Moms and Dads

Rishma Dhutti: Healing and Empowering Her Inner Child

by Kevyn Gohu
October 30, 2024

Transformation coach and ThetaHealing® instructor Rishma Dhutti shares how parents can benefit from healing their inner child

The term “inner child” refers to the part of a person that never grows even if the physical body does. It eventually fades into the farthest end of an individual’s mind, subconsciously influencing their behaviors. From their reactions to their responses, it often comes out during distressing situations — something transformation coach and ThetaHealing® instructor Rishma Dhutti noticed when her father passed away. It was surprising, she recalls as she had often considered herself a “strong-willed” and “emotionally resilient” person.

“I knew back then that I can’t live my days being wasted in emotional pain, so I sought out every solution possible to restore my emotional balance but TO NO AVAIL,” she elaborates.

However, she eventually found healing through a one-on-one ThetaHealing®session — one that made her confront her inner child. Released from her grief and mind-blown by how she didn’t need to “dump her emotions and thoughts,” she eventually became an instructor herself and is now sharing the healing she received with others.

Meeting the inner child, the keeper of all life patterns

The initial meeting to heal one’s inner child may feel confrontational to some as it points out some triggers and pain points. It’s a dive into one’s subconscious, meeting the part of oneself that’s been keeping memories — both good and bad — since age seven. Rishma Dhutti likens the inner child as a form of algorithm and pattern that attracts events of similar nature. It’s the safety and familiarity that makes these patterns — even if they’re no longer beneficial in adulthood — persistently recur, she explains.

“These patterns usually come from the roles we took on in our formative years,” she adds. “People pleaser, rescuer, overachiever, underachiever and many more — these are like masks we wear in hopes of proving our worth and value to those around us.”

Eventually, the masks begin to crumble. Amongst the broken pieces, there’s a challenge from Life: does one put it back together and rewear it or does one shed it away in hopes of finding their happy and authentic selves? These are a wake-up call from the inner child, Rishma points out. It’s a call to #BREAKTHEPATTERN and unlearn outdated beliefs that stop an individual from becoming their most authentic and happiest selves.

“For parents, healing their inner child also allows them to not pass on same life experiences and limitations to their children,” she elaborates.

Recognizing the patterns

Filipino family culture is not exempted from these harmful intergenerational patterns. Utang na loob, body shaming, physical abuse, blind following of authority, and supporting conventional professions as benchmarks for one’s success are just some of the patterns Rishma Dhutti has noticed among her many clients and in her own childhood growing up in the Philippines. Eventually, these patterns cause unresolved issues and unmet needs, she reveals.

She then adds, “To be seen, to be heard, and express their authentic selves — these are what the issues usually boil down to. Once we start working on these unresolved issues, I notice a happy, playful, self-assured, and compassionate being emerges. Outside of our classes or sessions, my clients normally say that they have better connection and interactions with people who they have initially issues with.”

As an individual, Rishma reveals that healing one’s inner child opens a lot of doors. From finding the confidence to connect with passions — both new and old to developing new ways to cope, it’s a multi-faceted change. But listening and healing one’s inner child transforms one’s parenting, taking it a step further and allowing them to achieve a higher level of agency. They become the writers of their family’s history and pass the wisdom in hopes of building a foundation for a more emotionally healthy and functional family.

Celebrating one’s authentic self

Yet, these are things that take time. It’s not something that happens overnight, especially in finding closure for the things that happened. Identifying the lessons and acknowledging the positives in the things that have scarred the inner child is not something that happens overnight. Rewriting a mental script — especially one that has been used repeatedly — may need a grounding guidance. Rishma describes it as an awakening.

“As adults, our goal in doing inner child healing is to stop recycling our early life roles to our lives today and wake up from the deep sleep of our family’s conditioning,” she explains.

Like most mental resets, working with one’s inner child can feel challenging. But it will go down like treat as our home becomes the happiest and most authentic it can be.

The best way to get started is by booking a 1:1 ThetaHealing® session or enroll to a ThetaHealing Basic DNA Class for a life reset. To find out more info about this, send a message on Instagram @iaminfiniteshe.