Do your emotions confuse, overwhelm, or shut you down?

How Childhood Trauma Affects Emotional Awareness

“When we lose touch with our emotions, we lose touch with ourselves.” — Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child

Have you ever felt something deeply—but struggled to name it?

Or maybe you feel nothing at all when you know you should.

These are common signs that your inner child may still be carrying emotional wounds.

Childhood is where we first learn how to feel.

When caregivers model healthy emotional expression and safety, our nervous system learns to trust feelings as part of being human.

But when emotions were ignored, punished, or used against us, our inner child learns to hide them—even from ourselves.

Why Feeling Our Feelings Is Vital for Survival

Emotions aren’t weaknesses—they are biological survival signals.

They evolved to help us navigate the world, connect with others, and stay alive.

Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp, one of the founders of affective neuroscience, identified seven primary emotional systems in the mammalian brain:

SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and PLAY.

These systems operate deep in the limbic brain and are shared across species, meaning our emotions are not random; they are hardwired for survival and social connection.

The Science of Feeling

Panksepp explained that emotions are neural action programs—they prepare the body to respond to life.

Fear helps us avoid danger.

Anger mobilizes us to set boundaries.

Sadness signals loss and draws others near for comfort.

Joy and Play strengthen bonds and foster resilience.

When these emotions are felt and expressed safely, they guide behavior, restore balance, and keep the nervous system flexible.

When they are suppressed or punished, the body remains in chronic survival mode—hypervigilant, tense, and disconnected.

Emotional Awareness and Relationships

In relationships, emotional awareness is what allows us to attune and co-regulate.

When we can identify our feelings and express them safely, others can meet us with empathy.

Without that awareness, communication breaks down—we react instead of respond.

Over time, this leads to distance, conflict, and feelings of loneliness even in close relationships.

Emotional Suppression and Health

Even though we may be unaware of what we are feeling, emotions don’t disappear; they lodge in the body.

Research shows that chronic suppression of emotional states can lead to:

Dysregulated stress response (fight, flight, freeze)

Digestive and immune system issues

Anxiety, depression, or emotional numbness

Difficulty forming and maintaining relationships

In contrast, feeling and expressing emotions safely helps regulate the nervous system, improves immune function, and restores emotional aliveness.

Healing Through Feeling

Feeling our feelings, even when they are painful, isn’t about staying stuck in pain—it’s about reclaiming our full range of human expression.

When we allow emotions to flow, we give our inner child and our body the same message:

“It’s safe now to feel.”

Each emotion we welcome becomes an act of healing—an integration of past survival strategies into present safety.

Emotions are nature’s built-in guidance system. They tell us what matters, what hurts, and what heals.— Inspired by Jaak Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (1998)

What Is Emotional Awareness?

Emotional awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman (1995) defined it as the ability to recognize and name one’s emotions, understand their causes, and express them appropriately.

Emotional awareness includes the ability to:

Notice when you’re feeling something

Identify what that feeling is

Understand why you feel that way

Express it in ways that are safe and appropriate

According to Allan Schore’s affect regulation theory (1994), this capacity is built through right-brain-to-right-brain communication between a child and an attuned caregiver.

When a caregiver mirrors and names emotions—“You’re sad your toy broke”—the child’s nervous system learns that emotions are tolerable and meaningful.

Without this early mirroring, emotions can feel confusing, dangerous, or disconnected from context.

Healthy Inner Child: Emotional Awareness in Action

When a child grows up feeling emotionally safe, their inner world becomes a place of curiosity—not shame.

These children learn that emotions are signals, not threats.

According to Dr. Dan Siegel’s “name it to tame it” principle, being able to label and express emotions integrates emotional experiences into the brain’s prefrontal cortex, allowing for better regulation and empathy.

Examples of Healthy Emotional Foundations:

Emotionally curious: “Why am I feeling off today?”

Accepts feelings as valid: “I’m allowed to feel angry or disappointed.”

Comfortable naming feelings: “I feel anxious about that conversation tomorrow.”

Trusts that emotions come and go: “This sadness will pass, and it’s okay to let it be here.”

Adults with this foundation tend to experience:

Secure attachment styles

Emotional resilience

Greater self-understanding and compassion

Capacity for intimacy and repair in relationships

When we name our emotions, we reclaim the parts of us that were once silenced.

Wounded Inner Child: When Feelings Are Dangerous

Emotional disconnection often begins in childhood, shaped by how our caregivers responded to our feelings.

When emotions were met with dismissal or punishment, our nervous system learned that emotional expression was unsafe.

Common early experiences that wound emotional awareness include:

Being told “you’re too sensitive” or “stop crying.”

Caregivers who mocked, minimized, or punished emotions.

Growing up in homes where feelings were never discussed.

Parentification—caring for others’ emotions while no one cared for yours.

Attachment researcher Mary Ainsworth (1978) showed that children internalize their caregivers’ emotional patterns.

When parents are emotionally unavailable or rejecting, the child learns that connection depends on suppressing their true feelings. 

Over time, the internal message becomes:

"My emotions are wrong, unsafe, or a burden."

Psychologist Jonice Webb (2013) describes emotional neglect as "what didn’t happen—the lack of emotional validation, mirroring, and responsiveness." ( Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect.)

Without that reflection, children grow up emotionally disconnected, believing that feelings cause rejection or chaos.

As Bessel van der Kolk (2014)  notes, this kind of chronic invalidation keeps the nervous system in survival mode—numb, hyperalert, or both.

How This Looks in Adulthood

Adults with wounded inner children often struggle to identify, trust, or express emotions.

This may appear as:

Emotional numbness or overwhelm

Anxiety or panic in emotionally intense situations

Difficulty identifying or articulating feelings (alexithymia)

Avoidance of vulnerability or intimacy

Reflections of a Wounded Inner Child

“I don’t know what I’m feeling—just numb or overwhelmed.”

“I shouldn’t feel this way.”

“Feelings make me weak or cause problems.”

“If I get mad, I’ll lose control or be punished.”

When emotional expression once led to shame, punishment, or withdrawal of love, the inner child learned to suppress feelings to survive.

But what once protected you is now keeping you disconnected—from yourself and from others.

Practical Steps to Increase Emotional Awareness

Healing emotional awareness isn’t just about understanding where it came from—it’s about gently learning how to feel again. 

These practices help you reconnect to your emotional world at your own pace.

1. Identifying Emotions: Naming What You Feel

When you grew up without emotional language, feelings can feel like a confusing blur—too much or nothing at all.

Naming emotions gives shape to that inner experience and signals safety to the nervous system.

Start by using emotion lists or feeling charts (like The Emotion Wheel by psychologist Robert Plutchik).

Seeing a range of emotions—joy, fear, shame, hope, disappointment—helps you expand your vocabulary beyond “fine,” “angry,” or “sad.”

Try this:

Look at a feeling chart once a day and notice which words resonate.

Ask yourself: “What am I feeling right now?” without needing to justify or fix it.

Practice pairing emotion words with causes: “I feel disappointed because I needed more support.”

Research by Lisa Feldman Barrett shows that naming emotions (“affect labeling”) reduces activity in the amygdala and increases regulation in the prefrontal cortex, allowing emotions to feel less overwhelming.

“When you can name it, you can tame it.” — Dan Siegel

2. Noticing What We Feel in Our Bodies: Reconnecting with Somatic Cues

Emotions live not only in the mind but also in the body.

Both Peter Levine (1997), the founder of Somatic Experiencing, and Bessel van der Kolk (2014), author of The Body Keeps the Score, describe emotions as fundamentally bodily experiences—felt as tight chests, clenched jaws, heavy limbs, or racing hearts—before the mind interprets them.

To rebuild emotional awareness, practice tuning into these physical sensations:

Pause and ask, “What is my body doing right now?”

Notice where you feel tension, heaviness, or warmth.

Label sensations neutrally: “My stomach feels tight,” instead of “I feel anxious.”

Use gentle movement, breath, or grounding touch to regulate.

These somatic check-ins, as Levine teaches, help the nervous system learn that sensations are safe to notice.

Over time, your body becomes a trusted source of emotional information rather than a place of confusion or danger.

Your body remembers what the mind forgets—and it also remembers how to heal.

3. Connecting to the Inner Child: Listening Without Judgment or Criticism

Once you begin to identify and feel emotions, you can start asking who inside you feels this way.

Often, it’s your inner child—holding the pain of moments when emotions weren’t safe.

The goal isn’t to fix or analyze, but to listen.

This builds self-compassion and internal attunement, two pillars of healing.

Try this gentle process:

When a strong emotion arises, close your eyes and imagine the age that part of you feels.

Ask softly, “What do you need right now?” or “What are you feeling?”

Respond as a nurturing adult: “It’s okay to feel sad. I’m here with you now.”

Dan Hughes (2011), founder of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), emphasizes the healing power of PACE—Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy—as the stance for connecting to wounded children and child parts of the self.

By listening to your inner child, you replace old messages (“Stop crying,” “You’re too much”) with safety and understanding.

The child within doesn’t need you to fix their pain—only to finally be heard.

4. Finding Safe People and Spaces to Share Feelings

Emotional awareness grows best in safe relationships.

It’s one thing to notice what you feel—it’s another to be witnessed with empathy and acceptance.

Healing therapy groups like the Relationship Recovery Program (RRP) are designed to offer that co-regulation and attunement many of us missed as children.

In a safe group, you experience what it’s like to be accepted in the full range of your emotions—grief, anger, fear, or joy.

Other ways to find safety in connection:

Join support circle for survivors of childhood trauma.

Begin individual therapy with a trauma-informed clinician

Practice vulnerability in trusted friendships: share one feeling at a time without filtering or explaining.

Neuroscientist Stephen Porges (2011) shows that co-regulation—feeling emotionally safe with another—is the foundation for emotional healing.

Safety in connection allows your vagus nerve to signal calm and openness, rather than defense.

Safety isn’t found in isolation—it’s built through connection.

Rebuilding emotional awareness is not a quick fix—it’s a re-parenting process.

You’re teaching your nervous system that emotions are safe, that your body can be trusted, and that connection is healing.

Each small act of noticing, naming, or sharing a feeling is a step toward wholeness.

Journal Prompts for Emotional Awareness Healing

Let your inner child write freely.

No judgment—just curiosity and compassion.

Ask yourself:

When I feel a big emotion, what do I usually do? Where did I learn that?

Was it safe to feel sad, angry, or afraid in my childhood home?

How do I usually respond to others’ emotions? What does that say about my own emotional safety?

What emotion do I feel most disconnected from? Why might that be?

If I could speak to my inner child, what would I want them to know about their feelings?

Healing begins when we listen to the feelings we were once forbidden to have.

You can relearn how to feel.

And in doing so, your inner child finally receives what they always longed for—to be seen, heard, and loved—feelings and all.