10 Signs Your Inner Child Is Still Wounded

Many adults from toxic homes don't even recognize how their childhoods have impacted them as adults. Toxic family systems are set up to deny the root cause of family dysfunction despite the children of the homes feeling as if they are choking on what the family won't and can't admit to. Emotions are our truth, but so many of us don't know how to interpret what they are trying to tell us. In this episode Lisa helps you understand 10 signs your inner child is still wounded and needs your attention

Transcript

Welcome to the breakdown to breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa a Romano.

I am a life coach best-selling author YouTube vlogger meditation teacher and expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse I am a believer in the power of an organized mind My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness Rather than living a reactive life May your heart feel blessed your mind feel expanded and your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the breakdown to breakthrough podcast So today we're going to be talking about signs that your inner child has been triggered due to childhood trauma So what is a trigger a trigger is anything anything that happens outside of you that causes an internal visceral risk?

That is tied to a moment in time when we are too young to process or to understand what was happening outside of us So I want to talk about ten signs your inner child needs your attention now,

So you feel anxious around loudmouth other people you feel like this person is obnoxious and you are irritated and you are angry and One of the things that you'll notice in yourself is that when you're around people like this,

You don't feel well You might feel like you want to tell them to shut up And if this is the case you might want to consider Who in your life made you feel like they had no consideration for other people?

Who in your life just took control over conversations?

Who in your life was so loud and so rude that they humiliated you or embarrassed you who made you feel?

Embarrassed as a child if you were raised by someone who was obnoxious who was a loudmouth You got the sense that what you felt was unimportant that what other people felt was unimportant So there's this lack of empathy and consideration for other people that might be very triggering for you today So if you are really triggered in the moment and you have a hard time letting go of this person you ruminate about this person or when you're around this person you feel like it's your job to shut them down right or You are at a point where you're afraid of being around this person and you are now avoiding this person It might be a great strategy but what I'm trying to point out is if you as An adult remember you're an adult today if you are responding very viscerally to people who are obnoxious Right,

And it's hard for you to let that go It might be time for you to figure out who do these people remind you of from the past?

So chances are someone in your life showed little regard for you and your family perhaps it was an alcoholic uncle or a shaming stepmother who chose her children over yours and shamed you in public as You uncover who this person reminds you of you also uncover the wounds of your inner child that needs your utmost attention This may be tied to feeling embarrassed as a child or to living with someone who lacked empathy for others So the second sign that you're in a child needs some attention Is that you are sensitive to when other people have accused you of things that you are not guilty of if you find that over?

And over you react strongly to someone who accuses you of something you did not do and especially if you are someone Who I called him a dead horse speeders.

This is someone who just can't let it go Can't let it go you hear the story over and over and I've been guilty of that myself Because sometimes people just say and do things that you can't wrap your mind around But I think when we have wounded in and children who have been Subjected to persecution unfair and unjust persecution as children and that is unhealed in us We have an unmet need of feeling understood.

We can still be triggered in the now which means that someone else has power over us someone else has the ability to knock us offline and Take us out of a grounded state.

And so last night I was I had a vision of my higher self like being maybe Awareness being let's say 10 inches off my crown chakra and I had this idea that Metaphorically as I raised my level of self-awareness Imagine that my level of self-awareness my state of consciousness is tied to all of my chakras and that as I've gained Self-awareness my chakras start to come into alignment So this idea of healing the wounded child puts you in a very powerful position Because as you heal other people have less control over you and I think that's really exciting and we get to stay grounded So that really is the goal however When we find ourselves really being upset by someone who has said something or accused us of something that we didn't do We have to recognize that we may have been unjustly persecuted by a raging parent who projected their emotional unresolved trauma upon upon us The problem is the trigger is an experience of the past Subconscious and so as long as we continue to be to react to being accused of something we didn't do we we remain stuck repeat repeating these childhood faulty programs We feel like we have to defend ourselves when we really don't we end up engaging with toxic others in Unhealthy dynamics instead of detaching and letting go Another sign that you're in a child need some help is that you are highly agreeable and people You know have told you that you need to set boundaries.

So shame leads to codependency and When we are codependent we are living below the veil and do not realize our behaviors are rooted to the desire to get our unmet Needs met when we are codependent we people please to avoid being abandoned But we can also become highly critical of others when they do not meet our unconscious needs Codependence often hold the belief that others should just know what we need.

I know I did that especially my first marriage I just thought that if I do everything for you,

You should actually know what I need But the truth was I didn't even know what I needed.

I was just playing this codependent game Codependence often hold the belief that people should read their minds.

This is a mirror for a childhood wound It's subconscious,

But it's a mirror to a wound.

The wound is feeling unseen by our parents So children are not supposed to ask to get their needs met Parents are supposed to know what the child needs Parents are supposed to be attuned to the child and we carry this idea that you should just know me,

Dude Like you should just know what I need and why aren't you meeting my needs and we can get caught up in trying to change Someone so we don't know that we're codependent We don't know that We just figure that people should just know what we need and then we get caught up thinking that we have the right to change Someone especially if we are taking care of them and so codependency you can be seen as a passive codependent and completely subjugate your needs like my mom did just Bury herself inside this dynamic and try to acquiesce and take care of my dad no boundaries or we can be someone who is taking care of someone and just expects our partner to Meet our needs and to anticipate our needs like our parents were supposed to and in that space of unconsciousness We're acting out this childhood trauma and we don't know that we're doing it so we can become critical and or subjugate our needs for the sake of others and Stay locked inside dynamics and we fail to set boundaries for ourselves So we can be someone who fails to set boundaries with someone who is abusive and we can fail to set boundaries with ourself When we're being critical of someone and just expecting them to read our mind So chances are that if this is the case for you You felt invisible as a child and you may struggle to set boundaries with others today and even yourself of needing to feel seen So if you're able to change someone,

Oh,

They see me and then you feel good.

So your sense of worthiness is tied to External sources which we need to reel in and take care of you don't take care of yourself This is another sign.

So when we feel unsafe as children,

We often assume blame for the feeling of feeling disconnected from our parents and so if we were never cared for physically if we our parents didn't take us to the doctor or if our parents were Had poor hygiene if our parents didn't care about taking care of our teeth If there was no attention paid to the care of a child you weren't bathed your hair wasn't brushed You were sent to school with you know,

Nasty food if at all there was no food in the cabinet.

There was Alcohol there were drugs there was time to drink and party But there was no care for you like parents were there they were partying or they were absorbed in their Laptops or whatever and you were just kind of there to fend for yourself this idea that you don't know how to take care of Yourself,

You don't have the data for it.

So as a child as an adult child today,

You're not taking care of yourself You don't don't know how to put yourself first and that's really not your fault So chances are as a child you learn to feel unworthy of love and respect Your lack of taking care of yourself may be tied to the absence of attention paid to you as a person as a valuable human being How do you know that you're worthy?

Except if your parents treat you as if you are and if your parents are treating themselves poorly and They're ignoring your needs as well as their own then you don't have any data for taking care of yourself So number five you feel like you need to be heard and you fight to be understood I know that this was one of my issues So if you have a wounded in a child you may fight to be understood by others You may find it difficult to let go when you feel misunderstood We forget that people can only experience us as 3d human beings to the level of their level of self-awareness we forget that when people are accusing us of things that we're not guilty of or they're Misunderstanding us or they may even be gaslighting and blame-shifting playing that narcissistic mind game we forget that the person we're dealing with can only meet us where they are and we fail to take on Stock of the idea that this is a trigger from the past and that in the now we can recognize that this person may be Toxic for our mental health this person doesn't get me will never get me.

They're stuck at this level of self-awareness I really don't need to defend myself You might be someone who writes a bunch of emails or never lets go of the text text chain You just keep going keep going or you keep these Facebook messages going you're trying to prove your point It may be because as a child you were often persecuted for things you did not do so you felt misunderstood You may have been pushed punished for breathing For walking and talking if you had siblings that lied to get you into trouble Or if your parents were distrusting and they never listened to you As an adult you may be triggered when it is suggested that what you said was misunderstood.

So you have this need to feel Understood because you never felt understood as a child number six happy people piss you off So when your inner child is wounded happy people when you see them in your environment my trigger you might upset you as a child You may have compared your life to other people You may have found yourself envious and angry at the little girl down the block Who seemed to have a wonderful relationship with her family and your ego may be stuck projecting anger Upon others as a way to avoid feeling sad Remember ego is has a bunch of defense mechanisms all designed to protect us from feeling too bad,

Right?

So it's a very sophisticated yet simple design that the more we understand it the better we have control over ourselves So chances are if you are upset when other people seem to have what you want This means this experience is something you did not have you felt loss of it Jealousy is assigned are wounded in a child needs attention So jealousy is tied to feeling ashamed of not being able to acquire what other people have When we take the time to get to the root source of envy we inevitably happen upon a wounded in a child Who was only trying not to implode due to emotional neglect and in that space we're able to Cry we're able to have empathy for the little girl that we were and in that space We're able to reparent the wounded in a child with love and affection and empathy and understandings number seven You are a crusader for underdogs and feel powerless to change the world now Empathy is a wonderful thing and feeling compelled to be a voice for underdogs It's also a beautiful and wonderful thing,

But not at the expense of yourself So if you feel driven to do this and you can't sleep and you can't eat and this is all day long and you're losing yourself you might understand that you are moving from perhaps a position of a Place inside of you that is very wounded that is unhealed and these needs have gone unmet So you've lost your center.

You've lost your balance you your desire to help people might even be pushed into the illogical or Irrational realm you might be really taking on behaviors that cause you to Lose your home that cause you to really put yourself in debt put yourself in danger So the desire to help other people is amazing,

But remember not at the expense of yourself So if you find yourself constantly defending or fighting for underdogs,

And if doing so leaves you exhausted Frustrated and angry.

Oh,

You might want to take a moment and ask yourself if you felt like an underdog as a child Who was unprotected and defenseless?

You may have felt like you never had a voice as a child or who did you watch in your experience?

Was your mom that was abused by dad and did you do you identify with needing to take care of mom?

Well vice versa was a dad who was abused by you know You know a malevolent stepmother And do you feel like you wish that you could have taken care of dad and protected him from this?

Evil stepmother and so you want to go back and ask yourself these questions Where is this desire to help the underdog?

Come from ask yourself if you felt unprotected and powerless and if speaking up for others might be a mirror For feeling like you never had a voice as a child or a mirror for the person that you loved that you think was powerless As a child when you were a child that you wish you could have protected and taken care of so number eight you feel like others Are looking to hurt you in some way and your relationships are often turbulent if you find yourself unable to trust others and this feeling leads to accusing people of things you believe they have done and If you discover that others are finding it harder to spend time with you This may be a sign that you wounded in a child is aching to feel seen I am not talking about being in a relationship someone who has betrayed you who is gaslighting you that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about the times where we feel ourselves distrusting of people that on some level we think we should be able to trust and we struggle with not accusing them of twisting our words we struggle with not accusing them of doing something that Maybe they didn't do right.

I have someone in my life who?

Does this on a daily and Often this feeling of distrust just comes through through a text it comes through through Accusations and I know that this person is very wounded But sometimes it's very hard for me to tolerate it and we're just like I'm done Because what he experienced in childhood has made him distrust people and I get that but I have a boundary these days.

So it's Important that we recognize this in ourselves and we have boundaries with ourselves that we learn to trust ourself and to be more fair Part of that process is recognizing where does this distrust of other people come from?

Especially if you're someone whose relationships are constantly turbulent,

So it's not just your wife.

It's not just your husband.

It's your children It's not just your children.

It's people at work You have a history of getting into a lot of arguments with people at work You just generally feel dissatisfied with people you can argue with people on Facebook.

You can argue with people in Dunkin Donuts It's just it seems that this you distrust people and it's difficult for you to contain that That's a sign that your inner child is wounded and you need help So chances are if you feel unsafe around others You never learn to trust those who you loved and who should have loved you You may have been verbally emotionally and physically abused as a child and definitely emotionally abandoned and rejected you May have felt betrayed by those who should have been able to trust and as a result you view the world as unsafe You may feel like prey and assume everyone is an is untrustworthy You may misinterpret text messages and body language and project your unresolved emotional trauma and psychological needs for safety upon others Staying on guard and being the boss of your life is your way of making sure others don't take advantage of you So you have this no one's going to take advantage of me thing going on It's it's like a sub current in your life when this process goes and checks checked You can become highly suspicious of others and even push potentially good relationships away Number nine you feel like others don't want you around.

So this feeling like No one really loves me.

It's almost like if you think about you know,

You're in Winnie the Pooh Oh,

Well,

No one really loves me.

No one really wants me around I guess I'll just go sit over here If you walk around feeling like no one wants you or loves you this is a sign your inner child has decided that you are Unworthy and doesn't it make any sense to even try you've given up trying your ego is decided it hurts too much to try So to prevent more pain you just accept your unworthiness and assume that others just don't want you around This helps to avoid possible future rejection and feelings of abandonment But it also prevents you from loving yourself feeling good feelings and eventually finding the ability to withstand abandonment without abandoning itself When we have healed or we're getting close to healing that did uh,

We no longer fear Abandonment we no longer fear rejection.

We're at a point where people are allowed to feel what they feel about us And it's so liberating.

It is so amazing,

Right?

But this comes from Helping the inner child see that this is not your fault You are worthy you are divine and these things just shouldn't have happened to you But because they happened you feel this way and so acknowledging why you feel the way you feel going back to the beginning is Very very helpful when you're trying to heal the inner child's wounds that are created by childhood trauma So chances are if you felt like you feel like others don't want you around You've got this ER thing going on your family taught you that you were different in some way You learn to believe that everything was your fault.

No matter how hard you tried you could not gain love You may have been betrayed many times Betrayed many times over and over and over until ultimately you decided it just isn't worth trying anymore Rather than risk abandonment you isolate and do all you can to avoid being triggered by rejection Maybe your toxic family did not want you around.

Maybe that's the truth Maybe that was true However,

It is possible to heal the inner child so they no longer need to believe others don't want them around in order for you To feel safe.

So number ten you shut down when you think others are angry with you This is a big one childhood homes lacked that lack safety cause children to live in fear of other people's anger When mommy and daddy got angry bad things happened We may have been hit cold names persecuted punished humiliated denied food or even basic human rights Our parents may have stopped talking to us Love and affection were withheld in response to a parent perceiving a child as the cause of their anger the parents immaturity narcissism and patterns of distorted cognitive thinking confusing that confuses the child as well as A result the child assumes they had the power to make the parent angry the child internalizes responsibility and then feels shame for the subsequent anger if You lived in fear of your parents anger as an adult You may shut down when others are angry and fails to set boundaries around adult relationships that may be threatening or toxic So you may be codependent you may fail to set boundaries You may have an inability to tell people know this is where people-pleasing comes from You may lack tremendous self-worth and you may feel like it's your role in the family to keep everything together You are the fixer,

You know You are the glue of the family How are you the glue of the office?

Everyone needs you and if everyone needs you that makes you feel safe because you're getting a sense of worthiness from that But it also makes you super super responsible for the needs of others and the emotional set points of others Which you really can't control So now you've backed yourself into a corner as long as you keep monitoring Jack's attitude Mary's attitude Susie's emotions as long as you keep doing that you feel safe but eventually you hit a tipping point where you just can't manage the emotions of other people anymore and you just Begin to emotionally implode.

I got to that place and my body was falling apart and I realized sacred energy that should have been Flowing in a way that allowed me to love myself and bring love into myself was being wasted and dissipated Into arenas that were like black holes Ultimately,

You cannot control someone else's emotions But when you think that you should as he wounded in a child,

You don't know that so in your adult body in the 3d you develop codependency you act these experiences out and You deplete yourself the sacred energy and then your body systems cannot function without the sacred energy and we begin to get ill We develop autoimmune issues.

We get we have disease in the body.

And so chances are your home was rigid It was controlling it was aggressive and oppressive You may have learned earlier that that the goal was to keep your parents happy and if you stepped out of line But the lines always changed anyway,

Or if you broke a family rule,

But the rules were always changing.

Anyway,

You would be punished as A safety mechanism you shut down instead of speaking up Speaking up is akin to harm Your inner child has been activated and your higher self or parent self needs to get back online.

So I wanted to talk about Some of the things or some of the ideas that you can ask yourself in my work I do a lot of journaling prompts with my clients and in my programs And so I want to offer you some of those prompts now to see if you can really begin your inner child healing today So what I would like you to ask yourself is a few questions.

What are the character traits of people that trigger you?

What are they list those character traits?

Are they loud?

Are they obnoxious?

Are they unfair?

Do they tend to put other people down?

Do they exploit other people or do they exploit underdogs figure out what those traits are that upset you are the alcoholic?

Do they offer people sob stories?

Do they play the victim?

What traits and other people's trigger you?

What kinds of things do they say that upset you do they make you feel rushed?

Do they say things like hurry up?

Do they say you're crazy?

Do they say you have no right to feel that way?

What are some of the words that they use that trigger you identify that?

What do these traits and what do these?

Phrases what do they remind you of see if see if you can create some type of an idea of what?

What you experience as a child and how these phrases and how these character traits?

May have affected you when you were little who do they remind you of really name the people in your life that?

Made you feel this way What wound are they activating?

Do you feel unseen?

Do you feel unheard?

Do you feel persecuted?

Do you feel misunderstood?

Do you feel invisible?

Do you feel unsafe?

How does your inner child feel around people that make you feel this way today?

So name it I feel anxious I feel Distrusting I feel angry.

I feel like I want to run away.

I feel like I want to isolate how what happens How does your inner child feel around these people?

How old is the inner child who is subconsciously triggered by these people today?

Remember that the age you were when you experienced grandma's rejection or the age you were when you saw mommy You know get abused or the age you were a daddy walked out of the house is very important because the younger you were The more powerless you felt the more visceral these triggers are going to feel what is your inner child most afraid of is it abandonment?

Is it rejection is it criticism is it feeling not good enough is it feeling left out is it is it the fear of persecution?

Is it the fear of having other people talk about you and not being able to control what they say about you?

Try to unwind what is it your poor inner child is afraid of a nasty co-worker who reminds you of your dad?

How does this relationship with this co-worker or your perception or your trigger of this person?

How is how is it affecting you at work?

Do you find that you're thinking about this person?

Are you subjugating your needs for this person?

Are you seeking their approval?

Are you sabotaging their work?

Are you withholding?

Are you nasty to them?

How is it affecting your ability to stay grounded in the body?

Stay in the now and do a great job at work You need to know how your actions are being affected by your feelings and your thinking remember the equation beliefs beliefs thinking feelings actions outcomes So we want to make sure that you're understanding that how you think about this person affects your feelings and affects your outcomes your outcomes the way that you're behaving and without understanding clearly and And finding the space of detachment so you can observe how you're responding to this trigger.

You don't have any control over it So that's what we want to do is we're raising your level of self-awareness so you can identify how this is affecting you What were the names those people that you believe made you feel unsafe as a child name them?

This is going to help you connect the dots.

What does your inner child need today?

So let's bring it back to the now.

What do you need today?

What does your inner child need to hear?

What does your inner child need to know was wrong?

About the way that they were treated.

So now this is you reparenting yourself.

Were they alcoholics?

Were they narcissistic were they codependent were they immature were they people who had their own childhood trauma?

What do they what does your inner child need to know about these people?

This is now you're raising that level of awareness of your inner child What behaviors do you need to change in and now in order to help your inner child feel safe loved understood and cared for?

So these the ideas that you from a more objective plane and more conscious right a more realistic plane You're recognizing that you do have a wounded inner child you have unmet needs you have belief systems that are faulty You have behaviors that have developed as a result of repetition observation and consistency when you were a child that are really the product of an ego trying to figure out how to meet the needs of the inner child as well as keep the inner child safe and the more awareness you gain around the process of Why and how the inner child was wounded in the first place how you are behaving today when triggered?

Allows you to develop a higher sense of awareness higher self-awareness and in the space of self-awareness You can develop the ability to heal the inner child and from that space once you've acknowledged the inner child you are free to Offer the inner child what he or she always deserved which is witnessing Accepting validating and have an empathy for the inner child so we end up ending our need to please We end up putting the inner child first we develop the ability to be logical and reasonable in the now So if there are people in our lives that we need to set boundaries with we set boundaries Even if our knees are shaking we set a boundary and we fall back on I'm doing this for my inner child,

Right?

It is so much easier for wounded a wounded adult child to conceive and conceptualize conceptualize this idea that I need to protect my inner child that it is to protect the self so I know that that helped me a lot when I really began to see the wounded inner child within me little Lisa who just loved And who felt abandoned no matter what she did she could not gain the validation and attention and a connection to her parents And who as an adult was still living out that pattern and program.

Please love me.

Please love me.

Please need me and Thinking that if you need me,

You'll never leave me and Realizing that was my egos way of trying to get this unmet need met this need for connection and belonging But realizing from a higher state of awareness how dysfunctional this way of relating was to my own psyche How dysfunctional it was to my own life how dysfunctional it was to my relationships how it was magical thinking thinking if I could just be better people love me and how this Caused me to be very controlling it controlling it sometimes but below the veil thinking that well if I do everything for you Then you'll just gonna know how to take care of me.

That was my little girl three years old Well,

If I draw mommy this picture of a rainbow,

Then she'll know that I need a hug You know If I put my shoes in the in the drawer Then mommy knows that I need a hug if I eat all my food then mommy knows that I'm a little good little girl And and she'll love me and so this magical thinking,

You know gets played out in our adult relationships and it's dysfunctional and We oftentimes Sabotage what could have been a really healthy relationship and that's why I think it's so important for us to do the work Many of us don't want to do the inner child work.

We don't we think we're past it or we think we're too spiritual We think we know too much right?

We could be highly intellectual and cerebral and think this is so silly.

Yeah,

Okay It's not gonna work when you ignore your foot has gained green.

It just spreads So if you have a wounded inner child you wounded in a child needs attention And I can only hope that this session has given you some tools and insights that you can use to begin this amazing recovery work Now I'm gonna see everybody until next time

Reviews

Just wow, this meditation is extremely helpfully, thank you so so so much for sharing it 🥰🥰🫶🏾🫶🏾🙏🏼🙏🏼☀️☀️

The series of questions you asked were extremely helpful. I feel the questions you asked in this podcast are really helping me dive into doing the inner child work with self-love and boldness. Thank you.

I'm not too cerebral to do 'the work'..I answered yes to many of your examples but as a a very flawed single parent to my two young adult children now, it feels somewhat indulgent & undeserving of me, to mine the sadness of my own childhood over 50 years ago? I have a acknowledged to both of them how I wish I had done things differently at times but I struggle w self forgiveness.

Thank you Lord for this beautiful soul! My husband and I are in therapy. You are a divine blessing!

This definitely is a talk I need to listen to a several times and really look within myself. To dissect why I do what I do. Wow!

Thank you so much 🙏🏽