Discover your wounded inner child.
American author and psychotherapist, Dr. John Bradshaw, explains that,
“Any psychological wound that is not properly tended to, especially if it was sustained during youth, is liable to nourish the shadow side of our personality.”
Children do get wounded. Emotionally. Psychologically. Physically. As well as spiritually. Often by dysfunctional, toxic parents.
Last year, at the start of the pandemic, I met Rose. She’s a local Filipina, married to a foreigner, who came on board for Skype sessions.
She had been raped by her father when she was 10. Her mother knew. But she felt helpless herself. They were both dependent on him for financial survival.
Eventually, Rose and her Mom were able to escape. They began a new life in another country where her Mom worked as an OFW caregiver.
Late in her teens, Rose got raped by a foreigner whom she met in a bar. And eventually became a promiscuous married woman, sleeping with different men.
Her mother was the one who arranged for her to see me for therapy. But she was already in the brink of taking her own life at the time.
I found this story very moving and heartbreaking. I do because it expressed the anguish of thousands of broken women.
Rose suffered from the destructive effects of a deepest part of her. It’s her “wounded inner child,” whom she tried to hide, forget, or was unable to heal.
In his book, “How to Befriend Your Shadow,” Catholic psychotherapist Dr. John Monbourquette, writes,
“After children have been wounded, they relegate to the realms of their unconscious a huge part of themselves … As soon as we repress an emotion, a character trait, a talent or a way of thinking for fear of disapproval by a teacher or parent, the likely side effect is to cut off our psychic potential. We end up handicapped for the rest of our life.”
The beginning of healing is to discover your wounded inner child. To know that your wound has not been healed.
An essence of psychotherapy is to learn to be a loving, nourishing parent for your self … your wounded inner child into a better, whole life.
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