your greatest hits.
Write a love letter to yourself.
Make a card for someone you love.
Speak in rhyme or pig-latin.
Paint with watercolors.
Make hand shadows.
Make a sock puppet and create a character.
Buy a goldfish.
Make a mask.
Dress like you’re going to a masquerade ball.
Make a book of quotes from your friends.
Look at your old photo albums.
Go to a toy store.
Buy a squirt gun and squirt things on a walk.
Go fly a kite.
Collect beautiful leaves.
Bake homemade cookies.

Why This Works

The Inner Child Date allows you to reparent yourself and heals your childhood wounds. It teaches you to trust yourself and stop patterns of self-sacrifice or self-abandonment. It sends a direct message to your subconscious that your joy matters. Over time, it rewires your subconscious to know that you count and you matter.

You learn how to fill your cup to overflowing so you’ll never serve from an empty cup again. You’ll become someone who shows up for yourself and that changes everything about how you show up in relationships.

Ready To Fill Your Cup To Overflowing?

If you’re tired of feeling depleted, stuck, or emotionally neglected — the answer isn’t to work harder or give more. It’s to start giving to yourself. Begin with one Inner Child Date and let it grow into a weekly ritual of joy, play, and restoration. A habit that changes the who you choose to spend your time with and who you choose to partner with. You’ll be in the driver’s seat to create a relationship that honors your needs and creates lasting love and joy.

For more transformational tools like this, pick up our book Getting It Right This Time: Break Free from Your Hidden Blocks to Lasting Love. This book is your guide to healing from the past and learning how to love yourself, so you can create the kind of love that lasts. It contains our life’s work of teaching you how to create the long-lasting, soul-satisfying love you desire and deserve.

This kind of love starts with the relationship you have with yourself because it is the love you have for yourself that is reflected back to you in your beloved’s eyes.