Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Daily Om - Healing Childhood Wounds


Today's Daily Om looks at Healing Childhood Wounds, which is one of the basic intents of any good therapy. All of us have places where we were emotionally wounded (and therefore stuck in our development) when we were children. The only way to get unstuck is to heal those wounds.

Going Back By Going Within
Healing Childhood Wounds

Events from childhood, our first experiences, have the power to shape our lives. Some do so immediately, offering us challenges to overcome and encouragement to make use of our talents and interests. In the process character is built, and we make the first steps upon our personal paths. Other events seem to lay dormant until adulthood, when our closest relationships help to bring out the deepest aspects of ourselves. This is when unexamined lessons can be put to use and untended childhood wounds make themselves known in a call for healing.

We may discover issues of trust coming up, or perhaps we find ourselves mirroring actions from our past instinctively. No matter the case, we have the power within us to heal ourselves at the deepest level. With the wisdom of an adult, we can be the loving parent or guardian we needed as a child. Knowing that we are each whole spiritual beings having a human experience, we can nurture ourselves from that wholeness, and then reach out to others as well. We can recreate scenarios in our mind’s eye, trying different outcomes and following them to their logical conclusions. In doing so, we may be able to imagine possible reasons a situation occurred as it did, and even accept that it could not have happened any other way. With the wisdom born from age and experience, we might be able to see events from a different perspective, bringing new understanding and freeing ourselves from any hold the past may have on us.

Life offers opportunities to clear these weeds in the gardens of our souls. However, when we want to focus on easier and more pleasant tasks, we are likely to pass up the chances, leaving the wounds to continue to drain our energy and resources for living life fully today. We might find we need support to face the events of the past, so turning to a trained professional who can offer tools for healing can be a valid choice. As long as we remember that the child we were lives on within us, we are always free to go back and right old wrongs, correct mistaken perceptions, heal wounds, forgive, and begin anew.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello.
Thanks for using my image for your article. Although I appreciate that the object of this blog is to help others rather than to make profit, please be considerate to those trying to make a living from their creativity and please ask for usage permission next time. I'm sure I would have granted it for non-profit use, but it is at least a courtesy to ask.

Thanks and good luck with the blog.

Richard Wilkinson