WHO CAN YOU TRUST?

‘In my work with women, watching their body language when I hear them saying “I DON’T TRUST ANYBODY”, I feel that there is a lot of work to do with their inner child. John Bradshaw’s beautiful work in his interactive book “Home Coming” is one of the guides we use in personal sessions and in our Breathwork-Coaching Training group.

Inspired by Bradshaw’s work about “Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, the process of healing your wounded inner child is one of grief”, and it involves these six steps put together beautifully by Therese Borchard.

For your wounded inner child to come out of hiding, he must be able to trust that you will be there for him/her. Your inner child also needs a supportive, non-shaming ally to validate his/her abandonment, neglect, abuse, and enmeshment.

Trust is only one of the essential elements when working with pain. What are the other elements you focus on when helping overcome pain?

‘This is a vast subject and I want to mention trust first, followed by Validation, Shock & Anger,Sadness, Remorse,Loneliness.

If you’re still inclined to minimize and/or rationalize the ways in which you were shamed, ignored, or used to nurture your parents, you need now to accept the fact that these things truly wounded your soul. Your parents weren’t bad, they were just wounded kids themselves.

Shock & Anger

If this is all shocking to you, that’s great, because shock is the beginning of grief. It’s okay to be angry, even if what was done to you was unintentional. In fact, you have to be angry if you want to heal your wounded inner child. I don’t mean you need to scream and holler (although you might). It’s just okay to be mad about a dirty deal.

I know [my parents] did the best that two wounded adult children could do. But I’m also aware that I was deeply wounded spiritually and that it’s had life-damaging consequences for me. What that means is that I hold us all responsible to stop what we’re doing to ourselves and to others. I will not tolerate the outright dysfunction and abuse that dominated my family system.

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Sadness

After anger comes hurt and sadness. If we were victimized, we must grieve that betrayal. We must also grieve what might’ve been–our dreams and aspirations. We must grieve our unfulfilled developmental needs.

Remorse

When we grieve for someone who’s died, remorse is sometimes more relevant; for instance, perhaps we wish we’d spent more time with the deceased person. But in grieving childhood abandonment, you must help your wounded inner child see that there was nothing he could’ve done differently. His pain is about what happened to him/her; it’s about him/her.

Loneliness

The deepest core feelings of grief are toxic shame and loneliness. We were shamed by [our parents] abandoning us. We feel we are bad, as if we’re contaminated, and that shame leads to loneliness. Since our inner child feels flawed and defective, he/she has to cover up his/her true self with his/her adapted, false self. He/she then comes to identify himself/herself by his/her false self. His/her true self-remains alone and isolated. Staying with this last layer of painful feelings is the hardest part of the grief process. “The only way out is through,” we say in therapy.

It’s hard to stay at that level of shame and loneliness; but as we embrace these feelings, we come out the other side. We encounter the self that’s been in hiding. You see, because we hid it from others, we hid it from ourselves. In embracing our shame and loneliness, we begin to touch our truest self. Healing the Inner Child is one of the basic work in Holistic Therapy.’

Viola Edward, Holistic Psychotherapist & Coach, Breathwork-Coaching Trainer, Author, Speaker. Feel free to connect with Viola for a private consultation

www.violaedward.com