Healing the Inner Child

Healing is an ongoing process of self-determination and self-discipline. While the rewards are not always immediate, beautiful gifts await if you are patient and can love yourself through the process. Not until we stop denying our own past and begin sharing our wounds, will we allow ourselves to be loved by other people. We can’t pretend our past hurts don’t exist.

The common problems we face are from unhealed childhood wounds that have remained buried and eventually come back to haunt us. Only when we permit the window into our past to be opened, exposing the core of our adult difficulties, can we begin the healing process. We can start by thinking about the definition of intimacy we grew up with. In the dictionary, intimacy is described by closeness, love, and trust. However, if we developed a distorted definition of intimacy during childhood, where intimacy was associated with fear and pain, then we will avoid intimacy in our adult lives.

Also, what was the message given to us in childhood when we made mistakes? Were we given the message that mistakes were an opportunity to grow or rather were mistakes in our childhood met with such harsh consequences that we identified ourselves as a mistake? Were we allowed to fail at times as every human being does, or did we identify our whole being as a failure?

If we did receive repeated criticism and negative messages in childhood, then negative inner voices will develop as we grow into adulthood. These inner voices keep us imprisoned by reminding us of the intrusive messages we received in childhood over and over again. Childhood wounds are reopened, isolating us from others. In many ways, we play roles in our lives that can bring harmful consequences to others and to ourselves. We wear masks to hide who we really are. The little voice makes us feel ashamed and unworthy. We become self-centered causing us to feel that we have the right to act out with addictions regardless of the harm it causes others. This is destructive entitlement.

These inner voices are so powerful that even though they imprison us to destructive roles in our lives, we listen to him.

Sometimes we act in ways that do not always make sense as we hurt ourselves and others. We feel compelled to listen to the destructive inner voice in our head. Making sense of our actions is like figuring out a jigsaw puzzle. The first step is to seek help in order to understand what is broken inside.

There are three essential strategies to healing that will free us from the chains of our childhood wounds. These include: Self-awareness, Action, and Maintenance. Self-awareness broadens our choices but it may be terrifying to look within. As we increase self-awareness we can better understand the actions we need to take to better our lives. If we maintain these actions we then develop healthy habits which will bring healthy boundaries and intimacy into our lives.

All of these ingredients need to become a WE process instead of a ME process. This means we need the help of others as we walk through this journey together.