published in Vitality Magazine –  April 2007 and in the International Energy Currents Fall Issue

Whenever we’re having difficulty in adult relationships it’s often because we’re approaching it from that of the hurt child perspective. The hurt child is always looking to be loved and approved of and is hypersensitive to criticism. The hurt child is also willing to be a chameleon and transform themselves into whatever in order to get this approval and this love. So the hurt child will do just about anything and become just about anyone in order to feel a sense of love and belonging.

Often a person will develop a hyper intuitiveness and a hyper vigilance around other people if they come from an environment of deep criticism… constantly wondering what others are thinking and feeling.  Their tentacles are out “feeling” the situation, sensing the danger or the OK to proceed.  This can be extremely exhausting and those who do it are largely unaware of their pattern to engage with life in this way.  Often this will result in a deep lack of spontaneity. This isn’t emanating from a logical place because it was learned so early in life. Often this is developed during the preverbal time frame of a person’s life.  The authentic self gets stunted even thwarted because as a child the person learned that they need to be hyper preoccupied with losing love and belonging. So they lose the core of the spontaneous self. They become constantly outside focused for approval and for acknowledgement in a bid to feel love and belonging.  This process chips away seriously at the core authentic self.  As an adult this continues and their adult relationships repeat this pattern. In fact, often this person is so out of touch with their authentic self that they do not know their own limits and boundaries thus they are constantly putting themselves in situations in which they are violating themselves.  A deep feeling of betrayal often occurs.  This often turns into resentment and evolves into a lot of manipulative behaviour, reactivity and an abundance of conflict takes place in their relationship realms.

Mainly, this is because their attention is constantly placed on the outside of the self.  “Do others love me?” “Am I accepted here?” “What do I need to do in order to belong?”  They were never taught that love is unconditional and available to them at all times. So the child doesn’t relax and just be themselves. This carries on into to adulthood if it is not dealt with in depth.  There is a habituation to look outward instead of within. The inner child’s sense of “okayness” and self esteem rises and falls based on how they feel they are being perceived or treated.  During childhood, a child begins to test limits and looks back to see if the parent is still with them as they are testing the limits. If the parent expresses harsh criticism as they are testing these limits the child will metabolize this harsh criticism and in order to get love and belonging they will turn them selves into what ever they need to, in order to feel heard, seen and loved.  In many cases they will stifle their own expression so that they can feel belonging and love with the only group they know – their family, specifically their parents.

If a person has a parent that is over involved with their own problems like money stress, addiction, depression, job issues or relationship issues, the child is going to learn quickly that they aren’t front and centre in the parent’s mind. They will often metabolize this as “I am not a priority.” or “I am not important” This is not to blame parents.  Parents have a tough job that they are not formally trained to do so they often just repeat what they have been shown.  But it is crucial in therapy to acknowledge the source of the patterns that shows up in adulthood that compromises one’s happiness in life.

I so often see clients in distress because as an adult, the unresolved hurt child within seems to be running their show.  For example, if the child felt that they were the low priority in the family dynamic, in adulthood this can play out as a need for others to be totally focused on them no matter what. Unchecked this eventually turns in to deep neediness and a lack of self sufficiency.  I begin to get a sense of this immediately in session, if for example a client gets antsy if I start to write while they’re talking or I look at my notes versus at them when they are expressing.  I get that their initial instinct is to feel immediately abandoned on an innate level by this perceived taking away of attention from them. I am conscious that this adult’s hurt child needs to feel a sense that they are my total priority at this moment in order to allow healing, relaxation and their authenticity to flourish.

I have one client who is extremely dissatisfied in his relationships.  He constantly feels betrayed and hurt.  When he gives to others he then wants the reaction to come to him in a certain way. His expectations are very specific and conditional. He is unconsciously very concerned that the other person is going to react in a way that will feed his lack of security and his neediness. Inevitably the person doesn’t step up to the plate.  They unavoidably will not measure up to his very tightly preconceived idea of what the other person should do, say or feel. His world becomes very small and controlled. He has a very judgmental almost arrogant, disconnected way about him as a protector plate for his deeply hurt and abandoned child within.  He complains bitterly that when he gives to them, they are not humble or grateful enough and that they don’t do anything that was expected by him. This then confirms his belief system that women always do this to him and he never gets what he needs from women… It becomes an excuse to exit and amputate the relationship.  Which in fact, he does often.  Yet he suffers from deep loneliness and would like to have a healthy relationship with a woman.

In this case we discover that he was bitterly criticized and judged by his mother and he felt deep resentment toward her that he never really got over even though she was dead. He never felt it was safe enough to authentically be himself with her.  So in a bid to resolve his hurt childhood relationship with his mother, we discovered that he was unconsciously attracting women into his life in which he felt unloved, unappreciated and unable to be authentic with.  Through therapy, he began to discover his own part in this dynamic.   We discovered he was constantly judging the other person so that they felt they could not be themselves with him either.  This was a big ahah moment for him in that he knew intimately the deep pain of cruel criticism and was unaware that he was doing this very thing to his relationships.  He ultimately found out that he was acting in all of these ways in order to block intimacy and thus stay safe.  He only allowed his girlfriends to behave in a small safe window of reactions so that he could feel safe. He was only making comfort zone choices. So he never truly allowed any relationship to flourish with all of its ups, downs, ebbs, flows and risks.  Deep control and therefore predictable safety was what he was after.  Deep hyper vigilance to any sign of rejection or judgment was profoundly present.  He discovered through therapy, that in this tight, inflexible environment, no real growth, no real relationship could expand or flourish.  These discoveries were deeply painful for this man who had invested years in not feeling his true feelings by masking them with a strong outer layer of arrogance and unawareness.  He was numbed out and thus doomed to repeating these very unhealthy dynamics over and over again.  Yet the deep pain of this awareness became his freedom ticket eventually.

Often clients show up in deep pain yet they are totally numbed out. In therapy the pain often will increase and frankly it’s not that the pain increases it’s that their awareness increases and they are now able to feel the pain that was there all along. This is when the real healing starts. This is when the light at the end of the tunnel shows up.  But in order to get to the light one has to go through the tunnel.   And that tunnel can be very dark and painful. Facing one’s dark side is a hero’s journey to be sure! But there is no way around it to get to the good stuff of life.

I wish the gift of despair on people sometimes! One might think I am cruel by saying that I wish this upon a person. Why do I call it a gift? Because one can go on denying the authentic self, amputating those that don’t give them what they want, being attracted to victims, measuring their self esteem based on others, manipulating etc… This hurt child activity can continue ad nauseum because some people are able to numb out to all of this. But their life is not a joyous one. Despair is the freight train or the wake up call that I wish upon anyone going about life in this way because it gets them to a place of willingness.  Willingness to do whatever it takes to get them back to “right thinking”, back to their real self.

I say, you can try and avoid the pain and continue to ignore the messages of life but all these behaviours are keeping you away from your true purpose on the planet: to be authentic. One needs to go through the pain of awakening the authentic self.  But it is a good sort of pain. It is a healing pain, like that of the pain of birth.  So inevitably when someone starts to feel their authentic self for the first time they will feel a great deal of suffering because they are losing the trappings of a hurt child and their inauthentic life that they ensconced themselves in, in order to seemingly stay safe. So, the disease to please, the need to manipulate in order to have love, the need to control in order to maintain the status quo, the deep self neglect in order to have the energy to take care of others, the deep enmeshing with other people’s feelings……. all hurt child behaviours are stripped away leaving the person feeling naked initially. Basically the person is in a new paradigm and they have got to deal with themselves now. They are in the void and since nature abhors a void, they will eventually begin to fill this void with new ways of being, new tools. In this new paradigm they learn to courageously no longer manipulate to get what they want, instead they ask for what they want. They no longer shame themselves and others, they honour themselves and others. They are no longer helpless, passive or powerless… they bravely take action and confront life. They no longer lie and deceive to be seen in a better light. They risk displeasing others. They risk being left. They no longer go in to deep debt; recklessly spending what they do not have…instead they responsibly budget and assess their financials sensibly.   They step into their authentic adult. They begin to see life from the adult perspective rather than the child perspective.

As a holistic psychotherapist I work to promote awareness and I create a safe, sacred space for a person to courageously confront themselves and the hurt child within that is no longer serving them and their life.  This work brings the person back to the real self…..the self that was there all along. Then the hurt child can finally relax.  The child within is able to rest because it realizes that the adult is now more in charge.   The child can stop pulling tantrums in order to be heard.  The child can now trust and let the adult take over. The child no longer ruins the adult’s life!!   With support and therapy this process becomes a lot easier.  We cannot do in alone.