Loving the Wounded Child Within

[Guest guest]

http://www.joy2meu.com/innerchild.html

Loving the Wounded Child Within

by Burney MA

" It is through having the courage and willingness to revisit the

emotional " dark night of the soul " that was our childhood, that we

can start to understand on a gut level why we have lived our lives as

we have.

It is when we start understanding the cause and effect relationship

between what happened to the child that we were, and the effect it

had on the adult we became, that we can Truly start to forgive

ourselves. It is only when we start understanding on an emotional

level, on a gut level, that we were powerless to do anything any

differently than we did that we can Truly start to Love ourselves.

The hardest thing for any of us to do is to have compassion for

ourselves. As children we felt responsible for the things that

happened to us. We blamed ourselves for the things that were done to

us and for the deprivations we suffered. There is nothing more

powerful in this transformational process than being able to go back

to that child who still exists within us and say, " It wasn't your

fault. You didn't do anything wrong, you were just a little kid. " "

" As long as we are judging and shaming ourselves we are giving power

to the disease. We are feeding the monster that is devouring us

..

We need to take responsibility without taking the blame. We need to

own and honor the feelings without being a victim of them.

We need to rescue and nurture and Love our inner children - and STOP

them from controlling our lives. STOP them from driving the bus!

Children are not supposed to drive, they are not supposed to be in

control.

And they are not supposed to be abused and abandoned. We have been

doing it backwards. We abandoned and abused our inner children.

Locked them in a dark place within us. And at the same time let the

children drive the bus - let the children's wounds dictate our

lives. "

(Quotations in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded

Souls)

When we were 3 or 4 we couldn't look around us and say, " Well, Dad's

a drunk and Mom is real depressed and scared - that is why it feels

so awful here. I think I'll go get my own apartment. "

Our parents were our higher powers. We were not capable of

understanding that they might have problems that had nothing to do

with us. So it felt like it was our fault.

We formed our relationship with ourselves and life in early

childhood. We learned about love from people who were not capable of

loving in a healthy way because of their unhealed childhood wounds.

Our core / earliest relationship with our self was formed from the

feeling that something is wrong and it must be me. At the core of

our being is a little kid who believes that he/she is unworthy and

unlovable. That was the foundation that we built our concept

of " self " on.

Children are master manipulators. That is their job - to survive in

whatever way works. So we adapted defense systems to protect our

broken hearts and wounded spirits. The 4 year old learned to throw

tantrums, or be real quiet, or help clean the house, or protect the

younger siblings, or be cute and funny, etc. Then we got to be 7 or

8 and started being able to understand cause and effect and use

reason and logic - and we changed our defense systems to fit the

circumstances. Then we reach puberty and didn't have a clue what was

happening to us, and no healthy adults to help us understand, so we

adapted our defense systems to protect our vulnerability. And then

we were teenagers and our job was to start becoming independent and

prepare ourselves to be adults so we changed our defense systems once

again.

It is not only dysfunctional, it is ridiculous to maintain that what

happened in our childhood did not affect our adult life. We have

layer upon layer of denial, emotional dishonesty, buried trauma,

unfulfilled needs, etc., etc. Our hearts were broken, our spirit's

wounded, our minds programmed dysfunctionally. The choices we have

made as adults were made in reaction to our childhood wounds /

programming - our lives have been dictated by our wounded inner

children.

(History, politics, " success " or lack of " success, " in our

dysfunctional society/civilizations can always be made clearer by

looking at the childhoods of the individuals involved. History has

been, and is being, made by immature, scared, angry, hurt individuals

who were/are reacting to their childhood wounds and programming -

reacting to the little child inside who feels unworthy and

unlovable.)

It is very important to realize that we are not an integrated whole

being - to ourselves. Our self concept is fractured into a multitude

of pieces. In some instances we feel powerful and strong, in others

weak and helpless - that is because different parts of us are

reacting to different stimuli (different " buttons " are being

pushed.) The parts of us that feel weak, helpless, needy, etc. are

not bad or wrong - what is being felt is perfect for the reality that

was experienced by the part of our self that is reacting (perfect for

then - but it has very little to do with what is happening in the

now). It is very important to start having compassion for that

wounded part of ourselves.

It is by owning our wounds that we can start taking the power away

from the wounded part of us. When we suppress the feelings, feel

ashamed about our reactions, do not own that part of our being, then

we give it power. It is the feelings that we are hiding from that

dictate our behavior, that fuel obsession and compulsion.

Codependence is a disease of extremes.

Those of us who were horrified and deeply wounded by a perpetrator in

childhood - and were never going to be like that parent - adapted a

more passive defense system to avoid confrontation and " hurting

others. " The more passive type of codependent defense system leads

to a dominant pattern of being the victim.

Those of us who were disgusted by, and ashamed of, the victim parent

in childhood and vowed never to be like that role model, adapted a

more aggressive defense system. So we go charging through life being

the bull in the china shop - being the perpetrator who blames other

people for not allowing us to be in control. The perpetrator that

feels like a victim of other people not doing things " right " - which

is what forces us to bulldoze our way through life.

And, of course, some of us go first one way and then the other. (We

all have our own personal spectrum of extremes that we swing between -

sometimes being the victim, sometimes being the perpetrator. Being

a passive victim is perpetrating on those around us.)

The only way we can be whole is to own all of the parts of

ourselves. By owning all the parts we can then have choices about

how we respond to life. By denying, hiding, and suppressing parts of

ourselves we doom ourselves to live life in reaction.

A technique I have found very valuable in this healing process is to

relate to the different wounded parts of our self as different ages

of the inner child. These different ages of the child may be

literally tied to an event that happened at that age - i.e. when I

was 7 I tried to commit suicide. Or the age of the child might be a

symbolic designator for a pattern of abuse/deprivation that occurred

throughout our childhood - i.e. the 9 year old within me feels

completely emotionally isolated and desperately needy/lonely, a

condition which was true for most of my childhood and not tied to any

specific incident (that I know of) that happened when I was 9.

By searching out, getting acquainted with, owning the feelings of,

and building a relationship with, these different emotional

wounds/ages of the inner child, we can start being a loving parent to

ourselves instead of an abusive one. We can have boundaries with

ourselves that allow us to: take responsibility for being a co-

creator of our life (grow up); protect our inner children from the

perpetrator within/critical parent (be loving to ourselves); stop

letting our childhood wounds control our life (take loving action for

ourselves); and own the Truth of who we really are (Spiritual Beings)

so that we can open up to receive the Love and Joy we deserve.

It is impossible to Truly love the adult that we are without owning

the child that we were. In order to do that we need to detach from

our inner process (and stop the disease from abusing us) so that we

can have some objectivity and discernment that will allow us to have

compassion for our own childhood wounds. Then we need to grieve

those wounds and own our right to be angry about what happened to us

in childhood - so that we can Truly know in our gut that it wasn't

our fault - we were just innocent little kids.

[Guest guest]

Free, that is a beautiful description of what we need to try to do.

For years I have been stuck, trying to get the inner child off the

driver's seat while not hurting him. I really don't think I have

made any progress. My therapist says I have, but he just wants more

money. And believes his own stuff. The latest problem with the boss

was just a re-run of my life.

If I act out my amputee wish I will be letting my inner child drive

the bus. " Prove that you love me, become like I am " . If I don't act

it out, he will die. Aaargh.

- Dan

[Guest guest]

Free, that is a beautiful description of what we need to try to do.

For years I have been stuck, trying to get the inner child off the

driver's seat while not hurting him. I really don't think I have

made any progress. My therapist says I have, but he just wants more

money. And believes his own stuff. The latest problem with the boss

was just a re-run of my life.

If I act out my amputee wish I will be letting my inner child drive

the bus. " Prove that you love me, become like I am " . If I don't act

it out, he will die. Aaargh.

- Dan