Our inner child is beautiful. It let us play in a truly innocent way. No drama, no manipulation and when nurtured by our mature mind it can be enlightening to feel the freedom of it.
But when our inner child got wounded in the time we were a child ourselves it can behave like tiran. Taken over by the wounded inner child we manipulate, we control or we can completely fade away in an unknown landscape.
The deep longing of the child always is to connect, to feel safe in contact with an other person. But when we learned that connection had a horrible consequence, we learned to dissociate from this initial need.
It could be that we experienced abuse by the people we were depended on, or we experienced neglect. It could be that one time we experienced connection and then without warning we were the subject of rage or betrayal by the person we loved the most.
Then the child learned it cannot trust any person that invites us to get into the field of intimate connection. There the inner conflict started. On the one hand there’s a deep longing for this intimate connection and on the other hand the traumatic fear withdraws us out of the field of this intimacy.
Here the drama begins, The only way to feel safe in this deeper longing for connecion is to stay in control totally.
We can control by dominate the other in criticizing, overruling or arrogant behavior.
We can control by playing the victim.
We can control by caring for the other, in giving advise, comforting or even spoil the other.
We can control by seducing the other, by flirting and even in a sexual way.
Or we can control by mixing these strategies and create chaos.
Whatever we do, it results in an inequitable relationship. And when the other person isn’t aware of the mechanisms, also by their own mechanisms of control, they get caught in the mind trap of manipulation. The next moment nobody knows what’s happening and both can get lost completely.
The healing process initiates when we start to recognize our control mechanisms. By asking ourselves the question why we are doing what we are doing in a honest way, we can find out what we’re trying to control.
It’s not the other person we try to control, it’s an attempt to control our phobic fear of losing ourselves in the traumatic back hole of the past.
So start to be gentle to your mechanisms that prevent you to fall apart. It helped you to survive when the world was an unsafe place. And slowly, step by step, start to explore what happens when you stop acting out this behavior.
The best way to do it, is with support of a stable person who is able to mirror you unconditionally.
Be gentle with yourself, also when you relapse in the old pattern. The inner child heals when you allow it to make mistakes and your able to give reassurance and unconditional love. When you fall, it helps to nurture yourself in standing up and start over again.
May you be able heal yourself with compassion and loving kindness.
