FIRST: The Inner Child (IC) is the repository of all our childhood experiences, from birth until we left that environment – our memories, emotions & immature thinking. It includes our True Self, which did show up in some ways, but was mostly suppressed or distorted. Our IC now holds all our own wounds PLUS the wounds of our parents.
The ACoA DIS-EASE
Our childhood damage is housed in the Adapted Child ⬇️, who is intensely loyal to family & culture. In order to know how to heal ourselves, we must first get to know our wounded part as thoroughly as possible**.
➼ Remember, we are DAMAGED, NOT Defective. Damage can be healed – ‘defect’ can not.
** Learning about & connecting with our Inner Child is not a waste of time & effort, or wallowing in the past, as some people believe. It IS a means of breaking thru our denial about how traumatic our childhood was. If there is any doubt, we simply have to look at the areas in our present life that don’t work – to tell us how our family (& other sources) damaged us.
• To heal we need to know specifically what our negative thoughts are telling us, because it is the basis of all self-defeating behavior patterns. These toxic beliefs are our version of our family & community, called the Negative Introject.
So no matter how much we may ‘know’ about our past, we need to do deep emotion release work as well as correct our beliefs.
Otherwise the old pain we’ve stored up from the past will keep driving us toward harmful ‘people, places & things’, & make us strongly react to events whenever our buttons get pushed (wounds get activated).
READ all 4 posts : https://acoarecovery.blog/2010/08/02/our-wounded-inner-child-part-1/