The Inner Child is another name for the embodiment of concealed emotions and damage done to you by negative childhood experiences.
This usually involves the relationship dynamic (or lack thereof) with your parents.
If you are a Christian woman looking to identify and heal your inner child issues, but want to steer of going down an ungodly “rabbit-trail”, you are in the right place, my dear!
The first step to inner child healing is to identify what happened to you.
If you are new to this process and have not yet taken steps to bring these issues to the surface in a safe, Christian context, I’ve created a free e-course called Healing Your Heart When Your Family of Origin Was Broken By Divorce, to help you through this process.
No two stories are exactly the same, but I can assure you of this:
Growing up without solid primary examples to model a healthy marriage, relationships, priorities and life balance, leaves us each to come away with our own mixed-bag of quirky, self-sabotaging tendencies.
And although we have grown up and moved on from our past, these issues will usually show up in our most important and close relationships, with the people we are called to love and nurture.
More than anywhere else, they show up in our own marriage.
my own inner-child Marriage issues
Now again, we are all different here, each with our own unique stories and heartaches.
Because of what I went through as a preteen and teenager, I was manifesting behaviors consistent with childhood emotional neglect and parentification (If you are not familiar with parentification, check out this article: Sign You Were a Parentified Daughter, And How it Can Show Up in Your Marriage).
Here is how those issues were showing up in my marriage:
Always apologizing
Find it hard to ask spouse for help or a favor- trying to always just do it myself
Getting angry when I can’t just do it myself
Forgo altercation or confrontation for the sake of keeping harmony
Low body esteem- not wanting husband to see me naked
Picking out my flaws- driving him crazy with self-criticism
When there is an altercation, I would always fixate on what I could have done differently- forgetful that he is a fault-prone human as well
Not feeling secure in my marriage, but like it is based on my performance
Didn’t feel I had value unless I was giving to others
Sounds pretty pathetic now that I’m reading it over. It sound like someone with very low self-esteem. But that is who I was.
Figuratively speaking, there was a little girl on the inside who stopped being guided, valued and nurtured and therefore did not reach some important social and emotional milestones in her youth.
And when we have this kind of brokenness, it’s almost as if the little girl stays on the inside always trying to get her needs met, scared that she might be found out.
Inner childhood issues and shame usually go hand-in-hand.
Conventional Inner-Child Work
Mainstream Inner Child Healing deals a lot with comforting, soothing, acting on behalf of, and even re-parenting your hurt inner child. The idea is you give her what she needed then, to help her get unstuck and move forward .
Almost as if you are taking her by the hand and walking her into adulthood.
I believe there are times when it’s appropriate to do things for yourself that other people never did, and that healthy and reasonable self-care should remain a priority for all women.
But I also believe that one of the biggest deceptions aimed at women right now is self-focus to the detriment of the godly priorities we are called to as women.
The Titus 2 priorities of our home, our husband and our children.
As Christian women, I believe we should not follow a me first model, but rather a me too one!
A Better Approach
I believe in a Christ-centered approach to life, and therefore healing as well.
None of us will ever understand fully what we went through and what our needs are today, but God is so good in that he does not require us to take “all the correct steps” in order to heal and thrive.
He simply tells us to seek him first, and he will add all the rest (Matthew 6:33).
That scripture is my story.
And as I have tried to deal with these certain dysfunctional aspects of my past- I have tried to do so in a way that does not put the problem or the healing at the center of my universe, but STILL HIM.
I have done a lot of work over the past year on “healing my inner child” and have even seen a therapist for some of this work.
When I’m processing new information I’ve read or learned, it’s always looked at in light of my faith in Jesus and his word. Nothing trumps my belief in HIM and his healing power.
And trust me when I tell you there was A LOT of eat-the-meat-spit-out-the-bones happening as I processed these issues from my past.
I was not able to find a whole lot of resources specifically for Christian women when it came to inner-child healing, which is why I created this resource below as a starting point for other women.
I hope you find it helpful in your own journey!
And more than that, I hope you know how deeply loved and treasured you are, and I wish you the best in your healing journey!♥
Healing Your ♥ When Your Family of Origin was Broken by Divorce
A FREE 7-DAY E-MAIL COURSE TO HELP YOU:
Identify deeply-rooted issues from your broken past
Find peace and trust as you allow God to surface these issues
Continually walk toward a full healing
Flourish in your marriage and home
Step out of old, ingrained thought-patterns and into the woman you were created to be!
