Could your 5-year-old self help you heal from the past and unlock joy?

A look at how age regression can support healing, deepen self-awareness, and reconnect you with the limitless potential of your inner child.

How we remember the past

The day this photo was taken, my sister and I were bundled into the car – picnic bags, blankets, and favourite toys in hand, for a mystery outing. I can’t recall now where we went, but I do remember a fizzy, excited feeling, the warmth of the hot summer’s day, the queasy, seatbelt-less backseat ride (well, it was the '70s), and the joy of being able to wear my favourite yellow dress!

Around the same time, I also remember being bullied at school, and being upset at Dad for cutting my fringe all wonky (unrelated). A classic DIY haircut, done with the household scissors while I sat on the kitchen table, swinging my legs.

I can also recall the day (but not the pain) when Dad accidentally put the garden pitchfork through my welly boot as I stood perilously close, looking out for worms as he turned over the soil. The fork grazing perfectly between two of my toes! My cries of protest quickly followed by relief when I realised, I’d come through the experience with all my digits intact.

There were the cold Derbyshire winters and our family-called ‘woops walks’—slipping and sliding on the icy route to school, with spare tights stashed in Mum’s handbag. And the game of hide-and-seek that ended with me tumbling down the stairs in the Ali Baba laundry basket my sister had told me to hide in… five minutes before her overwhelming curiosity got the better of her and she rolled it down the stairs—with me still inside.

How we store memories

I could easily fill up this blog with similar memories from my younger years, but the truth is there would still be so many more that I can't recall, because the conscious mind only holds onto about 10%. Everything else that we’ve ever experienced -ever (from birth!), is stored away in our very own gigantic personal memory vault that is the subconscious mind.

This is probably a good thing in many respects, as if we had to hold onto every single memory, every thought, every feeling, and every emotion we’ve ever experienced in our lives, I think we’d probably combust with the pressure of remembering it all.

Our conscious mind only remembers about 10% of everything we've have ever experienced. Everything else is still stored in our subconscious mind!

Our personal vault includes all the things we've ever experienced! The good, the bad, the ugly, and the indifferent - thoughts, feelings, and emotions anchored to past experiences. This is why a song might take you right back to a particular time or place, or a smell might remind you of a person, or an earlier experience in life.

Sometimes those hidden memories have positive associations, helping us to recall feelings of love, of joy, of pride, or happiness, while others create a kind of stuckness that drives unhelpful behaviours or patterns - very often without us being consciously aware of where they’ve come from.

Our subconscious is in charge

In truth our subconscious drives about 97% of all our behaviour.

This means that a staggering amount of how we react to things in our now-happening-experiences is coming from things that we have no conscious recollection of! So, it’s not surprising we can sometimes find ourselves reacting in ways that don’t make logical sense to us or seem disproportionate to others. We can’t remember consciously why we are behaving in this way.

It's important to understand that our subconscious mind is always working for us with a positive intent. But... due to our past experiences this positive intent can become somewhat misguided or skewed! This is where age regression, a processes I (and many other therapists use) in hypnotherapy with my clients, can have transformative results. I’m always amazed at how current life patterns, habits, and behaviours can be tracked back to forgotten experiences from earlier life that have been tucked away. A hurtful throwaway comment from a sibling, being ignored by a parent, a perceived failure in front of classmates or colleagues, or feeling powerless, weak, or out of control in a particular situation.

These everyday experiences, or sometimes big life events and traumas from our childhood or earlier life, can leave a big imprint that causes the subconscious mind to adopt certain behaviours to keep you safe, to soothe you, to comfort you, or to validate you! The subconscious adopts these behaviours with the best of intentions, but in your current life they may present as habits, fears or phobias, aversions, emotional dysregulation, or perhaps relationship and communication issues!

Revisiting earlier life through age regression

Often, just by revisiting early life memories with the insight and maturity of your later years, can help to bring about a fresh perspective – allowing old stuck habits or patterns to be released through the recognition that they’re no longer needed, or they are no longer in your best interest.

Sometimes, I’ll facilitate an imaginary conversation for a client, so they're able to be heard, communicate their needs, say what they never got a chance to before, bringing about closure, understanding, or resolution from a past experience. Sometimes, I’ll enable a client to meet their inner child and be able to give them exactly what they needed in a particular moment, whatever they didn’t get it at the time (a cuddle, some attention, food, praise or validation), and this can bring about deep inner healing.

Age regression can be a positive reconnect

Age regression isn’t just about revisiting or releasing old wounds or trauma.

I’ll often use age regression with my clients as a means of positive reconnection with their inner child to experience a sense of joy, freedom, and vitality – helping them to remember and recapture a golden time of no responsibilities, no stress, just pure, unfiltered moments of fun, excitement, and happiness. This joyful reconnection can then be gently reintegrated back into their life with magical results.

We all have numerous yellow-dress-wearing, wonky-fringe, mystery road trip moments locked away in the recesses of our mind. Returning to your younger self can help bring about understanding, healing, release, and understanding of past moments, as well as a positive reconnect with the joy, freedom, and limitless potential of youth.

Want to find out more? Drop me a line and let’s chat!