Demi Lovato hopes to heal their inner child: 'I should only speak to myself with Little Demi in mind'

Demi Lovato opened up to fans about the importance of giving yourself grace.

On Sunday, the 29-year-old singer shared a screenshot of their lock screen on Instagram Story showing a smiling childhood photo of the future star.

"This is my new background until I feel I've healed my inner child enough to change it. It's a great constant reminder that I should only speak to myself with Little Demi in mind ... only love and healing words for this lil bb," Lovato captioned the photo.

The entertainer also shared a video a fan-made video that transformed a scene from the Pixar film Coco showing Miguel putting back together a torn photo. The restored image features a smiling adult Lovato alongside a younger version of their self. The clip was soundtracked by the TikTok-popularized song snippet "and I wanted you to know that, by the way, I'm proud of you."

Over the years, Lovato has been open about their struggles with self-love, which has affected many areas of their life, including relationships. During an interview in August, the "Unforgettable" singer admitted that identifying as non-binary caused issues in their short-lived relationship with former fiancé Max Elrich.

“In the beginning, going into March of 2020, I was starting to identify as non-binary. And then I met someone and I got into this straight relationship, and that was great, but that led me to ignoring all the parts of myself that I didn’t think were digestible for my partner at the time, who ended up becoming my fiancé,” Lovato recalled.

“I mean, in hindsight, the dissolvement of that relationship was actually probably the best thing that’s happened to me, because of what that led inside of myself. And when I said goodbye to that relationship, I also said goodbye to everything that was holding me back from being my most authentic self.”