Healing The Inner Child
“If you don’t heal from what hurt you, you will bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”
-Author Unknown
What is the mother/father wound?
The mother/father wound is pain that comes from a lack or deficit in the mother/child, father/child relationship. This can be due to:
Absenteeism – divorce, death, separation, un-involvement
Neglect – showing a child that they are unimportant
Withholding – Love, affection, affirmation: deficiencies that affect self-image/acceptance
Abuse – Mental, Emotional, Sexual, Physical, Spiritual
Control – Oppression, lack of autonomy, dependence, self-repression
Mother/father wounds can lead to low self-esteem, deep emotional pain, and a feeling of needing to “prove” our worth.
Some of the signs a person is dealing with a mother/father wound include:
Feelings of never being accepted by a parent.
Trouble connecting to mother/father emotionally.
Perfectionism, in order to gain/maintain parental love and approval.
When left unaddressed, these wounds can lead to continuous pain, codependency in future relationships, and misconceptions about oneself, God, and others.
How to find healing?
Healing the inner child requires intentional work to acknowledge the hurt, to develop self-awareness of how it shaped our lives, and to reframe our beliefs in order to live a full life.
When we understand who our Heavenly Father is, we can see that it was never His will for us to feel ignored, unloved, unwanted by our earthly parents. We can begin to explore this further in our time with God and therapeutically with a professional. In light of God's truth about our identity, we can learn to challenge negative beliefs about ourselves resulting from our mother/father wound.
Working through these past negative experiences will help lead to a point of acceptance, where understanding and forgiveness can occur. Embracing forgiveness can imply re-building the connection with the parent, setting healthy boundaries or even letting go of the relationship if it was abusive.
“ I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” ~ John 16:33