What Is The Wounded Child And How Healing It Transforms Your Life
The injured child It is a term that is heard more frequently lately, it is also known as inner child or emotional wounds.
Surely you have heard about this concept at some point. Here I want to talk in more depth about what it is about and why it is so significant for everyone to address this issue at some point in their life.
The wounded child is primarily a metaphor for our negative childhood experiences. You can remember your childhood and adolescence as a time when you still did not understand many things that were happening around you.
Why do mom and dad fight so much? Why don’t mom and dad live together? What do I do when mom cries or when she screams? How do I make them see my effort? Why doesn’t my dad ever smile at me, what am I doing wrong?
These can be exemplary questions that a school-aged child asks himself every day, given the situations you observe in your home. Something that many people do not know about this age is that children, unconsciously, also answer these questions and often give themselves explanations; many times, assuming responsibility.
That is, they always think that problems are related to something they do wrong, or They think they should do something to improve the situation.
So, when faced with a question like “why doesn’t Dad live with us?”, the child can respond by saying: Dad has more important things to do and I’m not important enough to take up too much of his time. Or, when mom and dad give a lot of importance to school performance and the child wonders “how can I be seen by mom and dad?”, then they answer this question by unconsciously saying something like “I should try harder, I should always show good grades to receive love.”
The questions that children ask themselves are mostly about ensuring their bond with their parents (or primary care figures). For a child it is vital to know that mom and dad are close and that they receive and accept them, because that guarantees their survival.
It is an instinctive need that all human beings have at the beginning of life, we need to guarantee our survival and, being little, we do this by ensuring that our caregivers are nearby. Each child will look for his own strategies and following his own childish logic to do so. But with this logic he can go against himself, being very harsh on himself, for example, and thus leaves wounds.
The constructed beliefs of the wounded child
You have also built beliefs in your childhood, beliefs about yourself (I am good, bad, restless, stupid…), about other people (mom gets irritated, we have to take care of dad’s health), about relationships (when I talk a lot I bother them, we have to make them laugh…), about the world (there are many dangers outside) and about the future (the future is uncertain, I must secure my future).
These beliefs or logic gave you very important guidance and you thought that if you follow these “rules” and act according to them, you will be safe and you will receive love and acceptance.
Each child had different experiences and based on their experiences they built their own beliefs and established a concept about themselves, others and the world. Then the injured child represents the beliefs and negative self-image that you have built in your childhood. They are your wounds because they represent negative beliefs about yourself and your fears for example:
How the child is convinced of these beliefs and in their thinking threaten your safety from receiving love and protection does everything possible to combat it.
For example, if you fear that you are a burden or a weight for your parents, you do everything possible not to be a burden: You do not talk about your problems, you do not demand anything for yourself, you try to be as light as possible for your parents and then also for others. others.
Why does your wounded child appear in your adult life?
Now, why is that relevant to you, who are surely already an adult, today you understand much more about the world and can give yourself more accurate explanations about the problems that surround you?
You think that, upon moving into adulthood and having destiny in your hands, you stop being a child and it is not worth thinking too much about the past, because what is done is done and cannot be changed.
However, childhood has left its traces, and the past is not buried so easily. From the moment your life begins, you begin to write stories and the beliefs that you have acquired about yourself in childhood, you carry them into your adult life the same, because they have also worked for you in many aspects.
If we look at the example of a child who grew up with mom and dad, both very busy (not because they were bad, but obviously because of necessity) and this child learned that “he should not bother”, that he should let mom and dad do their things, because family needs are more important than the child’s personal needs.
As he goes along, this child learns to obey, not to ask or to ask with great suspicion, to do everything on his own and takes care not to be an extra burden for his parents. The beliefs you acquire about yourself could be: I shouldn’t bother, I’m not that important, my needs don’t count, I better do what I’m told so that no one gets bothered.
These beliefs are maintained in adult life and are reflected in their relationships, in their work and in their posture to face life’s challenges, always under the motto: I should not bother, it is better for them to tell me, etc.
Maybe another child in the same situation gets upset, has tantrums, does a lot of pranks to seek attention from mom and dad (here it depends a lot on the temperament of each child) and when he does not receive the attention he demands or ends up scolded, he is left with beliefs like: “I’m not important, I always come last, my voice doesn’t count, they don’t love me.”
This kid, As an adult, you will probably develop a lot of sensitivity to similar situations. Let’s say his girlfriend forgot to buy him her favorite potatoes, even though we asked her to. For most people it wouldn’t be a drama, but for this person he resonates with what happened to him with mom and dad and the frustration of not being seen and heard makes him angry.
So as an adult you have trigger situations, which connect you directly with childhood situations, when you were very afraid, sad, angry and felt helpless. When you are “triggered”, you no longer react from your adult Self, if you do not respond as when you were a child and were afraid, you become defensive and do what served you as a child to protect yourself (fight, remain silent, evade by changing theme, etc.).
You usually recognize your triggers, because they are exaggerated reactions to situations that are not worth it or because you find yourself stuck on a topic, which from the outside does not seem so complicated.
What do you need to do with your injured child?
When you have already identified your childhood wounds (and professional help may be necessary here), this will allow you to treat them differently.
Firstly, It is good to talk to your injured child, treat it from your adult Self as a compassionate father or mother. That is, explain to him (explain to yourself) that the things that happened before were not as much as he thinks.
Returning to the child in the example, as an adult, it could be explained that: although mom and dad worked a lot, that does not mean that he always had to remain silent, but that it would have been better if mom and dad had given him more attention and that he had right to demand this attention and he also has this right now that he is an adult. He no longer needs to be afraid of being a nuisance and it’s going to be difficult for him to always keep everyone comfortable, so he doesn’t have to worry about those things as much.
In a second moment, knowing the wounds of your inner child helps you catch yourself in your vulnerable moments that is, these moments when you “exaggerate”, lose control or freeze, as if you were still a child.
This takes some practice and you will realize it initially, only after it has happened. Maybe the next day, after a fight, that you don’t even understand how it happened and then you recognize that at this time your wounded child was there in action, defending himself from the fear of rejection or feeling abandoned or trapped. Over time it becomes more evident and you manage to prevent these moments in the best of cases. It’s a bit like when you’re in a 3D movie and you take off your glasses to understand that you’re just watching a movie, it’s a lot about leaving the territory (where you feel a lot of anxiety) to see the map from the outside and be able to understand that there is no nothing left to fear.
The most important thing for your inner child is that he/she be cared for with love and compassion. A child is never to blame, they always require the responsible accompaniment of an adult and you will also learn to accompany your inner child from your adult Self, with compassion and benevolence, so that they can heal their wounds.
Related article: “Personal Development: 5 reasons for self-reflection”
Why compassion?
We are used to judging ourselves for our mistakes all the time and we generally control and monitor our behavior, so that it is in accordance with the demands of the world in which we live. Self-criticism gives us the security of having things under control and always being alert. This works quite well to meet work and academic goals, much more so if we use positive or negative reinforcements such as rewards and punishments (for example, “I achieved a goal: as a reward I allow myself to eat a chocolate cake”, “I did not achieve a goal: as punishment I talk to myself all week”, “it made me work harder, I don’t allow myself to rest”).
At the same time, This dynamic of surveillance means that we are always focused on external achievements, which predispose our personal value. Only if you do “the right thing” do you deserve love and acceptance, then you are very conditioned and dependent on your performance and how it is recognized. In the long run this produces a lot of anxiety, it can lead to states of depression, increased irritability, difficulties sleeping and all those symptoms that can now be called mental illnesses of civilization, because almost everyone perceives them to some degree in their daily life.
Introducing a new voice into your life, one that is more compassionate and understanding with you and others, lowers anxiety and strengthens self-esteem. It is then about being a compassionate mother or father to your inner child and in the long run becoming more of a friend to yourself, instead of being your own worst enemy.
