Should we heal our inner child?
or is this BS?
Hello, my dear readers, and welcome to a new week in the realm of your emotional health.
Today’s topic comes up often in sessions, especially lately with the rise of self-help literature dealing with trauma and inner child.
Do we need to heal our inner child’s wounds before we can lead a normal life?
What do people mean by inner child wounds?
The theory goes that in childhood, we go through various experiences with our caregivers, mostly our parents. Some of these experiences can cause traumatic experiences later in life.
Either we had an abrupt separation from our parents who had to work and took us to spend summers at the grandparents.
Or, we were left alone at home, because childcare was scarce and our parents had to work.
Or we received abusive or irritable comments from our parents or caregivers that stuck with us.
The inner child wounds theory states that our minds get stuck in these experiences and that across our lives we are reliving the same situations and react to similar experiences with behaviors that sabotage us.
It also states that until you are healed from these wounds you cannot live a meaningful and satisfying life.
How much of this is true?
Well some of it, not all of it.
Of course, the experiences that we go through are important and they stick with us.
Our experiences make up what we call relational frameworks such as learning that If I yell when I am upset, my mother will come and comfort me.
Or sometimes that yelling leads to getting criticized and abused.
Or that If I upset people with my needs they will reject me.
These are just some simple examples, but you get the idea.
However, calling them “wounds” is inappropriate and damaging.
“Wound” makes us think about something broken, whereas our stories & beliefs & rules are nothing like that.
They are our mind’s way of adapting to a context we weren’t able to control.
Treating them like they are something wrong, will make you fight them, always getting stuck in them, and sometimes being so stuck that it seems like everything you do is about them.
How do I approach this?
It might sound counterintuitive, but I believe that these beliefs need to be celebrated and honored.
They were your mind’s way of adapting to something adversarial and tough that you couldn’t control. Why would you blame them?
Your mind did what minds do - they found the quickest and most effective way to deal with something happening to you.
So I take time to understand them, I work with you to help you acknowledge what they did right and what they cost you now.
I work with you to make room for them inside so that the fighting stops and the growing can begin.
I work with you so that you learn to distance yourself from the fighting so that you can concentrate on the skills building.
Therapy shouldn’t be about blaming and fighting.
It should be about growing and creating new skills that help you live the life you want.
So, fellow readers, you are not wounded. You are not broken.
Your mind adapted the way it saw fit. Some of these stories are not helpful to you now, (not in all contexts anyway) but you don’t need to fight them.
Just understand them, look at them with compassion, and work on doing what matters to you.
Take care!