Saturday, October 9, 2010

Inner Wounded Children

painting by Joan MirĂ³

When we get around to understanding a little bit about our inner wounded child we are more aware about how our past can interfere with our present. As a young adult I knew I had issues to wrestle through -- both big and small. Still, apart from reading self-help books and listening to good sermons, I had no clue how to resolve my inner conflicts nor where to begin, so I often settled for avoiding my inner world.

I struggled with compulsive behaviors like rescuing others from their problems, excessive gift-giving and "falling in love" too fast. My locus of motivation focused externally, seeking to get my supply of approval through people pleasing. The wake up call came when I read John Bradshaw's book, "Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child"

Bradshaw writes some penetrating descriptions that pertain to the inner wounded child that are worth considering. Here is a summary of his thoughts (sprinkled with some of my own comments) for your viewing. Those of us who have had an emotionally chaotic childhood with many traumas may find ourselves struggling with some of these issues:

We may have difficulty trusting ourselves to meet our needs and therefore think we need someone else to meet them.
We may have difficulty trusting others so that we feel we have to be in control of our surrounding all the time.
We may fail to detect body signals such as not being aware how tired we are.
We may neglect going to the doctor or dentist.
We may have deep fears of abandonment.
We may feel we don’t belong anywhere or anyone.
In social situations we may be invisible so no one notices us, yet not even be aware why we do this.
We may attempt to make ourselves indispensable to others to make sure they will not leave us.
We may have a great need to be touched or hugged that could make us vulnerable to bonding too soon, too deep with someone we don’t even know and who could even be harmful to us…
We may have an obsessive need to be valued and may have difficulty establishing boundaries for fear that others may not like those boundaries.
We may isolate ourselves out of fear that people might end up rejecting us or we might end up rejecting them.
Some of us are gullible and don’t see other people’s hidden agenda or else we see the hidden agenda but go along with it all the same...

2 comments:

Raven of Truth said...

Thanks for posting this Reflector! I related to pretty much all of the items on Bradshaw's list. I've become much more aware of these things since going through the ordeal with my FOO. It's a work in progress!

intuitivefeeling said...

Hi Raven,

Thanks for coming by and visiting, commenting and encouraging me as you do. May God continue giving you heaps of insight day by day.

Reflector