Integrating the Wounded Child

You will always remember what happened to you. Your experiences and timeline are yours alone, and your memories will always be with you, but you don’t want them to be front and center anymore. As you have been working through this process, your inner wounding has slowly and deliberately begun to soften, heal, and transform, merging with your responsible adult self. Maybe you have already noticed how this wounding is becoming a footnote in your life instead of a chapter heading.

As you have been working through the HEAL process, you have probably discovered new insights about yourself. This is how you expand and grow into yourself. Through this process, you are learning to see and feel your known reality in a new way. You have the same life you had before you opened this book—probably the same job, same relationships, same friendships—but now you are learning how to look at your life through a different lens.

You may notice that the memories you put on your timeline are not as triggered or as raw as before. This is because you have found the courage to face these issues, to examine them, and to work through the hard feelings toward healing. You are facing things inside that you once felt were big and scary.

You may find that having this awareness is a gradual transformation, that you start to notice that you don’t get as upset about certain issues that used to really bother you. Things are not as loud inside, and you are not as triggered by your wounded memories because you are healing that painful wounding. If this true for you, it means you have done a lot of hard work to heal and ease that pain. You are healing the familiar wounds you have had for so long.

How You Know You Are Healing

People often ask me how they will know when they are done with therapy. The short answer is, when your emotions are no longer triggered by certain situations. You will still remember what happened, but you won’t emotionally react to it and feel “big” feelings. As a therapist, I see this as an indicator of a person’s level of healing and whether or not they have worked through their wounding.

You may be creating safer connections, which allow you to feel free and open because of your new ability to set boundaries. It is easier to develop functional relationships now because you are paying more attention to yourself in the context of the connection instead of just reacting.

You are reconnecting with your authentic self, the calm and wise place that has always been inside of you. It was covered up by the illusions that others projected onto you and by your own misperceptions of situations. You are learning how to encourage positive self-talk and promote the authentic self to come forward and thrive.

Your wounded parts are putting down the wounded emotional response tools and impulsive reactions, and learning to trust your responsible adult self to be there.

Your wounded parts know and feel that your responsible adult self is setting functional boundaries. These parts don’t feel as guarded as before and are loosening up.

Your wounded parts are no longer stranded and frozen in time. You are joining and integrating these parts with your responsible adult self.

You are no longer attracting wounded people into your life just so you can caretake, fix, or rescue them.

You’re no longer getting into dysfunctional patterns with others by unconsciously playing out your emotional wounding with them.

If you are dating, you may notice that you are no longer attracted to the type of person you used to go for. You are able to consciously realize that this type of person wasn’t good for you in many ways. Today you are making better choices and are attracted to people who have done their healing work. Healthy people find other healthy people.

Now that you are setting healthy boundaries, your wounded parts no longer have to do the job of fiercely protecting you. The wounded part no longer feels as hurt, confused, sad, lonely, and angry. Let this transformation wash over you as the old wounding dissolves away and your once-lost inner child integrates with your responsible adult self.

All of these changes are your indicators that the wounded self is healing and integrating with your adult self. The wounded self has watched and listened for your responsible adult self to step forward, set boundaries, and protect all of you. Now it feels comfortable putting down the wounded tools because you are using your functional response tools to navigate your world.

The following are the ways you will know each day that the wounded self is integrating with your responsible adult self and that you are getting better:

• You feel a greater sense of freedom.
• You no longer become as triggered.
• You feel lighter and better.
• You are not as sad, hurt, and angry.
• You are in a state of connectedness and openness toward others.
• You feel like yourself again.
• You are kinder and gentler with yourself and others.
• You trust, love, and respect yourself more.
• You feel a sense of calm and wisdom.
• You feel like a thorn has been pulled out or that you have been released from captivity.

As you feel more integrated with your inner child, give yourself permission to attract others into your life who have strong boundaries and who are connected to their authentic selves. You may see how others set boundaries all the time that you hadn’t noticed before. Practice saying the small no’s, as this will strengthen your boundary muscle. When you are feeling brave and clear-headed, practice a bigger no. Remember that when you say no, in most cases you can say yes later if you want to. Be brave in protecting yourself with your boundaries. You are worth it.

You have probably been practicing making boundary statements in your head as you have worked through the chapters. If you haven’t been stating them out loud when needed, now is the time to do so. If a memory continues to recycle and you can’t let it go, reassess the boundary statement around it, or create one now.

Transitions

Any time you go through a transition in life some parts are messy, and that is normal. Not everyone in your life is going to be on the same page as you. You now have an expanded awareness of yourself, your relationships, and how you fit into the world. This is your chance to objectively look at your relationships and ask if they are healthy for you and what you are getting out of them. This is when you realize you can be the creator, not just the reactor, of your life. Just remember that others in your life probably aren’t going through this transformational process. They are on their own journey.

With this new perspective comes a shift in reality. You may feel disoriented about yourself and your relationships. You may not feel connected to your spouse, partner, or friends. You may start to question everything at this point, as things do not feel like they used to. You may feel like you are on the edge of a new beginning.

When you do this work, you are leaving one reality and stepping into a new one. You may long for your known reality, even though it wasn’t always pleasant and relationships were toxic. Even with all of that, you may think yes, it was a mess, but it was my mess. Now you don’t know what you are getting yourself into or where you are headed. It takes courage to be vulnerable. This sense of loss is a natural part of the process of unfolding, letting go, and claiming a new sense of self from the healing work. You have to shed this part of you to make room to heal and move on. You are learning how to give yourself permission to let go of the cycles you have been lost in for so much of your life.

You may start to see only the bad parts of your relationships and none of the good. You may see some things clearly and know what you need to do, and feel just as confused as ever with other situations. These symptoms are often confusing because you like how you feel and the progress you are making, but you don’t see how anything is changing with others in their lives. That is because not everyone in your life is in therapy or going through this process. They don’t have the perspective that you are developing. You are seeing yourself and your family and friends in a different way.

Lara was in a similar situation. She and I had been working on her wounded parts for a while, and she was doing fantastic work. She had gone through the steps and was having realizations about many parts of her life. She said that she was doing OK but felt sad, confused, and unsure about her next steps. She later revealed that she was going to stop therapy altogether because she didn’t know what was going on and why she was having these mixed feelings. A part of her wanted to go back to her old reality, to pull out her old wounded tools and use them; at least they felt familiar. She said that even though she was learning new ways of relating to herself and her girlfriend, she was scared of the unknown.

I explained to Lara about this transition time and that it is common feel like this. We talked about the sense of loss that goes along with this work, as there is a grief component to this process that comes from a deep subconscious level. Lara had been in a bubble of the relationship dynamics with her girlfriend that she knew and understood, but now she was using her new functional response tools. She wasn’t escaping into her old ways and decades-old wounded responses. She was out of the bubble now, exploring new parts of herself and interacting with her world differently. It was scary and exciting at the same time as she continued to develop stronger boundaries and more functional emotional responses.

Each time you revisit the HEAL process you will feel better and expand your awareness of yourself and your reality. You are on a journey from feeling emotionally closed and scattered to feeling free and open.

Bridging the Gaps

In your daily observation and discernment, you may notice that there are gaps in your life between having interactions that go well—when you are creating healthy, solid, strong connections—and when you go back to your old behaviors. This is a natural part of learning new skills; you are not going to be an expert right away. Gaps are the areas where you need to develop specific tools to use in a relationship or to consistently use the boundary tools you have developed.

Notice where you have safe connections, where the connection feels reciprocal, grounded, and nurturing. Now look at those areas where the connection feels uneven and you don’t walk away feeling good about yourself or the connection. This is about observing your interactions with yourself and others and where you are using the tools you have learned. This isn’t about judgment, it is about using your discernment to determine your role as a creator or a reactor. Notice where you are doing a good job at staying grounded and where there are some gaps in your functional response tools.

When things aren’t going well in a relationship, you might think that you are not getting better, that the same things keep happening like before, and that the other person doesn’t respect your boundaries no matter what you do. Or perhaps you are trying to set boundaries but are getting pushback, and then you stop trying. But feeling frustrated with the dysfunctional dance and really wanting things to change, you try again. This start-and-stop is normal when learning a new skill, but it can come across as a mixed message in a relationship.

If this is the case for you, you may need to reassess your emotional response tools. Are you still using some impulsive reactions that are familiar but not very functional? This is an opportunity to review chapter 4 and your responses to “Exercise: No Boundaries and/or Enmeshment.” More importantly, though, don’t think that something is wrong with your boundaries just because the other person doesn’t respect them. This person may want to avoid the topic, not like what you are saying, or is narcissistically inclined. In any case, you may want to observe and evaluate the relationship.

When relationship dynamics are not changing and healing, you may be reluctant to set boundaries. It may be difficult for you to own your truth, or you may be indirect with your communication or scared that you may lose the relationship if you are honest. Perhaps you don’t want to cause an argument and cringe at the idea of doing so. This avoidance is simply fear. You are stronger than you realize. Even if the relationship dynamics are not changing and things are not getting better, within yourself you are making more progress than you think.

When relationships aren’t changing no matter how hard you try, look at what you can change and control, then evaluate whether or not the relationship is fulfilling to you. You may find that your relationships do change over time. This gradual process of reevaluating relationships happens over time because you are discerning what feels right to you, what is working, and what is going against you. You are learning to trust yourself and the process.

Relationships are always changing and shifting because they are dynamic. Gaps are going to occur even in established, solid, functional relationships. This is when you will need to check in with yourself, evaluate if something doesn’t feel connected, and discern why you are not in attunement with someone else. Ask yourself what you can control or change in yourself without compromising your boundaries in order to make this connection more functional.

Remember, you are doing your healing work from the inside out. Just because your outside world doesn’t completely reflect how you feel inside doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong. It means that you cannot control other people. You are living your authentic life, and in time you will attract and cultivate relationships that are fulfilling, reciprocal, and rewarding. Take ownership of your own life choices instead of looking for other people to change for your comfort.

As you do this healing work, the people with whom you are aligned and attuned will be there for you. Those who don’t connect with who and what you are today will begin to drift away. Like attracts like. Your attunement will resonate with others who have done their healing work. You do not have to go through your contact list and cut people out. Connections and disconnections are going to happen naturally, and you will see who is able to grow with you and who is stuck in their own dysfunctional wounding.

Continue to observe yourself and others. Know that you now have the functional response tools to create positive outcomes for yourself. You want to be in the flow of your life, to stay grounded and consciously aware of the choices you make. You no longer have to react to life, you are your life’s creator.

At the end of each day, take stock of your interactions with yourself and others. Notice where you did a good job with boundary setting and where there are gaps in your boundaries. Notice where you are doing a good job with your responses to others and where you need to practice using functional response tools. Notice where you are doing a good job encouraging yourself and where you are still beating up on yourself. Notice where you are expanding or contracting.

If you feel good about your interactions with others, then congratulations. You are honoring yourself and your relationships. If you still feel resentful or uneasy after an interaction, then reassess your role in the relationship and determine whether you need better internal boundaries or better external boundaries. This is not about perfection, it is about observation and gently guiding yourself to create good relationships with yourself and others.

You Have Come So Far

You have come a long way, far more than you realize. Think about everything you have learned about yourself and how far you have come. The understanding you have about yourself now is probably quite different from what you had when you began working through this process. You have given yourself permission to break down barriers and illusions about yourself, and are learning to look at and hold your hurt, pain, and fear. You are learning to create a sense of gentle closure within yourself for all of the wounding experiences from your childhood. You are being honest with yourself and your wounded past. The HEAL process has helped you to see how your once-hidden woundings kept resurfacing in indirect ways until you acknowledged this lost part of you and gave it a voice.

You were able to identify parts of your past that carried this wounding, and you helped it to clearly communicate feelings that were long buried but still felt. In doing, so you were able to rate the level of the pain, giving yourself a way to internally measure the intensity of the wounding.

You created a dialogue between the wounded parts and the adult part of you that didn’t understand and couldn’t see what was happening. This exchange opened up the communication so, that you could clearly know in real time how all parts of you are feeling and when these wounded parts show up in your day-to-day life. You have encouraged your responsible adult self, which has always been there but maybe in the background, to step forward and claim strength and agency.

Once you were able to reach through all of the pain and the responsible adult self could hold that younger wounded part, then that part of you began to relax and trust that you were going to do your best to protect all of you. The boundaries that you employ will assist in reminding all parts of you that you can protect yourself in your personal relationships. These boundaries are the infrastructure that will keep you on course so that you can achieve your dreams and intentions.

Today your age of wounding is no longer lit up bright and flashing. It no longer gets triggered because you learned to listen to this wounding, heard its call, and addressed its needs. You are seeing what is right with you, not just what is wrong with you.

Don’t let anything stand in the way of reclaiming your authentic self. Keep practicing your skills of boundary setting, owning and speaking your truth, and living your life as authentically as you can. Read over your earlier writing, notes, and answers to the exercises you did. Notice how you described events and situations at that time. Reread your healing letters. Ask yourself if you would describe those same events today in the same way, using the same feeling words. Do you have the same feelings about them now as you did when you wrote them? Or has your perspective shifted and you now have a wiser, calmer view of those experiences?

How have your relationships shifted? What patterns do you notice keep happening, and what parts can you control? Do you hear and see people differently now that you are growing and expanding? Notice how you may be drawn to people who are authentic, balanced, and happier instead of those who are drama-filled emotional vampires. Pay attention to these relationships, and listen to what your subconscious— your wise mind—tells you. Continue to trust your feelings and speak your truth so that you can live with a greater sense of freedom and love for yourself.

Embracing Your Authentic Self

Your emotional wounding is no longer stuck in a snow globe wondering if there is a way out. You are well on your way to enjoying emotional freedom and embracing your authentic self. You are learning how to become your own best champion and how to be there for yourself in times of struggle and triumph. You are learning to hold and cherish those parts that once felt lost and abandoned and now feel integrated with and embraced by all of you.

You have learned new ways to reconnect and encourage that authentic, resilient part of you that was always there to come out and be full size again. You have learned how to honor your traumas and your triumphs because each has value, as all of you has value. You have learned that even though you are not perfect, you are perfectly imperfect, and there is no one else like you.

Your healing journey is going to have ripple effects throughout all of your relationships. By walking in your authentic truth, you will be showing others that you love, trust, and respect yourself. Others who are seeking this for themselves will be drawn to you because you have something they long for.

Because of your hard work, you will be able to authentically step up and be present and emotionally available to yourself and others. You will be able to claim your truth and speak with clarity, honoring yourself in all of your relationships. You will be able to name your wounded parts when they show up, greet them, and know what you need to do to heal them.

Feel the glow of self-love as it builds in you, filling in the cracks where you once held pain and sorrow. Let this wash over you like a healing balm that you have been yearning for all of your life. Feel your true, authentic self emerge and grow stronger day by day.

Living an Authentic Life

You are learning to be a conscious creator of your life instead of reacting to the world, and you are now on your way to living an authentic life. As you have gone through the HEAL process, you have learned that having clarity is key to being able to see yourself through a healed lens.

One of the ways to keep this focus sharp is to develop some intentions for yourself. Intentions will help you stay strong and true to yourself and foster new beginnings on your path to becoming a creator and a manifestor. They will help you to discern that you are following your own path instead of blindly following someone else’s.

Intentions are higher ideals or goals that speak to the part of you that is healing and seeking balance. These are the qualities of self that you want to embody, cherish, and aspire to. They are statements written in positive, present-tense language. The following are some intentions for you to refer to when you need a gentle reminder of your strength and wisdom:

• I am kind and gentle with myself.
• I love myself.
• I trust myself.
• I respect myself.
• I find the motivation to move my body.
• I am proud that I am eating well and nourishing my body.
• I respect my sense of self and know what is good for me and what isn’t.
• I can say no to someone else, own it, and not feel guilty.
• Every day, in every way, I live my life to its fullest.
• My boundaries help me feel a sense of safety in my personal relationships.
• I make better choices about who I surround myself with on a daily basis.
• I feel good about who I am in my relationships with others.
• I feel respected, loved, and trusted by those in my life.
• My relationships nurture me and feel reciprocal.
• I bring others into my life who are emotionally healthy and create positive relationships.
• I am grateful that I continue to work on my relationship with myself because, in the end, I matter the most.
• I am proud of all of my hard work and my accomplishments.
• Today I am wiser than I ever thought I could become.

Use these intentions as a guide, and create your own intentions that match the aspirations you have for your authentic life. Some of your intentions may already be happening in your life. Using them will help you to continue developing new functional response tools. They will help you to discern and create better boundaries so that you can create functional, loving relationships with yourself and others.

The following are some messages I hope you can deeply feel and know within yourself. Read them aloud from the grounded place inside of you that holds your healed self and feels the self-love you are encouraging and growing each day.

I wish you many fulfilling days ahead as you bring your best self forward and love, trust, and respect yourself. You have come full circle. Your lost wounded parts are integrated with your responsible adult self. You are no longer lost or wounded. You have rejoined with your authentic self. Welcome home.

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