Part 1 - Healing Emotional Wounds
The first step to
Inner Healing is to acquire a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by
confessing your sins and by completely surrendering your life to the Lordship
of Jesus Christ. The next step to take in healing the wounds within you and in
your marriage and other relationships is to identify your own Inner Parent,
Inner Adult and Inner Child, as well as those of the significant others in your
life. You may even find it helpful to give each ego state a name to identify
them in conversations.
You can examine
the way the Inner Parent in you treats the Inner Child in you as well as in the
significant others in your life. You can train your Inner Parent to become more
nurturing to your Inner Child and also the Inner Child in others.
Listening to the
negative internal dialogues carried on by your wounded Inner Child and your
critical Inner Parent will bring freedom to you and others, because you can
then solve the problems within your soul, rather than expecting someone else to
solve them for you, or rather than taking out your anger or frustration within
yourself on someone else.
As you listen to
the inner dialogue in your soul, you can learn more about your Inner Child,
train your Inner Parent to be more nurturing and give yourself permission to
allow your Inner Child to bring more fun and creativity into your life.
You can make better decisions for yourself by acting from your rational Inner Adult who has taken into account the needs, feelings and opinions of both your Inner Parent and Inner Child. As your Inner Adult considers the needs of your Inner Parent and Inner Child and gains more control of your inner dialogue, you will find new ways to enjoy yourself and other people in your life, and to accept each other's differences.
You can agree to disagree with people without feeling like you are being put down. You can also understand that when others try to put you down, you have the ability to refuse to believe their discounts. This will help you to take responsibility for your own feelings, by not accepting the condescending and critical opinions of others. From your Inner Adult, you will recognize that the person with whom you are interacting does not cause your feelings. You choose what you will feel, and your responses are your own. Their words and behavior are their own. Our feelings about their words and behavior are our own.
If a feeling
rises up within us in reaction to something someone says or does, it is our
choice to accept or to reject that feeling. We are only responsible for our own
behavior and feelings. We get to choose how we respond to what life hurls at
us.
This is easier to
say than to do. The more we care about the person, the more their opinion of us
matters to us. In reality, only God’s opinion of us really matters. Everyone
else’s opinion is influenced by their own personality, genes, dreams, goals and
opinions; and therefore, may not even be correct assessments of us.
We can ask God to
change the undesirable aspects of our soul and to strengthen our positive
characteristics. As we submit ourselves to God, resist the influence of the
world, our flesh and the devil, these distractions will no longer appeal to us.
We can also allow the Holy Spirit to control and guide every part of us and to bring
sanctification to our soul.
Most of our needs
are within our power to fulfill. We no longer need to rely on, or to wait
around for someone else to meet our needs. Our Inner Child may want to continue
to look to others to fulfill our expectations in the same manner in which we
relied on our parents to meet our needs. However, this is unhealthy. We can
meet most of our own needs as we look to God for His supply. We are free to
Parent ourselves now. We are no longer dependent on other people to meet our needs. This frees other people in our life from
having to "read the crystal ball” to guess what we want from them. The
depth of our disappointment when someone else fails to meet our needs is a clue
to the intensity of our expectations.
If we have a need
that we cannot possibly meet on our own, then we can learn to graciously ask
for what we want from those who can help us. Some people feel that asking
detracts from the joy of receiving. However, expecting clairvoyance from others
puts undue stress on everyone. Unreasonable expectations stem from our wounded
Inner Child. We can ask God to provide our needs in whatever method He chooses
to use to supply them. Also, we can simply give our self permission to meet our
own needs.
Spending time
with a special friend always brings great joy. We tend to act in a solicitous,
protective and loving manner toward that person. We always have our friend’s
best interest at heart. We give special favors to our friend to express our
care for that person. We are often great at meeting other people’s needs;
however, do you give the same care to yourself? If not, why not? Do you view
caring for yourself as self-centered behavior? I am not asking you to become
centered on yourself.
However, realize
right now that YOU are a person too. There is a difference between self-seeking
and self-care. I am merely asking you to give yourself the same regard, which
you give to others whom God brings your way. Jesus gave us a commandment to
love our neighbors as our self. We cannot fully minister to others, if we are
needy. This means taking care of our self physically, mentally, emotionally and
spiritually. We can have daily devotions, assemble with other Christians, eat
nutritionally, exercise regularly, pace ourselves at work and spend quality
time with supportive family and friends in wholesome entertainment and
activities.
We will
conscientiously care for our self, if we feel good about who we are. One way to
do this is to remember who we are in Christ. I encourage you to read my former
post on this blog:
http://fulfilledchristianlife.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-you-are-in-christ.html
The eyes are the
windows of the soul (Matthew 6: 22-23).
Spontaneity and delight cause a sparkle in our eyes. We have an Inner Child
that is very much alive and ready and able to bring spontaneous joy into our
life. So, come to Christ in Salvation. Teach your Inner Parent to nurture you
and others. Consider your Inner Child as a valued and lovable part of who you
really are. Befriend your self and connect with others on a new and fulfilling
level. Once we do all of this, we will find our ultimate joy in serving God and
others.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, help
us to love others as we love our self. Teach us to nurture our self and then to
reach out into the dying, hurting world around us and to love and nurture
others with Your unconditional love.
Thought for the
Day:
"Truly I say to you, unless you are
converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
- Matthew 18:3
