Is Your Inner-Child Sabotaging Your Life?

What are Inner Child Wounds?

Merriam-Webster defines the inner child as the hidden, childlike part of our personality, marked by playfulness, spontaneity, and creativity. However, it often carries wounds of anger, hurt, and fear stemming from childhood experiences. According to Psychology Today, many so-called adults are not truly mature. While anyone can grow older with time, true adulthood involves recognizing, accepting, and taking responsibility for nurturing one’s inner child. Unfortunately, this realization eludes most adults.

Understanding Inner Child Wounds

Reflect on your childhood: Were you happy? Did you feel unconditionally loved and secure? Was your early environment safe and nurturing? If you’re grappling with emotional scars that seem impossible to heal, you might find this resonates with you. Have you ever experienced irrational fears or social anxiety, like feeling inadequate around others? It can feel similar to the uncertainty you might face in front of a supervisor or colleagues without understanding why. You might feel the urge to throw a tantrum, but instead, you bury these feelings under a mask of lies, driven by the shame and awkwardness of past trauma. Perhaps you’ve pushed these memories away to cope with the demands of daily life.

If this sounds all too familiar, you’re likely dealing with inner child wounds. Many of us may not realize we’re carrying deep-seated injuries from our past that are affecting our relationships and overall well-being. You might be struggling more than you think; remember, it’s okay to acknowledge that you’re not fine.

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Sarah Jakes Roberts is a New York Times bestselling American author, businesswoman, and media personality who balances career, ministry, and family. Reknowned father: TD Jakes.

These scars are damaging your self-worth, limiting your potential, and ruining your happiness.

When you’re damaged by awful events of abuse from people, you struggle in life. You’re in a perpetual life cycle state or trance of poor decision-making. They have violated you, so you keep an arrogant front. Now you’ve become upset over trivial matters and have latent hostility from fears of inadequacy and trust issues. You’re not entirely whole as an adult and your relationships are unstable because trust issues have you parallelized with doubt. You’re fully into the breakup before it’s started. Our society, family members, and parents, established psychological oppression. Do feelings of inadequacy keep you troubled and angry? Emotional outbursts can occur from feelings of hopelessness. This is not a healthy way to live. You should never lose your sense of wonder or give up on yourself.

Childhood Wounds

Inner child scars emerge from unpleasant experiences and poor treatment by others. (alcoholism, sexual or physical abuse, financial struggle, abandonment by a paternal parent, or a fatherless home). Trauma such as being left alone when you need adult support and care. Another is parents who didn’t acknowledge your cries, and you being told to “get over it” when you’re unhappy or bewildered. We learn a great deal from our environment and about our capabilities. If we go through any pain or trauma during these early formative years of our childhood, we continue to be affected as adults.

Inner-child trauma includes:

Having your parents forget and leave you someplace or continuously let you down
Experiencing the death of a parent or pet and not being allowed to grieve.
Not being supported
Being told to behave or shut up when you are uptight or sad.
Suffering abuse (physical, mental, emotional, or sexual) as a young child.
Environmental bullying and it’s discounted or over-looked
Lack of social skills leads to feelings of inadequacy.
Being parented by parents who struggle with their inner child issues.
Rejection and non-reciprocation
Parents, praise your friends or siblings, but NOT you. You can never measure up

Adult Scars

After suffering the injuries to your inner-child, you possibly lost a positive outlook on life which come from a healthy childhood. Instead of seeing possibilities, you are negative and always look for what could go wrong. You are hyper-vigilant and always on the lookout for trouble or danger. The terrors you suffered as a child have become internalized, and you have a type of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can manifest when you are under pressure in your adult life. The child-YOU couldn’t, so the adult-YOU can’t either—or so you tell yourself.

Identifying trauma in your adult psyche.

You Feel Guilty All the Time continually Apologizing

New Things Scare You into Anxiety, Anger Issues

People Pleaser

Overachiever Syndrome

Feeling Like You’re a Terrible Sinner and Going to Hell

Self-Sabotage and Self-persecution

Coping through Addictions and Negative Habits

You Seek Relationships with Abusive Partners

You Feel Like an Outsider or Inadequate

You’re a Loner or Clingy- Jealous of Others (Hater)

You Chase Perfectionism

Fear of Commitments

Can’t Stand Up for Yourself- Fail To Set Boundaries

Slow to Start, Reluctant to End- Procrastinate

Lack of Emotional Intelligence- Believe all Men or Women Are Alike (irrational fears)

What a Healthy Inner Child Looks Like

Inner-child Explained:

The inner child comprises and potentiates one’s positive qualities, but also holds accumulated childhood hurts, traumas, fears, and anger.
Authentic adulthood requires both accepting one’s painful past and the primary responsibility for taking care of the inner child’s needs.
By initiating a dialogue, they can reach a reconciliation between the inner child and the mature adult. (Notes from Psychology Today article: Essential Secrets of The Inner Child)

Healthy Inner-Child

Someone with a healthy inner child practices self-acceptance and does not feel they must conform or fit in to make others happy. They have a well-balanced inner child who sets boundaries. A healthy inner child accepts their authentic self, sees life for its opportunities, and has exuberance for each day. When you feel safe in your childhood, you can feel secure as an adult. You feel you’re respected, and saying “no” has power. You live life to the fullest without apology. Now you know what a healthy inner child should be.

Healing Your Wounds

Many of these traumas happen in impoverished neighborhoods because of the lack of resources, but they are NOT foreign to enriched neighborhoods as well. We all have an inner child and nobody is exempt from trauma because it’s part of the human condition. We all need to feel loved and accepted well into adulthood.

“Kind words and a real good heart doesn’t mean you get respect” ~ Joan Armatrading

Bitterness produces bitter fruit in all areas of life. Be careful what you say to yourself. Don’t internalize negativity by holding on to it. Be mindful of how you treat others who’ve wronged you. Do NOT let bitterness, worry, and irrational fear take root in your subconscious mind. Your inner child is a vital part of your well-being. Without that part of yourself, you are less than whole. You are less creative, or loving. Without hope, there’s only fear.

You may feel like this isn’t for you, but if you’ve been blaming others, constantly complaining about life, rehashing past hurts, and being bitter with regret, then this is totally for you. A negative mental self-image will not produce positive results. Quit comparing yourself to others and run your race. Happiness is possible and within reach with the right support systems or therapy. The more you move away from unhealthy by creating fresh outcomes, and replacing old beliefs, and habits with healthy ones, the better you will feel and the happier you become. Develop a healthier lifestyle. To heal your inner childhood, engage in the process of reflection, recollection, and re-affirmation. Don’t let bitterness take root. It should be a blessing or a lesson to learn to drain the swamps and take out the trash.