Do certain situations tend to trigger your intense negative emotions? For example, some people feel angry and respond defensively whenever others question their decisions while some feel anxious if those around them didn’t act according to their expectations e.g. their significant other is often absent because of work. While having emotional triggers may seem ordinary in our fast-paced world where a record-high 43% of workers globally were reported to have experienced stress for much of the day before, it could also be due to some deeper inner issue of which you’re unaware. Long-term neglect of these issues may take a major toll on your mental wellbeing and even increase the risk of early death.
To find out whether you might be unconsciously affected by inner issues, you need to get to know the person you live with 24/7 — your self. Ironically, only 15% of people are truly self-aware, despite 95% claiming the contrary, according to research by psychologist Tasha Eurich. Yet, self-awareness is the prerequisite for self-love, which is essential for healing hidden psychological issues and achieving wholeness and inner peace. We cannot truly love others without healing our own traumas first.
The question then is how we can learn to achieve self-love. A key characteristic of self-love is the ability to embrace your own emotions and take care of your own emotional needs. One way is to reconnect with your inner child.
What is the inner child?
Image by Idzard Schiphof on Unsplash: A Hurt Inner Child
The inner child is a metaphor for the vulnerable part of our inner self or the unconscious part of our mind. It remains with you in your unconscious from childhood even to adulthood, and affects you subliminally throughout your life. This child is by nature spontaneous, curious, playful, and creative. Yet, it’s also highly vulnerable to trauma, such as neglect, over-control, or abuse by its carers, as it solely relies on its carers to meet its basic needs. According to psychologist Klaus Grawe, every individual has four basic psychological needs — attachment, control and orientation, seeking pleasure or avoiding pain, and self-esteem enhancement. For example, a child who regularly receives its parent’s physical affection and encouragement to explore its environment tends to develop a healthy attachment to its parent, thus gaining a sense of autonomy and feeling secure.
But if the child experiences trauma at an early age and becomes wounded, it may try to cope with the traumatic experiences by repressing them. This is a damaging defensive mechanism as its basic needs need remain unsatisfied. This can cause more psychological and behavioural problems for the individual in adulthood. Psychologist John Bradshaw sees the inner child as part of our inner self that is repressed, and the wounded inner child is even ‘the major source of human misery’.
How does the wounded inner child affect our mental wellbeing and relationship with others?
The wounded child within may cause the individual to constantly feel insecure and suffer from low self-esteem. To alleviate the inner insecurity, they may project their fears and insecurities on their external world, expecting other people to satisfy their unmet needs. According to Bradshaw, the wounded inner child ‘contaminates’ a person’s life because the individual has no sense of an authentic self. Here are some examples of contamination:
- Co-dependence: A co-dependent person suffers from a lack of a sense of self and depends on others to give them a sense of identity and self-worth. As a result, the person constantly seeks fulfilment of their basic needs from the external world, and loses touch with their own needs and feelings.
- Offender behaviours: These include behaviours such as sexual abuse, violence, and cruelty.
- Narcissistic disorders: The adult constantly craves for love and attention from others. They typically demonstrate neediness, which often has a damaging effect on their intimate relationships.
- Trust issues: The individual is unable to develop trust in other people, as they see the external world as hostile and unpredictable. They tend to be manipulative to try to gain a sense of control.
- Acting out/ Acting in behaviours: Suppressed emotions from past traumas cause inner tension. Without healthy grieving that can resolve such tension, the person ‘acts out’ by engaging in abnormal behaviours e.g. quarrelling, fighting, or throwing tantrums. Acting-in refers to the person punishing themselves the way they were punished as a child e.g. inflicting physical self-harm.
- Magical beliefs: While having magical beliefs about two logically unconnected events isn’t a problem in itself, it can be a symptom of a mental health condition if the individual feels they have to counteract those beliefs with action e.g. obsessive-compulsive behaviour.
- Intimacy dysfunctions: A person may develop such disorders if they didn’t receive emotional nurturing, validation, or physical hugs as a child. This can make them feel insecure about entering into intimate relationships and cause addictive tendencies to cope with the lack of intimate bonds.
How to heal the wounded inner child
Image by Xavier Mouton Photographie on Unspalsh: Embracing Your Inner Child
There are different approaches to the healing process, such as visualisation, narrative therapy, music therapy, and drama therapy. The key is to open up to your inner kid and try to accompany it at the conscious level by assuming the role of an inner adult. Here is a version of the visualisation approach:
1. Find a quiet and private place where you can be free from distraction
Find a quiet and private place for this most intimate conversation so you won’t be distracted. Distractions demand attention from your consciousness and your internal child can feel you’re not ready to interact with it. This prevents you from even beginning the healing process.
2. Visualise your internal child
Adopt a comfortable posture e.g. sitting down on a couch or lying on your bed. Close your eyes and try to mentally visualise your internal child by imagining a child or recalling an image of yourself when you were a child. Look at its facial expression: What emotions do you see? Observe its actions: What is it doing? Listen to its words if it talks to you: What is it trying to tell you?
3. Embrace your internal child and affirm its feelings
Hug the child to show your affection and presence. Affirm its feelings so it knows you understand it. For example, if your internal child is feeling fearful and lonely, you may say to it, “I can feel your fear and loneliness. I know you’ve always wanted to be acknowledged for your efforts, and you feel that you’ve been neglected. I’m right here with you. You don’t need to worry anymore.”
4. Express words of love and encouragement
Express words of love, gratitude, and encouragement towards the child. For example, you may say, “You’re significant and I love you. I know you’ve always wanted the best for me. I’m grateful for your care about me.’ These words help satisfy your inner child’s needs for attachment and self-esteem enhancement.
5. Assure your inner child of your continual support
Your continual presence and support for your internal child is critical for the healing process. Say assuring words such as ‘I’ll walk with you from now on’ or ‘I’ll come back to see you every day’. Deliver on your promises so it’ll develop trust towards you.
Achieving inner peace and security
If you commit to taking good care of your inner kid, it will no longer need to demand your attention in destructive ways, so that you’ll feel more secure within yourself. Emotional triggers are likely to cease their grip on you, and even when you feel the arising of negative emotions in some situations, you’ll be able to embrace and manage them more effectively.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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