When love needs to be felt, not just meant

A Restful Reflection on Systemic Healing, Inner Child Repair, and the Power of Showing Up

by Garima Verma aka The Restfulness Therapist

In the world of healing and self-inquiry, we often praise intention.

We say: “I meant to call."

“I meant to set that boundary.”

“I meant to show up differently this time.”

And while intentions arise from a sincere place within us, the body—the nervous system, the inner child, the family field—does not heal from intention alone.

This is one of the deepest teachings of systemic work, as revealed by Bert Hellinger and carried forth in the work of Mark Wolynn:

The field responds to what is done. Not what is meant.and

Love must be made visible to become effective.

Healing requires movement.

And in The Restfulness Method, this movement is not dramatic or performative—it is quiet, rhythmic, embodied.

It says:

“I will stay.”

“I will not just mean to protect you. I will learn how.”

“I will not just remember you. I will raise you.”

Let us now look more deeply at why action heals and how presence in motion becomes the medicine the soul has long waited for.

As discussed in my previous blog, The Inner Child Doesn’t Need a Visitor

Many of us begin our healing journeys with insight. We journal our memories. We explore trauma timelines. We understand our attachment styles. We name our patterns.

These are beautiful steps. They create light. But insight, in and of itself, does not restructure the inner system.

Why?

Because the child within doesn’t need a visitor. They need a caregiver.A steady, non-rushing, non-fleeing presence.

And this presence must show up in action:

• In the voice that speaks gently when you mess up.

• In the hands that self-soothe rather than self-harm.

• In the choices that protect peace over people-pleasing.

• In the touch that reminds the body: you are real, you are safe, you are here.

• In the rituals that tell your nervous system, “You are safe now.”

Without this visible love, the wound remains remembered, but not restored.

What Bert Hellinger Taught Us

Bert Hellinger, the father of Family Constellation Work, taught that systems are loyal to action, not ideology. That even if you mentally forgive your parents, if you still reject them in your heart, the system will reflect that fracture.

The Knowing Field, as Hellinger called it, does not interpret your inner wishes—it reflects the actual posture of your soul.

If your posture is still one of separation, the field echoes that. If your movement is one of humility, reconciliation, and inclusion, the field begins to reorient.

"Love must be connected to the greater order," Hellinger said.

"When we are out of order—when we take more or less than is ours—love alone is not enough."

Meaning, Good intentions cannot override systemic imbalance. Only action, grounded in alignment with the larger whole, brings peace.

While Mark Wolynn Reminds Us

In It Didn’t Start With You, that inherited trauma is not healed through understanding alone. He writes about how core sentences—those haunting inner beliefs, like:

• “I don’t belong,”

• “I am not safe,”

• “I have to carry it for them,”

are not just psychological.

They live in the body.

In sensation.

In cellular memory.

To heal inherited trauma, we must change our relationship to these stories, not just reframe them.

This means action:

• Speaking to ourselves differently

• Reimagining the ending of the memory

• Bringing new behaviours into our adult lives that disconfirm old fears

Understanding where it came from is helpful. But doing something different now is what brings transformation.

The Restfulness Method: Embodied Healing as Visible Love

At the heart of The Restfulness Method is a quiet revolution: the belief that slow, daily, embodied presence is what truly heals.

We do not push the inner child into healing. We stay with them.

And we do this not by wishing to stay, but by actually changing our rhythms, routines, and rituals.

We reparent ourselves by:

• Setting boundaries with compassion and consistency

• Saying no when our body says no

• Soothing ourselves before seeking external validation

• Resting before the burnout

• Engaging in touch-based rituals: holding your hand, resting a palm on your heart, grounding into your physical being

• Honouring the rhythm of return: coming back to yourself, again and again, after stress, numbness, distraction

• Creating space around pain, rather than collapsing into it

These acts, though simple, create a new nervous system blueprint.

They say:

“Love no longer comes with tension.”

“Presence no longer means danger.”

“You no longer have to perform to be held.”

This is visible love. And this is what transforms the child within.

Why This Matters in a Systemic Context

In systemic healing, what is not healed is repeated.

If we continue to intend differently but behave the same, our internal system—and our descendants—will carry the same burden forward.

But when we act from a new place, when we choose a different movement, the pattern interrupts.

The loop ends.

Not because we understood it. But because we gave it a different ending.

“The field heals when it is given a new movement.”

You are the new movement.

When you place your hand on your heart and whisper,

“You don’t have to be brave anymore. I’m here now.”

That is not just a moment of care.

It is a systemic repair.

Becoming the One Who Stays

There comes a moment in every healing journey when the inner child stops looking out the window for someone to return.

And begins to look inward, wondering: “Will you be the one who stays?”

Not the one who means well. Not the one who tries. But the one who learns the rhythms of presence, the touch of safety, the space of growth.

Reparenting is not a metaphor. It is a daily movement. A practice of becoming the one you needed.

And this becomes the very thing your lineage longed for—A protector who does not flee.

A nurturer who does not abandon.

A soul who heals, not by trying harder, but by staying longer.

A Restful Invitation

If you’ve found yourself trapped in the loop of awareness—knowing what happened, knowing what you want to change—but unable to feel the shift.

It may be time to move from intention to action. From wishing to reparent, to actually learning how.

The Restfulness Method offers gentle pathways for this:

✨ The 7-Day Reparenting Journal as soon as you book a discovery call.

✨ Customised Integration Practices for daily repair as you come onboard.

✨ Nervous system grounding practices as a part of the Restfulness Program.

✨ Guided healing processes to return to the child within, as we continue the 1:1 work.

You don’t have to do it all at once. You only have to begin.

With a breath. With a boundary. With a single act of visible love.

Because healing does not ask you to be perfect. Only to show up. Again and again.

Let this be the rhythm your soul remembers. Let this be the love your lineage receives.