How To Take Charge of Your Emotional Life By Not Letting Your Inner Child Run the Show
We need to take charge of our emotional life if we would like to function healthily and optimally.
Our emotional lives turn topsy turvy if we have a wounded inner child who is running the show
- where we tend to overreact to triggers, or
- where we often feel anxious and insecure and unable to take decisive action.
A volatile emotional life can only create harm in many aspects from relationships, work and health etc.
When our adult coping mechanisms to stress fail to work, we often return to the space that once felt unsafe for us when we were young. Our survival instincts kick in and we are prompted to protect ourselves. We begin to view the world from the lens of the wounded child. It is how we take on her reactions and behaviour. Even though we are grown ups, we feel like a traumatised kid on the inside due to our unresolved pain.
Should our wounded inner child take over, our adult self is no longer in charge. As a consequence, we may actually experience life as a soap opera, with little handle on our emotions. This can have a negative impact in many areas of our life. With all that I had been through, I am committed to creating awareness about the need to reparent and heal our inner child. I’d like others to know how we can address our emotional issues at root cause.
A Healthy Adult Responds While a Wounded Inner Child Reacts
As adults, we have the choice of meeting a situation that is upsetting with a reaction or a response. A reaction often arises out of impulse and the need to protect oneself, whereas a response is usually made with more thought and consideration. A wise adult responds but where our coping mechanism is not adequate to meet with the stress, we begin to react from the wounded-child space.
When our wounded inner child reacts rather than responds to triggers, she has taken over. She’s feeling threatened and unsafe. Thus, she may go all out to defend or protect herself. She feels trapped, powerless and acts out in ways to get attention.
It’s not hard to visualise the extent of how an inner child can be like when she is in charge. One way is to imagine a toddler who bawls in order to get attention for her unresolved needs. She doesn’t stop crying and yelling till she gets what she wants. For the toddler, she takes any rejection personally. She does not know that getting a rejection for something she wants is not the same as being rejected for who she is.
A child who has been emotionally neglected learns that her needs are not important. Thus, she bottles up her anger, resentment and frustration for years. Then, there comes a tipping point (usually happens in adulthood) where she can’t contain her emotions any longer.
When we allow our wounded inner child to run the show, we are at risk of harming the relationships we have with our loved ones and creating sabotage to our dreams. We are expressing her unmet needs through our unconscious reactions. If we are to dig deeper, we will find out that it’s really our inner child who is really needing help.
Indeed, if we can understand that there are two parts of ourself—the wise healthy adult and the inner child—and learn how to reparent our inner child, there is a greater chance with experiencing a breakthrough in our healing journey.
All of us have the ability to tap into the wise adult self. Our wise adult self is conscious about a better way forward with navigating life. It is from the space of being the wise adult self that we embrace the little child within us.
Since we are the only person in the world who knows her well, we are in the best position to soothe her. She is after all, inside us. We are able to provide a space of safety for her as we actively listen to what she has to tell us.
Our inner child may need to express her grief where she had no opportunity to process previously. Or that she may need to know that she is not alone anymore. If she is having difficulty with her feelings, we offer guidance on how best to let go. Thus, instead of bottling up, she is now able to experience a release.
We take back control of our lives by not allowing a wounded inner child to run the show. Our inner child does not know that life is now different. With gentleness and firmness, we help her to know that she does not need to shoulder her burdens anymore. Through taking charge, we reparent our inner child about aligning with values, setting healthy boundaries and in letting go of what no longer serves her.
Request for a Discovery Call if you are interested to find out more about working together and how we can help you heal emotionally and energetically.
Love and abundance always,
Evelyn Lim
Self-Love Healing Therapist
Accredited EFT Practitioner
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