Part I: The Root of Your Emotional Pain: Inner Child Wounds & Healing

Do you find yourself frustrated with and stuck in the same patterns and emotional triggers?

Then it’s worth understanding why it’s important to pay attention to and heal our “inner child” wounds.

Thich Nhat Hanh eloquently said that “the cry we hear from deep in our hearts comes from the wounded child within. Healing this inner child’s pain is the key to transforming anger, sadness, and fear.”

But what is the inner child?

We all have within us a young, suffering child. As children we all went through difficulties at some point and many of us experienced trauma. As we grew up, the suffering we endured was something we tried to forget or minimise in order to protect ourself from future suffering.

And so, these painful memories and feelings were pushed deep into our unconsciousness and only get re-awakened when we are triggered by certain situations that remind us of our buried pain.

After many decades, we forgot about this wounded child and never dared to face him or her, but our child self is always there in the shadows trying to get our attention and care.

Running away from our child self only prolongs our suffering; it doesn’t resolve it and it keeps us stuck in the same patterns, affecting every aspect of our life from health to relationships to our work until we stop and address this wounded part of us.

Inner child healing is about paying attention to the child within us, listening with compassion and offering our loving presence. When we decide to process, heal, and transform the long-standing hurts our child self is holding, the reward is very great.

We can reconnect with our passions, dreams, and talents; we can unlock our creativity and sense of play; we can feel empowered and whole in our life; and we can feel worthy to receive.

According to author and therapist Lise Bourbeau, the quality of our adult emotional relationships and our own capacity for emotional self-regulation is impacted by 5 core inner child wounds.

These unresolved wounds from our child self unconsciously drive us to repeat and get stuck in hurtful patterns and relationships and develop maladaptive coping strategies that end up being counterproductive, producing the very wounding results that we dread and try so hard to avoid.  

It is not so much what happens to us that impacts us, but how as a child we experience and perceive the events that shapes the imprinting in our body and wiring in our brain.

The five core wounds are abandonment, rejection, betrayal, humiliation, and the wound of injustice. Some of these wounds might be stronger for you than others.

In part I, I will briefly explain the first two wounds of abandonment and rejection. I recommend having a journal with you so that you can reflect on your own what these mean to you.

#1 Wound of Abandonment: The Struggle with Loneliness

The fear abandonment is one of the most common, damaging, and devastating fears. In the past when we were cast out of the tribe, that meant death – and this is still wired into the primitive part of our brain that is all about survival and staying safe.

Therefore, this fear is part of our human experience but when it is wound it shows up as any of the following:

• fear of losing someone or something you love,
• strong Fear of being left, being replaced, being left out,
• being overly concerned with what others think of them,
• having the fear of being alone and clinging onto others (emotionally needy),or the other side of the spectrum fear of commitment, intimacy and of letting people in and you build a wall,
• having unhealthy attachments to people with poor or no boundaries,
• lack of self-esteem and confidence,
• people pleasing tendencies,
• low self-worth.

The person carrying an abandonment wound is constantly looking for love, care, safety, attention in their intimate relationships and have a strong need to be validated by others.

They often have trust issues in their relationships and attract emotionally unavailable or manipulative partners.

Physical and or emotional abandonment fears stem from childhood loss often due to:

• Loss of parent or caregiver through death or divorce or separation,
• Emotionally absent parent(s),
• Traumatic events and feeling unsafe & unprotected,
• Poor emotional relationship with a parent due to being dismissed, stifled, overly criticised, ignored, ridiculed, or treated as a peer as a child or being given the silent treatment.

Ultimately, emotional needs such as affection, connection and support went unmet for the child, and this really marked them.

 

Steps to Start Breaking the Cycle of Abandonment:

1. Accept that your fear of abandonment and rejection is part of the human experience and therefore wired into the more primitive part of your brain that is all about survival.
2. Nurture the relationships you already have.
3. Practice self-care to make sure your own needs are met.
4. Nurture your inner child that feels that way by changing the dialogue in your head so that you are kinder with yourself.
5. Commit to making yourself a priority, maybe this looks like voicing your needs to people.
6. Work with an experienced practitioner to heal the root cause of your wounds from childhood using EFT & Matrix Reimprinting (or any other tool that allows you to repattern the trauma).

 

#2 Rejection Wound:

We all experienced the sting of rejection at some point in our life but when we experience rejection as a child in a marked way by family members or friends it turns into a wound and gets imprinted in our body and wired into our brain which grows its meaning, significance and importance.

Rejection can cause us to feel emotions ranging from confusion to sadness to rage.

Often times we don’t understand why we have been rejected – we think something must be wrong with us if someone does not want to be with us.

This can lead to a downward spiral of negative self-perceptions and an overall sense of not feeling “good enough”, pretty enough smart enough, funny enough which can evolve further into self-loathing – extreme criticism of yourself – such as I am a loser, I am a failure, no one would ever want me.

This results in feeling we need to be perfect, and we may even question our right to exist.

We become terrified of other people’s judgments, we feel unappreciated, and we often feel attacked by the words and behaviours of others, we avoid situations where the risk of rejection is possible.

The fear of rejection turns into rejecting ourselves and sabotaging our life. Unconsciously, you deny yourself the things, experiences, and relationships your heart craves because someone you care for will not accept you.

The emotional pain of rejection can linger for decades if we don’t learn ways to heal its lasting wounds that stem from childhood.

 

Steps to start to heal this wound of rejection:

The first step is always self-awareness, naming how you are feeling, and allowing yourself to feel what you feel, journal about it, and notice the ways in which you reject yourself and learn to accept yourself as you are and practice accepting compliments and attention.

Then when you are ready reach out to a professional who uses a mind body approach such as EFT Tapping to help you release this emotional pain.

Inner Child wounds show up through feeling disconnected from our self, having codependent tendencies, irrational fears, anger tantrums, grief, addictions, and our traumas that never seem to heal or go away. The healing work with our inner child is a profound journey and one we don’t need to walk alone.

I offer a 20-minute free call. To book yours email me drlenabahou@gmail.com

And if you want an EFT and Matrix Reimprinting session with me to clear the emotions, understand the roots of your pain and transform any stuck memories then feel free to contact me by email.

My next blog is Part II of Inner Child Wounds and Healing where I will cover the last three wounds.