Overcoming the fears of being yourself takes time. Heck, it took me more than 14 years to reconnect with my creative self and start writing again.

Often, we shut down as children because of a trauma. We stop being ourselves because our parent criticizes something we created or some people around us judge us for being different.

The trade-off of locking these parts away is that we grow up wounded. We feel incomplete, as if a part of our soul has been taken away from us. And that hurts a lot.

I remember when I said farewell to my inner child. I was about 10 years old and we were spending summer in Sweden at my grandparent’s home. Up until then, I loved creating and dreaming. I would write stories, plays, and draw all the time.

But that changed when we went back to France after my Dad got laid off. I entered the French school system and it was a disaster. I instantly felt judged for being different. It was no longer okay for me to be creative and to dream. I felt that a sensitive person would get swallowed up in that world.

So I stopped listening to my inner child and started acting like somebody else to fit in. But we pay a heavy price for separating ourselves from our essence. I felt an immense sense of loss as I closed up and stopped loving myself for who I was.

Finding our way back to this child takes time, sometimes decades. As we grow up, we add layers upon layers of beliefs and false identities to numb our feeling of grief. We want to reconnect with them, but as the years follow each other, our fears gets stronger. Who can truly be themselves as an adult right?

But something magical happens when you decide to open that door again. As you unlock the chains of your inner child, you start healing. You start to feel more joyful. You have energy that you haven’t felt in decades. You listen to your desires and you begin to believe in your dreams again.

In my case, this happened during confinement when I started to write again. I only did it for 20 minutes at first. I was just taking a peek behind my fear door. Carefully, I opened that door little by little and took on new creative projects. As I started reconnecting with my creative side, I felt more alive than I had been in a long time. I was finally being myself again.

However, this recovery did not happen overnight. It took me years to build the ground so that my creative and sensitive self felt safe to come back again. And the healing process is not always smooth. I am very careful to give myself plenty of time to rest and heal.

As we rediscover our inner child, some past traumas may rise back to the surface. So we must be gentle with ourselves and take it slowly as we become whole once again.

Perhaps you feel like your childhood wounds will never recover. But the simple act of doing something you enjoyed as a child might unlock possibilities you couldn’t imagine. Reconnecting to your inner child, your essence, is a beautiful gift to yourself and to the world.

As I leave you with these thoughts, here are a few things you can try out:

• Reflect on who you were as a child. What did you love to do? List 5 things you really enjoyed doing. Allow yourself to do one of them this week.

• Write a letter from your inner child to your present self. What would he or she tell you? Listen to their guidance.

• The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. A guided journey to recovering your creative self.

• Skillshare. A platform where you can learn from professionals a broad range of creative skills. I’ve spent countless hours learning there.