Hi, I hope you’ve tried the tool from Part 1 and made some good progress on this.
Today I want to talk about a different aspect of this that i’ve learnt from my own experience. Another issue you’ve likely had that is also connected to the same emotions of abandonment, rejection, feeling not good enough. Is that you’ve continually just jumped into bed or relationships with women who just aren’t right for you. If you have alot of insecurity then women who you actually regret having sex with after because frankly they are just yuck, fat, unhealthy or they have bad habits like smoking or whatever. But due to these emotional issues you’ve found that it’s a pattern for you.
This is another thing i’ve had to explore in this process and it’s very connected. Sure i’d have preferred women that I really was attracted to, but i’d tend to start with that and get rejected and then eventually just get insecure and accept the first woman that come along whether she was suitable to me or not, or whether I was really attracted to her (within reason of course, there was times I still wouldn’t go near them.)
Come on, why am I having to deal with all this shit? I just want to get better!
Yep, I definately identify with that thought! But if you’re anything like me then some of these issues are also contributing to your illness and suppressing your body and immune system.
Step back for a moment and imagine someone else (not you of course!) who has felt rejected all their lives, from early childhood. Those feelings of rejection have gone deep, into their body, their mind and it’s something they still hold onto, view the world through and act from. In the end they even started to reject themselves before anyone else could!
I know i’ve done that alot of times, because it felt safer and was more painful to me when women rejected me than when I sabotaged it myself or just didn’t act because of that fear. In essence rejecting myself.
Is it any stretch of the imagination that having that turned against themselves for years that it’s had a negative effect on their body and health? That it’s also lead them to alot of unhealthy habits that aren’t good for their body, their soul or for them in general. They might even attract situations that reinforce their trauma and make it worse over time, which in turn suppresses the body more?
Dammit, that is me!
I know I said it wasn’t you, but you know it is! It was me too. I’m still working on it but i’ve made alot of progress in my healing and health from where I started.
The good news is I found another tool that is VERY beneficial for these early childhood issues of abandonment, rejection and similar.
Healing Your Inner Child through Inner Child Work –
This was my favourite for a while, and it really helped with my growth. Before I got lyme I wasn’t hugely social, mainly going to the gym, sometimes i’d go out places by myself like to the beach or whatever but nothing too social.
A few years before when I lost weight I lost most of my friendship group and hadn’t really recovered from it. I even felt like I didn’t even ‘want to’ socialize. During this process I discovered that’s not true, it was just trauma and negative emotions I was holding onto. With Inner Child work I started to explore these emotions from the past, the most intense ones of course were around my adoption and abandonment, and also being picked on at school and such.
I noticed over time I naturally started to want to socialize more. I started to do new fun things, some of which I would have never done before. I went to a thing called laughter club (alot of fun!) and after going twice I didn’t go back, it was like it was too much at the time. Then as I continued Inner Child work around 6 months later I went back and started going every week since, until the stupid lockdown going on at the moment.
I started to goto different things and socialize just for the sake of enjoying it, talking to different people, made new friends and started to become more comfortably socially. I even learnt how to deal with things such as anxiety or fear when I was going somewhere, and deal with them on the way there so I could relax which was very beneficial for me.
Inner Child work might sound weird if you’ve never come across it. It’s basically the representation of your Inner Child inside you, who is holding onto pain, rejection, trauma, other painful emotions from your past. You’ve likely disconnected from this part of yourself, been really harsh to him for years.. because that’s what you learnt from your parents and other places growing up!
This process is going back, communicating with him, allowing him to feel what he was never able to feel (the pain, rejection, abandonment, feelings of being picked on, anger, whatever) and then from the wisdom of your adult self correcting his thoughts, telling him what he needed to hear at the time, usually after you’ve let him feel the emotions. Then comfort him, send him love.
For example back at highschool I was shy and overweight and I just felt rejected and ignored by girls, and was even picked on by some of them. This is definitely an important thing to deal with as when that happens when you first start being interested in girls definitely affects your development and can keep you trying to play ‘catch up’ to prove that you’re good enough for a long time.
I had to go back and let myself feel those emotions, I imagined my Inner Teenager in this case, express his anger, feelings of rejection by yelling and screaming at them, telling him how they made him feel and such. It sounds weird and you don’t want to do this to them in real life, but it makes a difference and allows those feelings to be expressed and discharge. Obviously you do this in a safe place, in a contained way so it isn’t harming anyone else.
Another deep issue around this is hoping that if you get more women that one day you’ll feel good enough, you’ll feel attractive and believe you’re worth something. It just doesn’t work other than very temporarily, then you just want to find the next one. These feelings have to come from the inside, but just changing your thoughts to tell yourself that you’re attractive, doing affirmations is almost useless.
Changing your thoughts, CBT for example can help a little bit, temporariily but isn’t dealing with the deep emotions behind these issues in a way that Inner Child work does.
I’ve written a guide on how to do Inner Child work for you, to get access then sign up with your email below!