SIGNS THAT YOUR INNER CHILD NEEDS HEALING

Have you ever gotten anxious when you are about to take an exam? Do you get insomnia, sweating, progress paralysis, heart palpitations, or stomach upsets when you are about to face a test? If you’ve felt this way, this article is for you.

What do you associate exams with? Is it the beating you got if you failed? Is it the words ‘familia yetu haina wajinga’ loosely translated to ‘our family doesn’t have idiots?’ Is it the look on your parents’ faces after you hand them your results? Is it the laughter you got when the teacher called out your marks in front of the class? Is it that no one seemed to recognize your effort or other strengths if it did not reflect in your paper? Which one is it?

It may be so because your wounded inner child associates examination with shame, fear, low self-esteem, and embarrassment, causing an emotional disturbance when exams are involved. You might wonder if you have an inner child, let alone that your inner child may need healing. To smooth things over, you do because everyone has an inner child.

WHAT IS YOUR ‘INNER CHILD?’

Carl Jung, a renowned psychologist, argues that the inner child is an unconscious personality consisting of what you learned and experienced during your early years of development.

It is a part of your subconscious, which has been picking up emotional, mental, and psychological messages, even when you were not old enough to process them (from 0 years). It holds memories, emotions, ideologies, belief systems, dreams, and aspirations about your past and future.

Your inner child is associated with innocence, fun, courage, free spirit, having no responsibility, and present joys. Your inner child doesn’t plan for the future, does not think beyond the now, believes in instant reward, and sees the good in everything/everyone. Your inner child is essentially uncorrupted. Due to this undefiled nature, the inner child can be harmed or wounded.

HOW DO YOU WOUND YOUR INNER CHILD?

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1. Emotional abuse

It is an underrated form of abuse since it has no tangible evidence. You experience verbal abuse like insults, being called unworthy, good for nothing, and being compared to an animal or a person deemed unfit in society.

Your guardians undervalued your intrinsic values, and good qualities like kindness, generosity, hard work, and care did not matter. However, your mean siblings get applauded for excelling in their craft, and your guardians ignore their ill manners.

You went through bullying, were shamed, became the laughing stock in school, or lived in constant fear due to threats of being punished by authority.

2. Neglect/Abandonment

You may have had no guardian or parent figure, or your primary guardians may have raised you in a children’s home without personal care and attention. In other cases, your parent may have left, never to return.

3. Advanced Childhood Experiences

Having difficult living conditions like living in slums and refugee camps, where the lifestyle is from hand to mouth, and there is poor sanitation, you may have experienced the loss of loved ones due to unforeseen issues like tribal wars, political unrest, famine, extreme poverty, etc. Such situations may cause scarring to your innocence and purity at a young age.

4. Physical abuse

Being beaten thoroughly for situations that do not need that kind of reaction has effects. You start doing things out of fear instead of love and will. These include lies, avoidance, secrets, etc.

Watching gender-based violence within your primary environments, therefore, changes your view on the people around you, i.e., you can lose respect for the one abused and hate the gender/people with similar traits as the abuser.

5. .A guardian with chronic illness

Chronic illnesses are unplanned and unanticipated. You had an ill parent that you had to care for at a young age, even fend for your siblings or family when you did not know yourself.

6. Sexual abuse

Abuse can happen through exposure to sexual activity at a young age, pornography, or forceful abuse by someone you trusted.

7. Substance abuse issues within your primary environment

Addiction can lead to growing pains within a child. It can be conscious or otherwise. You may pick up such behavior if not handled well.

Remember that little girl/boy who was wounded? How do you feel now? We would love to hear from you.

CONSEQUENCES OF WOUNDING YOUR INNER CHILD

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1. People-pleasing tendencies

You may learn to do what is right by other people for fear of being rebuked, shamed, and alienated. You lose your autonomy, independence, and assertiveness, thus allowing others to dictate your sense of worth.

2. Analysis Paralysis

Another effect is over-analyzing every angle in a situation. Taking a risk becomes foreign to you. You become reluctant to try new things because you have not yet measured all the factors/possible angles. As a result, it is impossible to pursue your dreams and aspirations.

3. Masking your personality

Due to the wounds, your persona may be affected. Some people become closed off, keep to themselves, and reduce their expression due to deep-seated scars. An extroverted child could grow and become introverted out of fear, shame, and self-esteem issues and completely lose themselves. You may think you are an introvert, yet you are a suppressed extrovert.

4. Anxiety

You become anxious at the thought of things being out of your control. You get irrational thoughts when someone doesn’t respond as you expect. You develop an anxious-attachment style when relating to people romantically or in platonic relationships.

5. Fear and Phobias

Fear becomes your main drive and source of motivation. You get panic attacks when dealing with certain people, fear of failure causes paralysis, a specific gender, a tribe, and the phobia of being in spaces that may trigger your pain.

6. Perfectionism

It is a fixation on things being perfect. You don’t want someone to critique what you do such that it becomes a problem. You expect everything to be perfect and error-free when that is impossible to achieve. Those unrealistic expectations can bring about more harm than good.

7. Searching for security at any cost

Due to financial, emotional, or psychological lack, you may turn to compensate for what you lacked anyhow. An example of this is loving money so much that it clouds your judgment on things like character, values, human consideration, laws of the land, etc. to make this clear, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be financially secure, but the question is, what’s driving you, and at what cost?

8. Trust issues

Ever heard of the statement, ‘If you don’t deal with the wound you have, you’ll bleed on people that didn’t cut you?’ Unfortunately, your trust issues have little to do with others and much to do with you and unprocessed inner wounds. Examine the source of the mistrust and deal with that as you grow to be a better person.

According to you, what effect has this wound had on you? Reflect on it and write it down in your journal.

HEALING YOUR INNER CHILD

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The good news is that healing is a process and a journey that isn’t linear. You can rebuild what you’ve lost. Your situation isn’t permanent. You can start the healing journey.

The key is allowing yourself to dig through your past and discover the why behind the why. You can do this with someone you trust, seek professional help through therapy to explore your triggers and underlying issues, and process your thoughts through journaling.

By so doing, you ensure that the buck stops with you. Healing happens when you take charge of your life and actions. As you grow and become self-aware, your life becomes your responsibility. You have the power to ensure that your future generation, mentees, employees, and those you are responsible for will not go through what you did.

You can change the trajectory of your life by making healing-led choices instead of trauma-led ones. One way to do that is to engage your inner child.

ENGAGE YOUR INNER CHILD

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It allows you to interact with the pure, innocent, and uncorrupted part of your childhood. You get to do things without expectations and responsibility, be your true self, and put your guard down. Enjoy yourself. You can do this by:

1. Playing games

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Go out and participate in a sport, and play computer games, board games, cards, and tennis allowing yourself to play and be free.

2. Physical Exercise

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Go to the gym often, take walks, run, cycle, hike, go for a swim, lift weights, climb stairs, do aerobics, do martial arts, etc. Do whatever it takes to engage yourself physically as it releases endorphins that help relieve stress, reduce pain, and improve your well-being holistically.

3. Recreation

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Leisure and recreation are where your hobbies come in. Let me challenge you, do you do the hobbies you’ve written on your CV? What do you do for leisure? I’ll let you fill this one in for yourself.

4. Rest

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Do you incorporate rest into your daily routine? How many hours do you sleep? What is the average number of hours you should sleep every night?

Research conducted by Harvard University shows that prolonged reduction of your sleep by 2-3 hours predisposes you to severe health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and some cardiovascular diseases.

4. Curiosity

Do you have the desire to learn? Are you discovering new things? Are you inquisitive and do you allow yourself to look like ‘a fool” so that you grow? Children grow by focusing on the information given as opposed to the image they portray. They don’t pretend to know it all. To engage that child, allow yourself to be the same. Ask, Seek, Search and learn.

Your feelings are valid, but remember that you are in control. The little child inside needs you. Your attention and care are valuable to them, and you can give them that. By nurturing that child inside you, your quality of life will improve significantly. You don’t have to do this alone. Let’s hold your hand as you blossom.

It is our pleasure to learn from you. What do you think you can add to this list?

Writer,

Sheila K. Muli