Hi everyone. The day after I started writing on this blog for the very first time you might be able to guess what happened–I woke up in the morning with the dreaded feeling of Guilt like a black cloud hanging over my head. In the past I might have felt guilty and spiraled into negativity but thank goodness I knew what to do. I observed this feeling instead of falling into it. I was actually grateful for my new awareness of knowing and being able to label this feeling as Guilt. (I used to just feel numb or a generalized anxiety in the morning–it was a familiar and comfortable state–it was how I survived as a child.) I said to myself, okay this makes sense to feel this feeling today after the success of my first blog. This is Childhood Pain Coming Up to Heal Because Things Are Going Well. This powerful phrase has helped my husband and I so many times. I learned about this from John Gray–in one of the last chapters in his Venus and Mars book. This was one tiny section which I feel was so important he could’ve written a whole book on it for the impact it made on my husband and I.
I realized I had internalized shame that showed up after I had successes that made me feel good about myself. I believe ultimately as a small child that I believed “there is something wrong with me. I am guilty–it is all my fault.” To survive I had to repress all the anger and fear at having been blamed unfairly. I was a highly sensitive child. I desperately needed love and approval. So I settled for conditional love–I became an obedient and anxious shell of a person.
So I had expressed my true authentic self by writing my truth and my inner child was expecting to be punished and blamed and felt guilty. What I have learned is that the strong part of me which now knows the truth is able to comfort the wounded child in me that still feels fear and insecurity and blamed and guilty. See, as a child we make decisions and believe them so thoroughly it’s very hard to change the neural pathways in our brains that are so deeply set. The negative thoughts are so automatic–that’s how we survived. But we can change those pathways in our brains by becoming aware that the negative things we are saying to ourselves are from a wounded child’s perspective! As highly sensitive people, we know how to nurture and love and comfort other people through their self-doubt and fear–so by taking that wounded child inside of you and comforting yourself you can change your inner child’s beliefs about yourself and the pathways of negative spiraling thoughts. Realizing that I had to be the one to love myself and that noone was going to do it for me was a big revelation and turning point for me. Learning to comfort myself with positive affirmations and taking it easy when these big overwhelming feelings come up is now something that comes much easier.
So do I still feel guilty about my speaking out and writing on this blog? In a way the guilt is still there but it is small and completely manageable. And the part of me that is strong, wise, and knows the truth is keeping it in check–telling the wounded child in me that it is going to be okay and I am doing the right thing by speaking my truth. Do I have days when I still succumb to the child part in me and spiral negatively and beat myself up in despair? No, not any longer but I used to and it was a gradual process to get me where I am now. It used to happen mostly in the mornings and sometimes I couldn’t stop it right away. But then, there usually came a time of awareness a short time later, on the same day, when I realized this was a brand new layer of unbearable pain from my childhood that came up to heal because things were going well. My inner child felt safe enough to show it to me and say hey this really bad injustice happened to me and I needed to let it out finally. These are days when I put everything else aside–my list of things to do can wait until tomorrow. I allow myself to grieve for the childhood I never had and deserved. I comfort myself with my favorite things and am nice to myself like I deserved to be treated as a child-legitimate needs that went unmet until now are being healed–by me. I am a nurturing, supportive, comforting mom to myself. I can do it! And so can you. Ultimately this process is what a good empathic coach or inner child counselor is for. They are someone you can trust with the pain of your inner child to help you figure out the truth of what really happened and help you grieve. Then, when you can comfort yourself through the worst of the feelings that come up, then you know you no longer need the coach. You can take care of and love yourself through anything!
Thank you for reading! I hope my words have been helpful to you.
With Love,
Roxanne
Hope and Healing Haven 
I had the same childhood….look forward to reading more.
Alana
P.S. Good Luck in your healing
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Alana, Thank you so much for your comment–it will help others with our same childhood know they are not alone. Your kind words are also helpful to my healing–by helping me know that I am reaching people like you.
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I’m so glad i found your blog. thank you. You’ve given me hope that I can someday turn off that negative voice and feel good about myself .
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Gina, Thank you so much for your comment. It is for people like you that I write this blog. Thank you for letting me know that I am giving you hope–your kind words give me renewed strength. Thank you!
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i feel like u were talking about me i am going through counselling and am coming against strong feelings as truths come to light .thankyou for helping me to be strong and not feel like its just me sending love trish
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Trish, Thank you for your comment. I like how you say the strong feelings are “truths come to light”. This is so true. You ARE strong and have much insight. It is not just “you”! :)–you are the strong one to seek counseling so you can heal. Good for you! You deserve a happy life! With Warmest wishes and Love, Roxanne
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Thank you for referring me to this post. I have been fighting negative core beliefs since I was little because of my childhood. I feel like I had confidently corrected most of these beliefs till last year when I reincriminated myself with negative core beliefs. I feel I was in a crucial spot where I needed to continue to move forward by showing my true self to others, which was finally uninhibited by anxiety and health problems. But I failed to show my true joyful self to others and instead, curled up and went backwards. I felt terribly guilty because I had worked hard for years to get to that point of healing, and I was finally there and somehow, didn’t feel I had anyone to share this with. I also realised uncomfortably that when my anxiety was actually gone and I was honestly confident in myself, I was acting as if I still had it. Tara
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Thank you, Tara, for your comment and for sharing your feelings. I feel you are much stronger than you realize. Keep shining your light especially on your self and your inner child. .. use extreme-self-care whenever you feel hard on yourself. Your comments will help many others know they are not alone. With warmest wishes to you, Roxanne
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I had a breakthrough this morning while journaling that I would like to share in case it helps others overcome feeling guilty about no contact, taking care of themselves and dealing with perceptions of how “good” children act towards their parents.
I wrote “I can honor my mother and the role she is supposed to fill in my life by being a truly loving person towards myself and my own children; by truly honoring what the role of a mother SHOULD be. I can honor my mother by mothering myself to fill in the holes of what she wasn’t able to but SHOULD have done for me. In short, I can honor my mother by helping to do the mothering she is incapable of doing herself.”
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Healing Path, Thank you for sharing this, I agree. 😀 Journaling helps us to connect to the right side of our brain and give us access to clarity and positive solutions whenever our inner critic creeps in–and then we feel so much better! Your higher self is very wise. Warmest wishes to you, Roxanne
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That is beautiful. Your quote is such a wonderful way of viewing and dealing with the situation. I love it.
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