As beloved children of God, many of us in recovery are learning how to rebuild the sacred relationship we were meant to have with ourselves—one grounded in love, gentleness, and safety. For those of us familiar with Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families (ACA), we know this journey is often described as “becoming your own loving parent.” But what does that actually look like? And how do we integrate that with our Catholic faith?
Brya Hanan, a Catholic therapist and the author of Befriending Your Inner Child: A Catholic Approach to Healing and Wholeness, offers a Spirit-led, compassionate path for doing just that. Her work is deeply aligned with ACA’s solution of “Becoming Our Own Loving Parent” and offers a uniquely Catholic perspective on healing through reparenting. I recently had the privilege of speaking with Brya Hanan. Below are some of her insights on inner child work and ideas on how we might integrate them into our adult child recovery.
Listening to the Child Within
When asked what first step she would offer someone beginning to connect with their inner child, Brya offers a grounding and accessible practice: reconnect with your body. “Our inner child often reveals itself in our body,” she explains. Through body scans and gentle curiosity, we can start to notice subtle shifts—tightness, warmth, numbness—and then ask ourselves, “If this part of my body could speak, what would it say to me?” This simple question opens the door to self-awareness without overthinking. Often, the response is the voice of a child part simply waiting to be heard and seen.
As someone familiar with the chaos and silence of childhood trauma, I find this approach deeply comforting. There’s no need to perform, analyze, or fix—only to be present and listen. The practice of conducting a body scan is also encouraged by another well-known Catholic therapist, Greg Botarro, in his book Catholic Mindfulness. Furthermore, ACA’s Loving Parent Guidebook elaborates on this practice throughout, especially in chapters four and seven. It’s a beautiful way to connect with what is really going on inside in order to move ourselves toward healing and recovery.
Reparenting with God’s Help
ACA teaches us that we can learn to reparent ourselves with gentleness, humor, love, and respect. Brya echoes this, describing reparenting as “an opportunity to practice more conscious living and provide for your unmet needs.” But she also adds a crucial spiritual dimension: we cannot reparent without God.
Even with the best of intentions, our human limitations—fatigue, impatience, shame—inevitably show up. That’s why Brya teaches the importance of the Spirit-Led Adult Self: the part of us rooted in humility and guided by divine love. Similar to what ACA refers to as our Loving Parent, our inner adult learns to consistently bring the child parts back to the Lord. Not once, not twice, but over and over again. Eventually, the child self begins to believe: I am safe. I am not alone. I am being led to Love.
This resonates deeply with the 12-step emphasis on surrender and daily spiritual practice. Reparenting, in this view, isn’t just an internal psychological exercise—it’s a relational act with Christ at the center.
Making Space for the Imago Dei
In recovery, we often talk about uncovering our true self—the person God created us to be before dysfunction and fear took hold. Brya describes this as the Imago Dei, the image of God within each of us. When our Spirit-Led Adult Self leads with compassion and strength, creating safety for our child parts, our true self begins to shine.
Brya paints a beautiful picture of this: a child comforted in their sadness naturally moves into joy—running, dancing, drawing, playing. The nurturing presence of the loving parent doesn’t force this shift; it simply creates the space for it to unfold.
This image is very moving to me. Often in recovery, I was taught to “push through” or “get over it.” But as adult children, we’re reminded that healing doesn’t require effort as much as presence. When we are consistently attuned to our inner child, we reflect God’s own parental love, and our inner children, freed from fear, begin to live with joy.
Walking Together on the Journey
Brya’s work is a powerful bridge between inner child work and Catholic spirituality. It invites us to slow down, become curious, and take on the sacred role of loving parent—with the Holy Spirit as our co-parent. For those of us in ACA or Catholic in Recovery, this perspective can be a healing balm. We are not alone in this process. We are not meant to do it perfectly. We are invited, instead, to return again and again to Love.
Whether you’re just beginning to notice your inner child or are deep into your reparenting journey, Brya’s approach offers encouragement, clarity, and grace. Along with God, we can become the loving parent we never had—and the loving presence our inner child has always longed for.
We will be studying Befriending Your Inner Child: A Catholic Approach to Healing and Wholeness in our ACDH Reparenting meeting soon. Also, stay tuned for an upcoming webinar where Brya Hanan will share more of her expertise about befriending and healing your inner child.
Chloe was born and raised Catholic and attended Alateen during her youth. Now an adult child of alcoholics, she has rediscovered the transformative power of 12-step recovery through Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) and Catholic in Recovery meetings. After many years as an Evangelical Christian, she felt a renewed call to the Catholic faith, drawn by the Blessed Mother, the saints, and the inspiring example of a close friend.