EXPANDED Podcast Ep. 384

How to Feel Safe, Trust, and Have Healthy Boundaries: Inner Child Healing Part 1
Host: Jessica Gill (To Be Magnetic™)
Guests: Lacy Phillips (Founder, TBM), Janelle Nelson (Expert Therapist)
Release Date: December 5, 2025

Overview

This episode kicks off a special two-part series on inner child healing, focusing on how early childhood experiences underpin manifestation, self-worth, boundaries, and trust. Jessica is joined by TBM founder Lacy Phillips and expert Janelle Nelson to explore why healing your inner child is the key to feeling safe, trusting the universe, and stepping into your most magnetic, authentic self. The discussion breaks down the five phases of inner child development—today focusing on the first two: infancy (0–18 months) and toddlerhood (18 months–3 years)—highlighting how unmet needs in these stages shape adult blocks, attachment styles, and patterns in money, love, career, and self-worth.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Inner Child as the Root of Manifestation

(00:00, 07:53, 13:53)

• Fundamental Takeaway: Anything you’re trying to manifest traces back to your inner child. Subconscious beliefs and self-worth originate in early childhood; healing those wounds opens the door to authentic manifestation.
• Jessica: “Anything you’re manifesting, it roots down to inner child.” (00:00)
• Lacy: “Anything you’re manifesting in your life is from this period to everything we’re going to talk about until you were about to seven, these being the most prominent...” (12:38)

2. Phase 1: Infancy (0–18 Months): Trust & Safety

(09:39 – 23:32)

a. Formation of Attachment & Belonging

• Most core attachment styles and concepts of safety are formed in this phase, even though we rarely have clear memories of it.
• Janelle: “If we’re not touched, do we exist?... That’s how they get a sense they have belonging and are here and are connected and are held and if the world is safe.” (11:22)

b. Attunement, Touch & Co-regulation

• The importance of being held, soothed, responded to, and experiencing consistency and reliability from caregivers.
• The mother’s nervous system even in utero sets the first imprint of the child’s nervous system.
  • Jessica: "If your caregiver is regulated, you co regulate with them based off their nervous system pattern... The mothers nervous system is your first imprintation of your nervous system, correct?”
  • Janelle: “Yes. No pressure.” (17:14)

c. Manifestation Impacts of Ruptures

• Ruptures here often result in avoidant or anxious attachment, lack of self-worth, and diminished resilience to later traumas.
• Janelle: “If there was a rupture in this phase, most likely later on, you will not have self-worth or resiliency through other traumas...” (12:38)
• When needs aren’t met, adults may become emotionally disconnected or hypervigilant.
• Janelle: “An adult avoidant is somebody who did initially cry as a baby... and then internalized, ‘No one’s coming for me.’” (19:18)

d. Repair and Reparenting

• Modern science (neuroplasticity) and TBM’s Neural Manifestation™ Process allow us to “overwrite” these old programs through subconscious healing in adulthood.
• Lacy: “You get to go in and rewrite the whole experience in order to now be available to manifest.” (15:32)

e. Notable Quotes

• Lacy: “Ultimately, you’re learning that you can always trust the universe.” (00:04, 32:40)
• Janelle: “What did you need the most from your dad? What did you need the most from your mom? That’s what your inner child is needing from you now.” (00:09, 28:44)

3. Phase 2: Toddler (18 Months–3 Years): Autonomy & Boundaries

(41:52 – 54:25)

a. Learning Autonomy and 'No' as Magnetism

• At this stage, kids discover curiosity, individuality, and boundaries. The encouragement to explore, decide, and express is essential for authenticity and future agency.
• Jessica: "This is where autonomy and boundaries are learned. This is where you're encouraged to explore. Follow your question, curiosity. You decide that you have choice." (41:52)
• “No is the most magnetic word on the planet.” (45:28)

b. Manifestation and Boundaries

• Difficulty setting boundaries, perfectionism, and codependency often root in ruptures here. If you weren’t allowed to say no, or were shamed for your preferences, you might become a people-pleaser or lose touch with your intuition.
• Lacy: "People, that's perfectionism... If there’s something they're continually breaking that rupture and not liking something about us... that's the start of codependency of where it starts." (47:22)

c. Blocks and Patterns

• Trouble exploring passions, fear of failure, rebelliousness, and adults feeling unsafe to express—or even know—their true interests often start here.
• Jessica: "If part of exploring the world is exploring a passion that you shut down that you told yourself you couldn't be, well, yeah, you're going to have conflict now as an adult because you never felt safe to explore that." (50:29)
• Janelle: "Boundary injuries... if there’s, I mean, I’m wondering for the person that might be relating to this is like there was something that you picked up very, very early that it wasn't safe to be you..." (47:22)

d. Self-Boundaries & Compulsion

• Compulsive over-completing, perfectionism, or fear of leaving a task unfinished can be the adult outgrowth of not being allowed boundaries or independent exploration as a child.
• Jessica: “Completion of something feels like security, feels like safety. And so how are you using poor boundaries with yourself, to complete something to give you a false sense of control, of safety, of security?” (53:30)

4. Healing, Reprogramming, and Pathway Forward

(27:16, 54:25, 55:25)

• Reparenting: Using TBM’s tools, especially Deep Imaginings (DIs), you can provide your inner child with the attunement, safety, exploration, and boundaries they missed—on a subconscious, somatic level.
• “You're going to take those words, you're going to reparent yourself at every single step... And what that does...there's a healing, there's a corrective experience, the trauma gets renegotiated.” (28:44)
• This work is lifelong and cyclical. Each new desire or challenge may surface a new layer, and the process repeats with precision and increasing speed as you build self-awareness.
• Focus on “the one or two narratives, one or two core wounds...that are impacting your manifestations the most right now” and take these through the reparenting challenge. (54:25)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Lacy Phillips:

  • “I'm an avoidant. I'm all the things we're talking about just simply from this first phase... But ultimately, at the end of the day, through this reparenting work that you'll be doing the biggest piece... is you're learning that you can always trust the universe.” (32:40)
  • “No is the most magnetic word on the planet.” (45:28)

• Janelle Nelson:

  • “What did you need the most from your dad? What did you need the most from your mom? That's what your inner child is needing from you now.” (28:44)
  • “If we’re not touched, do we exist? ...So that's how they get a sense they have belonging and are here and are connected and are held and if the world is safe.” (11:22)

• Jessica Gill:

  • “The map to your authenticity starts with your inner child. Like it had all of the keys... It was the pain, shame, the needs not met that got piled on top that clouded that authenticity.” (36:03)
  • “What are the pockets of the world that you don't feel safe to explore?” (50:29)

Key Timestamps

• 00:00–06:03 – Introduction, announcement of the Return to Magic challenge, core premise: inner child is at the root of manifestation.
• 07:53–13:53 – How formative infancy is (even if you don’t remember it), attachment theory, and imprinting self-worth.
• 13:53–23:32 – Trust, safety, attunement, routine, consequences of unmet needs, repair potential, and adulthood impact.
• 28:44–32:40 – How inner child reparenting rewrites your subconscious, shows up in daily partnerships, and facilitates true healing.
• 32:40–36:03 – The spiritual dimension: trusting the universe as the ultimate parent, authenticity, and manifestation language.
• 41:52–54:25 – Toddler phase, boundaries, autonomy, the roots of perfectionism, codependency, and discovering intuition.
• 54:25–56:45 – Approaching healing as a lifelong, cyclical process. Advice on focussing your healing and manifestation efforts.

Takeaways for Listeners

• You don’t need active childhood memories to do inner child work. Observe your current behaviors and blocks, trace how they may root back to unmet childhood needs, and nurture reparenting through TBM’s guided practices.
• Setting boundaries is a superpower for both manifestation and authenticity. Learning to express 'no' safely—internally and externally—restores your magnetism.
• Healing is both possible and ongoing. Even if you lacked secure attachment or boundaries as a child, neuroplasticity and intentional reparenting can shift your self-worth, safety, and ability to trust yourself, others, and the universe.

Next episode: Part Two will cover the next stages: creativity and play, competence, and adolescence.

Call to action: Join the Return to Magic Challenge inside the TBM Pathway for step-by-step, science-backed inner child reparenting.