Inner Child: Can Someone’s Wounded Inner Child Stop Them From Being Able To Embrace Life?

In order for someone to be able to fully show up and to embrace the life that they have been given, they will need to have a good connection with their emotional self. This part of them will provide them with the ability to take life in and, of course, to feel things.

Further, it will give the energy and it will be what allows them to feel alive. When it comes to their emotional self, this will be the part of them that is located in their body.

Two Parts

So, although the part of them that is above their body, their head, enables them to see the world, it will be their body that brings the world to life. Without this part of them, the world would be very one dimensional.

It would be as if one is just watching life as opposed to truly experiencing life; like an athlete sitting on the substitute’s bench. They wouldn’t experience many highs or even lows; they would simply have a very mundane existence.

Part of Life

Now, if someone typically embraces life, this could be how their life has been for as long as they can remember. Therefore, how they experience life might not even stand out.

If it does stand out and they are aware of the alternative, it could be because of how they experienced life after suffering a loss. This may have been a time when they often felt numb and didn’t want to engage with life.  

The Exception

However, after facing how they felt and grieving, they would have gradually been able to connect to their emotional self and to embrace life again. There could even be moments when they think about the person who they lost, shut down and retract from life.

By only being this way from time to time, if ever, each part of their being will be engaged with life. This means that they will experience highs and lows but this can be seen as part of the human experience.

Connected

Still, that’s not to say that they always need to allow their emotional state to control them. Thanks to the connection that they have to themselves, they will be able to feel deeply connected to others and life itself.
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Moreover, it probably won’t be a challenge for them to know what it is that they need to do. They will be connected to their true needs and their feelings, which will allow them to behave in ways that are in alignment with their true-self.

Another Reality

If, then, someone doesn’t have a good connection with their emotional self, it is going to be more or less impossible for them to truly embrace life. What could be normal is to for them to live upstairs, so to speak.

The part of them that would allow them to take life in will essentially be offline and it can be as though one is just observing life. Additionally, they can typically have low energy and lack oomph.

On The Sidelines

If they do take part in life, they might only do what they have to do, such as go to work each day and go out whenever they need to buy things. Their true needs and feelings could largely be a mystery to them.

What they do won’t bring them much fulfilment and even if they do enjoy something, their estrangement from their emotional self is likely to stop them from getting too elated. When it comes to their relationships, they might not feel strongly connected to anyone or to life.

A Deeper Look

If this is how they have experienced life for as long as they can remember, it could show that their childhood years were not very nurturing. This would have been a time when they had to disconnect from their emotional self to be able to survive.

Now that they are an adult, their hidden emotional self will be an expression of their inner child. Their inner child will be in a lot of pain and will have gone into hiding; for this part of them to come out of hiding, and thereby to allow one to become an integrated human being, they will need to heal this part of them.

A Traumatic Time

As a child, one may have soon realised that it wasn’t acceptable for them to reveal their true-self and that they had to develop a false-self. Once this false-self was in place, it would have meant that their true essence was covered up.

Many, many years will have passed since that time but the child that they once were and all the pain they experienced will be deep inside their being. This part of them will want to be seen and heard, and for what it went through to be acknowledged.

A Frozen State

If one is carrying a lot of trauma, it might take a while for them to connect to this part of them. What they went through would have caused them to harden their body up and to disconnect from themselves.

Working through this tension and armouring will be a key part of what will allow them to reconnect to their body and thus, their inner child. They will be softening themselves up and this will prepare them for the next step.

Awareness

If one can relate to this, and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can take place with the assistance of a therapist or healer.

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Oliver JR Cooper