How to Heal the Wounded Inner Child

And relationship impairing effects childhood traumas carry into adulthood

Connection

It is our natural instinct to want to love and be loved as humans. We crave connection. Healthy connections with others actually help us connect with our highest self, which is a key purpose of relationships. The biggest problem I see as a coach is many people unknowingly enter relationships with a faulty foundation on which to grow due to childhood trauma or attachment styles. Attachment styles go back to how we were raised in childhood. Secure attachment means our parents could leave the room and we felt secure knowing they would return. In adulthood, those children tend to have open trusting relationships. People with the other three attachment styles, namely 1) anxious, 2) dismissive-avoidant, and 3) fearful-avoidant tend to have abandonment fears, trust issues, and insecurities.

Very few adults in today’s world are independent, securely attached, confident individuals, and end up hopping from relationship to relationship subconsciously looking for what is missing within themselves rather than doing the necessary work and going within to complete themselves. So, we enter a relationship barely knowing ourselves and looking to be completed by someone who likely is also either avoidant, fears abandonment, or has trust issues, and then we blame and shame each other. The relationship turns toxic and very few end up successful. The cycle will continue with each relationship until the self-limiting and defeating patterns are finally broken.

“The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you; but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.” (Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 1)

I am a life coach and one of my specialties is relationships, either one-on-one or couples therapy. I help my clients heal and become complete so that they can have successful relationships.

Awareness is the Catalyst for Change

You may not even know you are or were carrying inner child wounds. By the time we reach adulthood, most of us carry unhealed wounds from trauma we have experienced in varying degrees and shapes or forms. Many have experienced extreme forms such as:

• Neglect
• Physical, emotional, sexual abuse
• An unsafe or violent environment
• Death of a close family member
• Abandonment
• Mentally ill parent
• Being given inappropriate responsibilities
• Destruction of personal belongings
• Betrayal

As a result, you may now be a people pleaser, an overachiever, or a workaholic. You may have a strong fear of expressing your feelings and emotions due to a fear of abandonment or rejection. You may be self-critical or self-sabotaging. You may find yourself shoving down your feelings by engaging in one or more of these or other behaviors compulsively: shopping, overeating, having sex, gambling, abusing drugs and/or alcohol, or binge-watching Netflix.

Inner child wounds can manifest in many ways.

Here are some common signs:

You are both easily hurt and deeply afraid of being hurt and people walk on eggshells around you

You fear upsetting others and walk on eggshells around them

You do not trust yourself and also lack the capacitity to trust others

You do not have a strong sense of identity

You cannot maintain your personal boundaries and lose all sense of autonomy in relationships, friends, family and/or romantic or business partners

You refuse to respect other people’s boundaries

You experience anxiety when outside of your comfort zone

You are a people pleaser

You hoard things, suppress emotions, and have a hard time letting go in general

You have a hard time forgiving yourself

You need external validation

You criticize yourself and have a hard time accepting compliments

You have deep abandonment issues and cling to relationships even when toxic

You have a hard time committing and trusting

The solution for a successful relationship is to heal the spirit of the child within the adult body.

In order to dismantle the trauma, we must appeal to our emotional inner child. Adults who have experienced childhood trauma may have lower emotional intelligence and need to strengthen that in order to succeed in a healthy relationship. Before building emotional intelligence though we need to start with simply reassuring our inner child that he/she is safe now and that you as an adult can now care for him/her.

Guided meditation is a wonderful healing modality for childhood wounds and trauma. Here is an excellent example:

Next, tap into your creative side. Maybe color a mandala. Bake, find an artistic project, write for yourself or to share with others, or pick up a hobby you may have enjoyed as a child. Our inner child is naturally connected to our sense of creativity, curiosity, and joy so we want to tap into that.

Finally, we want to start to develop emotional intelligence by building our self-awareness. I stated earlier that awareness is the catalyst for change. So, you want to build on that level of awareness in everything you do. Be aware of the words you speak and the tone you use, your non-verbal body language, how the people around you feel and respond to you. Be aware of your senses. Be aware of how you feel as you eat and after you eat. Be aware of your feelings and thoughts and how you express those to others, could you do it better? Do you need to practice the pause and slow down? All that also falls under the rubric of mindfulness.

The irony is people who have suffered childhood trauma often fear abandonment and rejection, but so often they show signs of self-abandonment. When I work with clients I see them doing things such as: not trusting their instincts, hiding parts of themselves, not honoring their own needs, suppressing their feelings, not standing up for themselves, and getting involved in codependent relationships. Codependent relationships are unhealthy and deteriorate quickly because they rely on the other person too heavily and have no sense of autonomy or interdependence. These are all very obvious signs of self-abandonment and become a self-fulfilling prophecy of what one already fears the most.

Setting Boundaries

It may be more difficult for you to set boundaries if you fear rejection and abandonment, but that is why it is all the more important to protect you. Learn to set and enforce boundaries. You will let go of the fears of abandonment as you build your self-confidence, learn to love and accept yourself as you nurture your inner child. Be accountable for yourself. Accept criticism from others and take responsibility for your mistakes. Practice taking a daily inventory of your actions. Admit fault and offer amends when appropriate, not only to others but to yourself. All of these things will make you better at relating to others.

As adults, when we get stressed, the wounded child deep within our subconscious comes out. It is almost a protective mechanism from our inner critic who protects that child within. But often, it comes out as anger. We lash out at the people we love when really we are just scared little kids trapped in a grown-up body having a difficult time communicating our needs. We all want to be heard and understood, but it is difficult when we are in a state of fight or flight and our thoughts are distorted from fear.

Using “I statements” Helps to deliver the message effectively

Having an effective communication strategy such as the John Gottman technique of “I statements” is very helpful because it helps you express what you feel, need, want, or fear without making your partner feel blamed or shamed and so by taking the responsibility you put them at ease, and they are more likely to listen and hear you. I encourage my clients to practice the pause and take a few deep breaths and then practice the “I statements” so that they are in control of their thoughts and emotions and can express themselves constructively.

For example, “I feel nervous when you come home from the office late and I would appreciate it if you would text me to let me know so that I wouldn’t wonder what you are doing or who you are with. Because I have abandonment fears, I tend to think the worst and then I feel panicked.”

Hopefully, your significant other will respond cooperatively and all will be resolved quickly.

Childhood wounds can be healed

The best way to heal is to feel. You do not have to continue the cycle of trauma, abuse, or neglect that you may have suffered. You can heal your wound. The best thing to do is stop just picking at the scab — tear it and the bandage off so that just like a cut needs to breathe to heal, your trauma wounds need to be felt and aired to heal. Stop avoiding the pain and allow yourself to feel every emotion as it bubbles up to the surface. Accept it, name it, share it either with a counselor, loved one, or in a journal, but let it out. And then forgive and let it go.

It may be a long process, but until you truly go through those steps you will not get over the grief that you are carrying, and it will manifest in and interfere with each relationship you enter. Do yourself a favor and do the work on yourself before you work on an existing or seek a new relationship. Nothing good comes easy, but you are worth it. You will feel much lighter once this burden has been lifted from your shoulders. What happened to you as a child is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to heal. Be gentle with yourself through the process. Practice self-care such as exercise, baths, walks, time with friends — whatever you enjoy, that nurtures your soul. Try not to rush the process.

Take-Aways

• Use I statements to communicate
• Set and enforce boundaries
• Feel it to heal it
• Appeal to the emotional side of your inner child
• Inner child wounds can be healed

“To take care good care of ourselves, we must go back and take care of the wounded child inside of us. You have to practice going back to your wounded child every day. You have to embrace him or her tenderly, like a big brother or sister. You have to talk to him, talk to her. And you can write a letter to the little child in you, of two or three pages, so that you recogognize his or her presence, and will do everything you can to heal his or her wounds.” ~ Thich Naht Hanh

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I wish you the very best life has to offer. We each have a special story and a gift to share with the world. Please comment and tell me where you are from and a little something about yourself.

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