We often hear people say, “this is all to heal my inner child,” before doing something they believe would help address unresolved wants and needs of their younger selves.

It’s great to see people moving on from the bad memories they have been carrying with them until today. I, too, am constantly looking for ways to release all the negativity that has been with me since I was young.

However, healing our inner child often comes with a price—literally. Many would choose to spend on various products, claiming they could help in the healing process. While there is seemingly nothing amiss with spending what money we have for achieving emotional fulfillment, people don’t realize that they are slowly but effectively engaging in a never-ending cycle of consumerism.

At first glance, these two concepts do not seem to be connected in any way, but the act of healing our inner child is not as consumer-free and inexpensive as some people would have us believe.

Capitalizing on the healing journey

(Screenshot from voiceoverflowers/TikTok)

Healing our inner child is a process that one cannot accomplish overnight. As they say, healing takes time. It isn’t easy to simply forget and move on from the things missing or neglected during our childhood, which is why most people take measures to ensure they are growing past the trauma they endured when they were kids. Simple things like eating and sleeping on time, being physically active and talking to your loved ones helps wonders with the healing process; and let’s not forget seeking out professional help when these emotional burdens become too much to carry.

This healing process involves reconnecting with our childhood memories that might involve scarcity, neglect, or even abuse. Doing so means adopting different strategies and coping mechanisms that would help lessen our emotional burden.

Unfortunately, the media and the market alike saw fit to capitalize on this self-healing journey by creating products that people would latch onto, claiming such products would help people achieve happiness. Take, for example, Sonny Angels dolls, created specifically for the purpose of comforting people (particularly, women) during difficult times and providing them a sense of healing to combat their stresses and worries.

These dolls went viral all over TikTok, with many people searching high and low to have them for themselves. Many also took to collecting the various Sonny Angels models, believing in the company’s slogan of “he may bring you happiness.”

Another famous example we often see now is the Labubu dolls which many have been vying to buy for their charm as a collectible item.

I’m no stranger to these acts and have even bought a few things using the same reasoning. Seeing these being marketed as bringing me happiness during my dark times was appealing to me, I admit. What convinced me, however, to finally purchase a Sonny Angel was the realization that everyone around me seemed to already have a few, which would seem to help in my struggles. The internet certainly seemed to think so, too, and for a while, you could not separate “healing your inner child” to “owning a Sonny Angel.”

While I’m not here to preach on whether or not these products actually help in the recovery process, the fact of the matter is that this pattern of behavior has continued on long enough that healing our inner child has been so connected buying and spending on goods.

Consumerism has become so deeply ingrained into our lives that even when healing emotional wounds, we often turn to it as a source of relief. In the same vein, the coping mechanisms we use to heal our inner child involve the consumption of goods. However, in the end, they serve no purpose to us other than being reminders of us giving into consumer culture.

Is it now just retail therapy?

(Screenshot from @putimbulak/X and Photo from Marian Rivera)

By doing this, are we really still healing our inner child? Or are we now just simply engaging in retail therapy?

“Anik-aniks” like Labubu dolls and Sonny Angels may help in our journey as they can provide us a sense of happiness and even companionship for the toys we never got to have as children. However, continuously buying such products for healing may just be a sign that one is engaging in retail therapy.

Although there is inherently nothing wrong with spending money on things that would make us happy, we shouldn’t limit our perspective of healing solely to buying material goods.

In cases like these, it is important we turn to and remember other methods and strategies of healing.

There are more (and better) ways we can heal

(Photo from Thrive)

There are many different ways we could go about healing. Retail therapy is only one of many and, admittedly, maybe not the best of options if we are trying to save money. Activities that we might have wanted to try as a kid but never got the chance to are great examples of ways we could nourish our inner child.

If you’ve always been into art, drawing and painting are the way to go. If you’ve never experienced playing with other kids, take out your phone to call some friends and ask if they’re willing to go hang out to play.

These activities and more are things we’ve all done or were expected to do as kids. Engaging in them at an age where play and fun are taken for granted, one might be able to remember the joy and worry-less life that a child must have.

In the end, healing our inner child should give us happiness and peace. If you want to buy something that’ll make you feel good, go ahead. However, it is essential to consider other options of recovery as well, so that our journey isn’t limited by only one path. Take the time to figure out other ways you could find happiness.

In this market-driven world, the pursuit of joy is often tied to material gain or acquiring the best thing. However, once we find the balance between spending and enjoying experiences that don’t depend on products, we can progress in healing our inner child in a way that does not actively involve partaking in consumer culture. -Anielle Mendoza