Hello! When I was in school to become a Certified Holistic Health Coach, one of the things we were tasked with was to heal our own past traumas. This could be a broken relationship, parent-child relationships, sibling relationships, verbal and physical abuse, or being a part of a traumatic event, among others.
Diving into things I had locked away, was difficult. I didn’t have the best relationship with my father as a kid. I was headstrong, independent, churlish, and most definitely not what he expected or wanted from a daughter. He was raised in a time where kids were seen and not heard and where girls grew up to become wives and mothers – nothing more.
I am an adventurer. I LOVE learning. I LOVE trying new things. I LOVE exploring. This meant I tried many, MANY new things and once I figured out if I liked it or not – I’d move on. In my father’s eyes, this was a failure. I was a quitter. I would never “stick to” anything in my life. Same coin, two different perspectives.
Needless to say, I carried a LOT of baggage into my adult life. Going through several different classes, and beginning the inner process of moving beyond my childhood trauma gave me a completely different viewpoint from the inner child I was.
This is the first in a series of healing the inner child. I want to walk you through several different things to help you in your journey to healing your inner child.
Let’s begin by understanding trauma. Trauma for an adult can be quite different from trauma from a child. Childhood trauma can be as simple as one word or phrase that you latched onto and carried with you. One of mine was the nickname my father gave me – Ox. As you can well imagine, it wasn’t a pretty reflection I saw in the mirror as a child – I became withdrawn around people. As an adult I was always very self-conscious of my weight and how I looked to other people. Add that to the “quitter” that he called me and I withdrew. Relationships were hard because I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was a quitter, when would I quit this too?
Trauma for a child can be one where you see things that you shouldn’t have. This can be something as natural as sex, or as damaging as seeing someone die. It is all about how the child in you viewed things and what you latched onto. I am not an expert and I can’t tell you why this happens, only that it does.
Certain attachments are easily explained – just like Pavlov’s dog – if you are repeatedly told you are useless, ugly, stupid, etc. you will slowly begin to believe it. If you already thought of these things as part of who you were, it takes far less time to believe.
Locking these traumas away, is a way of distancing yourself from them and moving beyond them without solving the trauma. Obviously, a child is not easily able to solve those traumas and locking them away is natural. But once we become adults, it is our responsibility to unlock that door, and begin unpacking the boxes we stored there. Healing is overcoming fear and past trauma. I am not saying to unbox it all and try and solve it as one big unit. Healing is growth and is done one step at a time – one box at a time.
So, my first assignment for you, I’m sure you have guessed at least part of it if you have been reading my blog for very long, is to grab a journal. Consider things that you have carried with you into your adult life. What traumas are still there. Remember, this journal is only for you – not for others to read and judge you so be completely honest with yourself. Don’t worry how big or how small the trauma. As a child it was big and it was important if it imprinted on you. No judgement here. If you can’t think of any past traumas or you have locked them away so tight that you don’t remember them, start with repeated actions as an adult that bother you. Relationships. Commitments. Fears.
The next post, we will be breaking out the different types of reactions to past traumas.
Many Blessings – E