The Wounded Child archetype is one of several aspects of the Child archetype. The others include the Magical Child, The Nature Child, the Abandoned child, the Divine Child, the Invisible Child, and the Eternal Child. Everyone shares the Child archetype as well as its variations to some extent or another.
The Wounded Child is an archetype that contains negative emotional patterns children experienced. The wounds could have been abuse, neglect, or trauma, but they usually occur before seven. There is permanent damage that is haunting them.
The pain from their childhood wound will repeatedly replay in their adult life until the trauma or wound is healed.
Anger is a pattern of behavior that manifests. The pattern remains
with them and erupts as they grow older. There’s a continual eruption that plays out throughout their adult life. It’s destructive because the wounded child acts out the wounds of his childhood and feels justified doing that. That’s the child part—the temper tantrum.
One thing to remember when you are dealing with a Wounded Child, whether it’s someone else or yourself—it’s a pattern of behavior, and it’s not personal. When the Child archetype comes out, it is in the Shadow aspect. It is a time when the Wounded Child can feel misunderstood, such as reliving an event where they were accused or punished for something they didn’t do. Or perhaps they are reminded of a time when they were abandoned.
Whatever it is, the wound can only be healed by first recognizing the behavior pattern and that it’s not personal.
All Wounded Children erupt in anger; that’s just the pattern; it’s not personal. The Shadow aspect may manifest in self-pity, with a tendency to blame their parents for the reason why they are in their current position. It also blocks the path to forgiveness.
However, the painful experiences of the Wounded Child archetype can often awaken a deep sense of compassion, where there is a call to being of service to help other Wounded Children. From this spiritual enlightenment, a path of forgiveness is opened.
Do you have the Wounded Child archetype?
If you have the Wounded Child archetype, you may relate to one of the following behavior patterns.
The Wounded Child shows itself when:
you don’t get what you want
you need your wound to be validated
your wound is more significant than anyone else’s
you always look for someone to take responsibility for what happened to you
you frequently need to be loved and valued
How does one move from the shadow to the light?
All the Child archetype variations have a presence in the subconscious that is universal, as do the other three Survival Archetypes, and it is crippling in their adverse effects. Through becoming self-aware, it is through recognizing and identifying repeated patterns of behavior throughout our lives that have had authority over our choices. You embark on the Journey of Life where you move from the caboose of your train—where life drags you—to the engine—where you have the power to direct it.
The Journey of Life is a process and not something that is done quickly. Learning why you do the things you do will enable you to make better decisions and identify the actions you need to take to start down the path of personal evolution and transformation.
Schedule your free 15-minute Assessment today to begin your Journey of Empowerment.
We all have archetypes—universal patterns of mythical power— within our psyche, and the Saboteur archetype may be the most difficult to understand because its name is associated with betrayal. Caroline Myss calls it the Guardian of Choice because its purpose is to help you identify when you are about to make a decision that weakens you.
When an opportunity arises that helps you grow by stretching your comfort zone, have you ever heard a whispering voice beneath you that says, “You’re not good enough. You’ll never make that achievement?” If you have, what you’re hearing is the internal Saboteur raising the possibility of failure, which is a decidedly fearsome prospect.
Another example is when you fear success. You call upon the Saboteur to destroy the foundation of that success because the responsibility seems overwhelming: What if I let people down? What if I’m not able to sustain the position?
The Saboteur operates in the shadows of our subconscious.
HOW TO BECOME AWARE OF THE SABOTEUR
The Saboteur’s fears and issues are all related to low self-esteem that causes you to make choices that block your empowerment and success.
The Saboteur’s core issue is fear of initiating change into your life, change that rearranges your entire reality and requires you to respond in a positive way to opportunities that shape and deepen your self-esteem and empowerment. Ignore it, and the shadow Saboteur will manifest in the form of destructive behavior or the desire to undermine others.
It typically makes its presence known through a feeling or a thought that is rooted in fear. It may be a feeling of anxiety, doubt, of looking stupid, lack of confidence, or being afraid of failing. The Saboteur can guard your heart and push away any people or opportunities that bring you joy or success.
Only when we become aware of the Saboteur and recognize it can we make it our ally. The first way you can explore the shadow aspect of the Saboteur is to observe your behavior. You can effectively do this by creating a journal where you recorded the times or events when you realized you’d sabotaged yourself.
The keyword here is OBSERVE. The Saboteur needs to be recognized for it to be integrated.
You don’t want to analyze. You want to observe, and through the power of observation, you will garner the capacity to see things from a higher perspective, which will lead to positive behavioral change.
QUESTIONS TO ASK OF YOURSELF
Acknowledging the Saboteur requires us to take responsibility as we must look at our failures and missed opportunities and find how we contributed to the situation. A few questions to ask yourself to learn how to become aware of the action of the Saboteur within are:
In what areas of my life do I fear change?
What fears have the most authority over me? List three.
How have I thwarted my success in the past?
What am I protecting myself or someone else from by sabotaging my success?
What happens when fear overtakes me? Does it make me silent?
Have I let creative opportunities pass me by?
How conscious am I in the moment that I am sabotaging myself?
When we make the Saboteur our friend and ally, we can then make decisions based on our highest purpose in life, as we stand firm in our center with unwavering self-esteem rather than giving in to our fears egos.
In Part 1, you realized the beliefs you learned and agreed to early on in life are limiting you, and that those beliefs became your truth. In order to awaken from a programmed life, you must first become aware of the authority they hold over you and what you want to change in your reality.
Changing your beliefs change your reality.
WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT REALITY?
Reality is subjective to an individual; it is what you believe it to be. There are social realities with certain customs, moral values, and societal rules with which we agree with. In spiritual circles, it is said that we ‘create our own reality.’
Looking further into this concept, one thing necessary to deepen our understanding of reality is learning to observe yourself within your reality. You are in effect, viewing yourself as the main character in a play and those that surround you are supporting actors.
When you begin to see how you operate in life, you activate your greatest tool—your soul! Your soul has the ability to observe yourself through a wide lens,
offering you a perspective of a camera that can pull back or zoom in to see your actions in daily life. The resulting benefit is you’re able to see yourself more clearly and discover how you create the reality you live in.
As you begin to observe yourself, you’ll see what your beliefs have created; your emotional pain, your joy, your hardened heart, your open manner, your lack of connection with yourself and others—the list of how your beliefs create the reality you operate within is endless.
When you are able to honestly see what motivates you to do what you do, the next step of creating your reality is possible—you can begin to change the things you want to. Only you can change what you believe your reality is. And you can change it.
You may feel you’re doing everything to change your reality, but nothing is changing. When this happens, there is something stuck within you. You have what is called an inner blockage. For example, you may struggle with a pattern of self-sabotage, even finding it difficult to help yourself when you know you need to.
You subconsciousness mind might be
blocking you to be and do your best through your limiting beliefs. One reason this happens is that, at some level, you have an inner conflict about succeeding. This type of inner conflict occurs when one part of us wants to change, but the other part (often the subconscious) does not because of the fear of success. Simply put, it the Saboteur archetype at work.
HOW WE LEARN BELIEFS
Early childhood experiences are the first way we get ideas or beliefs about life and gave you a sense of who you are as a person. The messages you received from your parents, siblings, teachers, and peers taught you something about yourself. As we grow up, we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs.
We also learn beliefs through school, movies, books, advertisements, and life experiences, to name a few. Beliefs are important because they shape your world—first internally, then externally. If you have not invested in yourself to change a belief and see how it’s affected your life, you will not fully understand this concept.
Beliefs can prevent us from seeing accurately and they can cause pain. Or they can strengthen us.
Write down in your journal the beliefs you have today that you feel are holding you back or limiting you in some way. Keep them at your disposal as you’ll want to revisit them when you are given the steps to change them in the next post.
Here are a few examples that may resonate with you:
“I’m not good enough.”
“I’m afraid to________.”
“I don’t deserve (money, recognition, success).”
“People will judge me.”
“If I succeed, I won’t be able to sustain it.” (This was me.)
“I’m happy with how things are now.”
“I don’t/wouldn’t know where to start.”
Take some time and reflect on what are the major beliefs you have that have an impact on your life. Sit and let yourself be open and honest about where you are in life today and what your current state of reality is. Be ready to take the steps to change. Dig deep inside—go within and muster the courage. It’s there, I know it is.
Until next time,
Debbie
Contact me today for your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session to begin your new life!
Are you living a life that has meaning and purpose or are you just surviving?Do you go through all the motions yet find something is missing? Maybe you’re gradually becoming aware that the things you are doing aren’t working for you and your present reality reflects that.
In other words, you realize the beliefs you learned and agreed to early on in life are limiting you.
What can you do to change old patterns?
Although unlearning old patterns is a simple process, it’s not easy. As a child, your beliefs are shaped by your family, schooling, religion, and culture, and because you have nothing to compare them with you accept them as true. The more examples you were shown of something, the more it became reinforced in your mind and the stronger it became.
Your belief becomes your truth.
Each belief of how you should think, behave, and see things, had been downloaded into your psyche, leaving you with an energetic imprint on the world behind your eye where there is a parallel reality—the unseen world. These are the dynamic structures that create truth in your outer world.
Where to start?
Since the two worlds coexist, meaning one cannot exist without the other, the beliefs that no longer serve you create a life that is disharmonious and out of balance. You need to be clear about your limiting beliefs as you can only change what you acknowledge.
Change and growth are inevitable, and the more we align ourselves with this truth, the easier our lives will be.
Becoming aware
The first step to awakening from your programmed life is to become aware of the authority your ingrained beliefs have on you and what you want to change in your current reality. Ask yourself where you
may be stuck, what is holding you back, or what habits need to be modified. The best way to do this is to start a journal and write your reflections down.
Words make it real
Play detective and follow your thoughts and emotions to discover the beliefs that are limiting you. The simple act of writing it down keeps it still long enough for you to get a good look at it. Once it’s in front of you, you can determine if it something you want to change.
For example, you want to take an art or photography course, but you believe, “I don’t have enough time.”
Or you know you need to exercise, but you believe, “I have no energy.”
Acknowledge that these are beliefs, not truths!
Truths are universal and have been proven to be true.
Gravity works on earth. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The earth is round. We don’t need to validate them beyond that.
Beliefs, on the other hand, are personal, selective, and changeable. The stories we tell about ourselves, others, and the world come from beliefs.
The source of our values, beliefs, and behaviors
Keep in mind that usually, the concern you are dealing with is not new, but an unresolved one leftover from childhood where you accepted the points of view from those around you. These points of view created your beliefs of what appears to be true to you—positive or negative. Being told you are lovable and worthy has a positive result while being told your opinion doesn’t matter has an adverse one.
These beliefs become your truth because you look for and find evidence to support it.
The beliefs we hold and live by, define our values, and it’s our values that govern the way we behave, communicate and interact with others.
Awakening from a programmed life is about examining and transforming the energy of our beliefs so that they create positive and life-affirming values that result in behavioral changes impacting life physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
AWAKENING FROM A PROGRAMMED LIFE – PART II will provide the steps you can take to begin changing your beliefs from limiting ones to those that empower you.
5 Things to Remember When Life is NOT Going Your Way
“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~ Dalai-Lama
How do you respond when it seems life is going against you? Do you get angry, depressed, or feel life isn’t fair? Well, if you chose the latter, you are correct—life ISN’T fair!
Here are 5 things to keep in mind when you find yourself in turbulent or stressful times.
1. You cannot control anything other than yourself.
When you find yourself in times of trouble, the Serenity Prayer is most helpful. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to accept the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Acceptance plays a crucial part here. You may not like the situation you are currently in, but accepting it makes it a little easier to go through.
Knowing you’re where you’re supposed to be—whether it’s to learn a lesson or humble your ego—causes you to pause and reflect on the situation in which you find yourself.
2. Don’t get emotionally attached to your desires.
When one door closes, another one opens. If you attach yourself to a desired outcome, you can become bitter and resentful when it doesn’t happen. There’s no point in hanging onto what could’ve been.
With an open heart and mind, you can genuinely allow new and different experiences into your life. You never know, it could be a wonderful stroke of luck!
3. If you want to change something, start by changing yourself.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ~ Rumi
If you want to change your outcomes, you must first change what you are doing, and that includes changing yourself. Keep in mind the saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
4. Be gentle and kind to yourself.
Whether you think the reason why life’s not going your way is your fault or not, you must be kind to yourself. When you find that you’re beating yourself up, put down the baseball bat and pick up a feather!
Creating a life of purpose doesn’t always come easily, but it must come from a place of love. Loving yourself first leads to actions that come from the heart where you see clearly, feel strong, and know you make good choices.
5. This too shall pass.
By learning to embrace the impermanence of things you can become more resilient when you encounter unpleasant experiences. When you let go of judging the situations you find yourself in—disappointing, resentful, sad—you will realize everything in life is temporary.
When you say these words to yourself, you also learn to accept, and not to resist, whatever you may be facing in life.
At a deeper level, if you can realize that life is impermanent, the better off you will be. Letting go of the struggle to control the outcome and allowing it to happen—just as it is—makes life easier.
So the next time things don’t go your way, remind yourself of these things and “this too shall pass.”Use it as a mantra. You will find your circumstances, or at least parts of them, will change fairly quickly.
Writing a book and having it published was one of the most challenging, yet rewarding, accomplishments I’ve ever taken on. During the span of time it took, I found the project presented many opportunities for me to learn a few valuable lessons.
When I began to consider the idea over seven years ago, the topic focused primarily on the period between my two divorces and twenty-eight days in rehab—when I had my spiritual awakening. After several years of stopping and starting over and over again, something began to stir within me that bubble upped new thoughts, emotions, and ideas.
Initially, I became a student of Caroline Myss to heal nerve pain caused by a lightning strike that occurred many years earlier. However, after examining my interior world and doing the inner work, I noticed that I began to change. Fascinated with the scope of Myss’s practice, I realized I needed to delve deeper into it. After hearing another lecture on Sacred Contracts, I came home and pulled the book from my shelf. Thumbing through it, I noticed I had stopped short of the section on Archetypes.
What were these things called archetypes? Unaware of what exactly they were, I deemed it necessary to become versed in them. Synchronicity befell me when I told a friend that very thing, and the next day I received a catalog indicating Myss was holding a workshop entitled, “The Power of Archetypes.” After the seminar, I decided archetypes, with their shadow and light aspects, would be a theme throughout my book.
One thing I knew for sure was that I could write—I just didn’t know how good it was. Having no one to evaluate my writing, when Lois from The Happy Self-Publisher said, after reading several pages I had written, that my words pulled her into my world, and that my writing was good, I became inspired. The drive to complete the project became instilled within me. After Caroline Myss told me my work was very good and that my story was interesting, I went into overdrive. It was the extra affirmation that compelled me onward.
The stage was set for my school of life matriculation.
Go wherever life takes you.
The first lesson I learned was that you must go wherever life takes you and not hold onto where you think you should be. I had to let go of the original idea for the book and allow my life to unfold and follow wherever it led me, which is simple, but not easy to do. This lesson guided me on a five-year journey where I learned that many of my experiences had names for them.
An example is in the few months right before I hit my rock bottom. As I wrote about it, I had no idea I had entered what is called the “dark night of the soul,” where the meaning and conceptual framework I had given my life utterly collapsed around me. All I knew is that I identified myself through the marriage (as Mrs. John Doe), and when the marriage ended, I ended. It was a kind of death, the death of my egoic self. Ultimately, after hitting rock bottom and then seeking treatment, a more profound sense of purpose where my life was not dependent on explanations.
Through this experience, I discovered I was the Wounded Healer, an archetype that emerged in my psyche with the demand that I push myself to a level of inner effort that became more a process of transformation than an attempt to heal my traumatic wounds. In doing so, I was able to transcend my own pain and suffering and realize there is a choice in healing. The experience gave me the skills and knowledge to impart to other wounded souls and led to the divinely provided path of service I perform today.
Not everything goes your way…
Another lesson I learned is that not everything goes your way, especially when you don’t make the right choices. Not every decision I made when writing Struck by Lightning was a good one. Because I failed to research a particular business, I made an unwise choice that set me back financially over $8,700 and delayed its publication for over six months. These rash choices resulted in a lesson learned the hard way: patience.
Although I have never given birth, I feel writing is analogous to the gestation period and publishing to giving birth. Imagine having to carry a baby for a few extra months. Most women, I believe, would be extremely impatient waiting for the baby to be born. Day in and day out, I was tested to accept where I was in the process because I needed to learn patience. You know the old saying, “When you pray for patience, you’ll receive opportunities to practice it,” like getting stuck in traffic or choosing the wrong line to stand in.
In my case, pay for the entire process of formatting and editing all over again!
During this critical stage, I felt victimized, cheated, and resentful—my vulnerability challenged. Fear of rejection and the inability to healthily control my emotions due to not being heard (the Invisible Child archetype) began to permeate my psyche. I was lost and felt like giving in. However, remembering the prior endorsements, my persistence and tenacity took over and empowered me to complete the project. Even though it took more time and finances, what I gained was priceless—that the experience of failure can be a major thoroughfare to success.
The joy of writing.
One of the joys my writing elicited were the responses of those who read Struck by Lightning. I was able to describe my emotions and communicate them is such a way that the reader felt their feelings arise. Without knowing how to or deliberately focusing on this, I learned I was given this gift.
My journey of writing a book mirrors my journey of life. There are twists and curves at every corner you encounter, some positive, some negative. When I stood at each turning point, in life or when writing, I faced each one, deciding to empower myself instead of caving in. Writing a book helped me grow, as well as fueling the process for that growth.
When I sit back and review what I experienced in the past seven or eight years, it is nothing short of magical. I gained experiences I never thought I would, and for that, I am eternally grateful. My gratitude extends to various people who are central in my life, and those who have been a part of it at some point or other, even if fleeting. For without everything I experienced, without every decision and choice I made, my book—and myself—would not be what we are today.
