The practice of Inner-Child work is a gift to ourselves. In essence it’s a beautiful healing tool which we can use at any time, for self-empowerment on the most profound of levels.
Inner Child Workshop (On-Site)
A Path to Healing, Reconnection, and Integration
At Willkamayu Spirit, we believe that reconnecting with your Inner Child is a vital part of the healing journey. During Plant Medicine retreats, we touch the depths of our souls by journeying deeply into our subconscious. In ceremony, deeply rooted patterns, blockages, memories, and emotions, often tracing back to childhood, can surface. By connecting with our Inner Child, an archetype embedded in the subconscious, we create a bridge between the healing received in ceremony and the life we return to. This bridge is essential for true integration.
That’s why we offer our Inner Child Workshop as a core part of the integration process before, during, or after your retreat. A gentle, yet profound way to continue the work. It has supported many on their healing path and it has also deeply transformed us in our own journey, both as a couple and within our family. Inner Child work has been a profound tool in our personal lives, helping us to connect the dots of our own upbringing and understand how early experiences shaped our beliefs, behaviors, and patterns.
Why Inner Child Work?
Our Inner Child holds both light and shadow: the joy, creativity, and innocence of early life, as well as emotional wounds and unmet needs. These early experiences shape how we relate to ourselves and the world. When we meet these younger parts of ourselves with presence and compassion, deep healing becomes possible. One participant described it beautifully as “connecting the subconsciousness with the consciousness.” This work supports you in weaving the insights of ceremony into your heart and your everyday life with more softness, clarity, and self-love.
About the Workshop
The Inner Child Workshop is a 5–6 hour guided journey, usually shared across three gentle sessions during your retreat. We work in an intimate space with guided meditations, regressions, writing exercises, storytelling, and reflection.
Workshop Sessions:
- Session 1: Introduction to Inner Child work
- Session 2: Reconnecting with your toddler and preschool self
- Session 3: Returning to your baby time and early roots
We focus especially on the first seven years of life when your emotional landscape and belief systems were being formed. If memories or feelings arise from later stages, such as teenage years, there is space for those too. Every part of you is welcome.
What You Can Expect
- 3 gentle sessions woven into your retreat (5–6 hours total)
- Guided meditations, regressions, writing, and sharing
- A safe, nurturing space to meet your younger selves
- Deeper emotional insight and personal integration
Investment
- Included in our 7-day Integration Retreat
- Included in the 3-day Wachuma Reconnect & Inner Child Retreat
- Available as an add-on for 3- or 5-day retreats: $255 per participant
- We adapt the timing to your personal rhythm during your stay
What Others Say
Many describe the Inner Child Workshop as deeply moving, empowering, and life-changing. A simple yet profound way to come home to yourself with more compassion, understanding, and love.
Review:
I did the week-long retreat with medicine and inner child work. The inner child work was something I didn’t know I needed, to be honest the name of it gave me some resistance, a hangover from an emotionally stunted upbringing. But for me what the technique is is essentially a way to connect the conscious and subconscious minds. The combination of that with the ceremonies was extremely powerful, like 10 years therapy in one week. There were a lot of beautiful teachings and moments, as well as some proper hard work and strong medicine in the ceremonies. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that I feel this retreat genuinely saved my life. Everything is a process and nothing is ever finished but I’m in a fundamentally better place than I was before this. Janneke, Jhon, Wayra and Soucin are all very inspiring custodians of these teachings and this spirit. Until next time, thank you all for the amazing help and much love.
— Marcus, Australia
Who will be giving the Inner Child workshop?
One of our 3 certified Inner-Child facilitators will be matched to the participant or the group of participants.
Can I do the Inner Child Workshop online?
Yes, certainly! We have decided to introduce our Inner Child workshop to an online platform as we see a great advantage in preparation before your visit. That said however, it is also advantageous to integrate this work at any time you feel called to work deeper in your commitment to engage the past in order to heal the present. You’ll need a comfortable and private space, a mobile phone/tablet/laptop, headphones and notebook and pen. Click below for options and prices.
Online Integration Sessions
We love to keep in contact and support our previous participants through their journey and the amazing insights that their child is sharing with them. We’re always here for questions and support, and where further guidance or interpretation is required, we offer structured follow-up sessions.
We believe 3 individual lessons to be scheduled at your convenience are often the most valuable, as we can work alongside your practice and provide supporting feedback, suggesting new techniques and helping you to continue integrate the Inner Child more profoundly in your daily practice.
These sessions are led intuitively upon what’s required or what’s coming up for you. We will take you through Inner Child regressions, shamanic practices, intuitive coaching and elements of your personal history. Sessions are scheduled at your convenience and at your pace and rhythm.
Please contact us for details.
Feedback from a participant
In March 2020 I spent some time in Willkamayu Spirit and had the chance to do the inner child workshop with Janneke. It helped me a lot to understand better myself and the processes I’m going through. Janneke is a very compassionate, caring, honest and loving person who has to share a lot of her wisdom. You feel that she is really living what she is teaching – which gives a strong inspiration to follow her. She is very clear about the theoretical background of the inner child work and uses creative and beautiful tools to experience and feel it.
After I did the workshop I stayed at Willkamayu and went on to work with Janneke as a coach. She helped me to deepen the connection with my inner child and to integrate the tools to work with. She creates a safe and trustful space and asks the right questions on a very creative way to bring you forward, to grow and to connect deeper with yourself. It was very easy to open up to her and I didn’t feel any shame to tell her my inner thoughts and feelings because you feel that she is not judging you.
Now that I’m back in Germany I still go on to work with her via internet. Beside the coaching I’m gonna do the Reiki 1 with her and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m very grateful that I met Janneke, for her input and teachings. If you want to grow, to get a better connection to yourself and to learn important tools for your life I definitely can recommend from my heart doing the workshops with Janneke.
Benita
Feeback from our Inner Child participants
I had no idea just how powerful of a process I would be getting into when I set foot into the Inner-Child workshop. I was scattered, carrying a long lasting anxiety in my heart, and in need of support. Having tried various techniques and workshops, something resonated deeply when I connected with these workshops. Through working with her I began exploring with childlike curiosity what was the reason for the anxiety and I began to recognize the unmet needs that I’ve been conditioned to ignore.
What began as a workshop has become a lasting practice of joyfully tuning into my true needs and discovering the acceptance and joy that was waiting for me. The confusion and doubts I had around my needs during the anxiety were replaced with a grounded process of checking in with myself and honoring the process, step-by-step, and with acceptance. Now I feel relieved and happy that I have a stable toolset for clarity around what I need vs external expectations I and others have set for me. Using this toolset has led me to feel more functional and allows me to discover how I choose to shine on any given day, and fully go for it, free of previous shyness and anxiety.
I was also pleasantly surprised to discover the connection with my intuition increase along with the reawakening of a rich inner world that I’ve explored as a child. I was further surprised to discover how this new joy fed into being more functional in my day-to-day.
Alex, Canada
When I first heard about this, I was concerned that really I didn’t have anything to contribute to this, I had a relatively good childhood, and I didn’t have any violence, I didn’t suffer any bad consequences as a child, but now I realise that some of the things that I’ve held as ideas for me, thought about myself, negative thoughts about myself have come from my childhood. For example, I feel like I’m always to blame, I feel like I’ve always got to say sorry to people and I feel guilty, I also feel misunderstood and sometimes I feel very angry that people I can’t vocalise what I want to say. I can remember feeling exactly the same as this when I was a child and I’ve now seem to have carried that forward to adulthood. I’m still going over the same issues as I was when I was a child. So being able to talk about this with Amy was a revelation really, because it wasn’t something that I’d have imagined had made a difference to my life, but I think it clearly has.
So, Amy and I talked about listening to our Inner Child, and going into ourselves, listening to what the Inner Child, what anxieties of the Inner Child has, being able to talk about that, being able to ensure the Inner Child that everything is ok. So through a structure of mediation and talking I can now return to that feeling, I can reassure my Inner Child that everything is safe and everything is OK and I can be assured that those feelings aren’t true and that’s not what makes me the way I am, it’s just something that I’ve believed in for all these years, so I now have a structure and a meditation to go forward and for the rest of my life be able to return to that, and to reassure myself when I’m anxious, when I’m misunderstood, I’m angry, that things will be OK and I don’t have to feel like that for any longer.
Alison England
From the bottom of my heart, I thank each of you beautiful souls for welcoming me with open arms and sharing this safe haven with me. I am so grateful for the love exchanged and the opening of my heart since being here. There is magic in the air, under these sacred roaming hills. Aho, I love you all!
Liz Pennsylvania, USA
After doing some self guided inner child exploration through online resources, I thought my journey with inner child work was complete, but this workshop showed me that I had only just touched the surface. It allowed me to fully surrender and deepen the connection with my inner child, to really open myself up to this inner communication. Throughout the workshop I felt that it was really about my own unique self-expression, Janneke allowed things to flow where they needed to rather than sticking to a certain structure of how things “should” look. I felt truly seen and heard by Janneke, she has a beautiful gift for holding space and truly showing up for you. I am profoundly grateful for this experience and the tools I have been given. I am excited to continue this journey and to show up for my inner child each and every day, with pure love and acceptance.
Kate, Australia
More on the Inner-Child
Charles Whitfield – Healing the Child Within
The child within refers to that part of each of us which is ultimately alive, energetic, creative and fulfilled; it is our Real Self—who we truly are. With our parents’ unknowing help and society’s assistance, most of us deny our Inner Child. When this Child Within is not nurtured or allowed freedom of expression, a false or co-dependent self emerges. We begin to live our lives from a victim stance, and experience difficulties in resolving emotional traumas. The gradual accumulation of unfinished mental and emotional business can lead to chronic anxiety, fear, confusion, emptiness and unhappiness. Denial of the Child Within and the subsequent emergence of a false self or negative ego are particularly common among children and adults who grew up in troubled families. Yet, there is a way out. There is a way to discover and to heal our Child Within and to break free of the bondage and suffering from relying on our false self.
Thich Nhat Hanh – Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child
As children, we were very vulnerable. We got hurt very easily. A stern look from our father could make us unhappy. A strong word from our mother could cause a wound in our heart. As a young child, we have a lot of feelings but it’s difficult to express ourself. We try and try. Sometimes, even if we can find the words, the adults around us can’t hear us, don’t listen, or won’t allow us to talk. We can go home to ourselves and talk to our little child, listen to our child, and respond directly to him. I myself have done this, even though I received love and care from my parents. This practice has helped me tremendously. The child is still there and may be deeply wounded. We have neglected the child in us for a longtime. We have to come back and comfort, love, and care for the child within us.
Lissa Rankin – The Anatomy of A Calling
I now spend a lot of time practicing various versions of an Inner Child Meditation. Rather than judging or resisting the meltdowns of my Small Self, I finally realised she calms down much more quickly if I just treat her like a beloved child who needs my help. I ask her what she needs, listen patiently to what she wants me to hear, and promise her that she doesn’t have to worry about any of it anymore, reassuring her that I am an adult and can handle it for her, so she can relax and go play. I let her express whatever emotions she might feel-sadness, fear, anger-and I sit with her emotions without belittling her or making her wrong for feeling what she feels. Then I comfort her until she feels better, holding her in my arms like I would my own daughter.
Alice Miller – The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
The damage done to us during our childhood cannot be undone, since we cannot change anything in our past. We can, however, change ourselves. We can repair ourselves and gain our lost integrity by choosing to look more closely at the knowledge that is stored inside our bodies and bringing this knowledge closer to our awareness. This path, although certainly not easy, is the only route by which we can at last leave behind the cruel, invisible prison of our childhood. We become free by transforming ourselves from unaware victims of the past into responsible individuals in the present, who are aware of our past and are thus able to live with it.
John Bradshaw – Homecoming
Reclaiming your wounded inner child is a Zenlike experience, Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand-new in each and every moment. For the unwounded child, wonder is natural. Life is a mystery to be lived. Homecoming is the restoration of the natural. Such a restoration is not grandiose or dramatic; it is simply the way life ought to be. Reclaiming your inner child involves going back through your developmental stages and finishing your unfinished business.
