Inner Child Healing Sleep Story: The Witch Who Listened

Some wounds begin before we find words for them.

Not the sharp kind that happens suddenly,

But the quiet kind that settle in early and grow with us.

A child learns very quickly what's allowed and what's not.

What brings warmth and what brings silence.

When care is distant or inconsistent,

The child adapts.

They learn to need less,

Speak softly,

Go unnoticed,

And in doing so,

They survive.

But survival doesn't equal being whole.

The child's understanding of themselves becomes the foundation for the adult they grow into,

The belief that they mustn't take up space,

That comfort's earned rather than given,

And that they're easier to love when they remain small.

This kind of wound doesn't cry out.

It lives,

Quietly,

Shaping how we breathe,

How we trust,

How we choose,

How we stay or how we leave.

It can leave the body feeling exhausted.

It can make the heart cautious.

It can lead a person to live as though they're always just slightly outside their own life.

Healing doesn't come from forcing anything open.

It begins by recognizing that the wound was learned,

Not deserved.

It starts by making space,

Gentle,

Steady space,

For the child who never had it.

This is the story of a man who carried such a wound for many years,

And the woman in the deep forest who helped him set it down,

Not all at once,

But just enough to breathe.

The way to her cottage was narrow and easy to overlook.

It wound through ferns and moss,

The kind of path that remained damp even in the late afternoon.

Branches arched overhead,

Casting the light into gentle patches.

A raven called once.

The stranger moved carefully,

As if unsure whether he was being welcomed or watched.

The cottage appeared only after the final bend in the path.

Small,

With a stone chimney and shutters that had once been green.

Smoke drifted in a thin,

Steady line straight into the still air.

Someone was tending the fire carefully.

The stranger paused before the door.

The wood grain was smoothed by frequent touches.

Dried sprigs of sage hung beside the frame.

Not for decoration,

Just there.

He lifted the latch.

It opened.

Inside,

The room was warm.

Bundles of herbs hung from the rafters in neat rows.

Sage,

Yarrow,

Rosehips,

Thyme,

And others less easily named.

Glass jars lined the shelves.

Some contained roots.

Some held powders the color of late summer fields.

Others contained nothing but air and a single feather,

A piece of bone or a stone.

The witch looked up from the stove.

Her long gray hair was tied back with a simple linen strip.

Her face resembled one that had learned to find peace.

You've come a long way,

She said.

Her voice was calm and unfazed.

The stranger stepped inside.

His coat was frayed at the collar.

His hands were clenched too tightly,

Knuckles pale.

He looked once around the room,

As if checking that it was real.

I was told,

The stranger said,

That you can cure anything.

The witch didn't answer immediately.

She reached for two cups from a shelf.

They were mismatched,

One repaired with a thin seam of resin,

The other slightly chipped at the rim.

She poured hot water from the kettle and added a small handful of nettle leaves.

Sit by the window,

She said.

The chair there is more comfortable than it looks.

The stranger sat.

The cushions were stitched from many fabrics.

A pressed flower rested under a square of glass on the sill.

Pale,

Yellow,

Long dried into memory.

The witch handed him a cup.

The steam drifted gently.

Tell me where it hurts,

She said.

The tea warmed his hands.

He hadn't yet tasted it,

Only held it,

Much like someone clutches something steady when they're unsure what might stir inside them.

The witch moved silently.

She adjusted the fire so the flame flickered softly.

She carefully opened a small window,

Letting in a cool draught that carried the scent of smoke and damp leaves.

Then she returned to her chair opposite him.

She left space,

Room to breathe,

To think,

To feel.

When you're ready,

She said,

Tell me what you're carrying.

Only what you can say today.

He nodded.

His gaze moved the raven in the shadowed corner.

The bird sat still,

Its dark eyes gleaming in the firelight.

Quiet,

Steady,

Present.

He drew a slow,

Careful breath.

I grew up in a house where there wasn't much softness,

He said.

His voice didn't tremble.

It had been held too long for that.

Nothing dramatic,

Nothing anyone outside would have noticed.

Just a kind of cold that was ordinary.

The witch didn't interrupt.

They weren't cruel,

He said.

They just weren't there.

Not in the way children look for.

They spoke to me when necessary,

Fed me,

Housed me,

But there was no welcome,

No warmth.

I learned early not to bother anyone.

His fingers tightened slightly around the cup.

If I got hurt,

I dealt with it.

If I was afraid,

I hid it.

If I needed comfort,

There was no one to turn to,

So I learned not to need.

I thought that was just how families were,

He said.

You don't question what you're born into.

You learn to shape yourself around it.

The witch's expression stayed the same.

I carried it with me,

He said.

The quiet,

The smallness,

The belief that I was easier to love if I wasn't seen.

He gazed into the cup.

I don't know how to let it go.

It's been with me all my life.

The witch got up and took a leather-bound journal down from the shelf.

She opened it to a page marked with a white feather.

The writing there was simple.

A child will go still inside if no one teaches them they're worthy of comfort.

The witch gently closed the journal.

You didn't fail to learn to love,

She said.

You weren't shown it.

His eyes lowered.

His shoulders relaxed slightly,

Only noticeable to someone trained to observe such subtle cues.

You don't have to force warmth into yourself,

She said softly.

We start by making room for the child who went without it.

She crossed to the counter.

From a small tin kept separate from the others,

She measured out several leaves.

A gentle herbal bitterness filled the air.

This brew won't erase what happened,

She said.

It'll only loosen the grip of the story that says you weren't meant to be unseen.

She poured the infusion into his cup and handed it back to him.

Drink,

She said,

And breathe.

You're not carrying this alone now.

He drank.

The cottage remained silent,

Demanding nothing from him.

He sipped.

The taste was unfamiliar,

Slightly bitter at first,

Then warm in a way that slowly spread through him.

Like water seeping into dry earth.

He set the cup down.

The witch kept her eyes away from his face.

She tended the fire,

Not as a distraction,

But as part of the room's rhythm.

His breathing grew deeper now.

He didn't feel lighter.

He felt present,

Perhaps for the first time in a very long time.

She leaned back in her seat opposite him.

No questions.

No prompting.

He spoke as the silence allowed him to.

I don't remember a single moment,

He said.

It wasn't just one thing.

It was the way the air felt in the house.

The quiet that wasn't peaceful.

The being spoken to only when necessary.

The way no one noticed when I was hurting.

His voice stayed steady.

I used to think it meant that I was strong,

He said.

That I didn't need anything.

That I was better for being self-sufficient.

But I wasn't strong,

He said.

I was alone.

I was a child.

And nobody came.

The witch nodded.

Acknowledgement,

Not sympathy.

I built myself around that emptiness.

I shaped myself to need nothing from anyone.

And now,

He looked at his hands.

They don't know how to open,

Even when I want them to.

The witch's voice was soft when it came.

You survived by staying still,

She said.

You learned not to reach,

Because there was no one there to reach towards.

His eyes closed.

Not to shut anything out,

But to let something in.

Not comfort,

Not joy,

Just warmth spread into his chest.

It didn't heal anything.

It simply made space.

She allowed the silence to remain.

When he opened his eyes,

He was clear.

The witch spoke again.

You're not wrong for having learned to survive.

There was no other choice.

She didn't reach out to him.

That would have been too overwhelming.

She stayed there.

Present.

Witnessing.

He looked again at the raven.

The bird blinked slowly,

As if to say,

I see you.

The witch spoke once more.

Slow is fine,

She said.

The child who went still is just beginning to awaken.

He nodded,

Once.

And the nod wasn't just agreement.

It was the beginning of belief.

Nothing had been healed.

Nothing erased.

Nothing undone.

But there was room now,

And room is where the healing begins.

He felt less guarded.

There was a little more space inside him than before,

As if a door that had been shut for years was now slightly ajar.

He didn't rush to name it.

He simply noticed.

He reached for his coat.

He turned toward the door.

The witch spoke.

When the old heaviness returns,

And it will,

Remember this feeling.

Even if it's only a thread.

That thread is a beginning.

He nodded,

Not as a sign of agreement with her,

But as a recognition of something within himself.

He opened the door.

The forest outside was the same as before,

But he stepped into it differently.

His shoulders weren't hunched.

His breath didn't catch.

He simply walked,

Not away from anything,

Not towards anything.

Just forward,

With a space around the heart that had once held only stone.

The path waited,

And he felt a space inside him that wasn't shut.