Almost all of us have moments when we might regress into a childhood wound, and often, we’ll also have a defensive reaction against it. It’s of great benefit to know more about this tendency and when wounds like inadequacy, insecurity, abandonment, abuse, neglect, or isolation might compound our suffering beyond our immediate challenging feelings. This gives us the chance to continually develop rather than repeat the same wounds and reactions over and over.
The impact of childhood and life wounds
Ask yourself — Which times are you more inclined to regress into a childhood wound or into your ‘fight against’ or ‘flee from’ defense instead of having to feel your challenging emotion?
Some of us might unwittingly compound our suffering when we feel inadequate in one sphere of our life and compensate by becoming an expert in that sphere or another. This becomes particularly problematic because it often serves to avoid feelings of inadequacy, so it stays underground and injures us without us knowing it. Sometimes, we might feel insecure and choose to withdraw, become aggressive/defensive and again lose contact with our insecurity. This might sound good on the surface, but when we are left feeling insecure and don’t know it, it will leave us incapable of really moving toward healing, and the insecurity will remain or even grow.
Can you identify which life-long early wounds are present in your life? It could leave us feeling irrationally rejected, abandoned, smothered, inadequate, unattractive, undesirable, and the list could go on and on. Can you see your original wounds and the ways that you have avoided them?
If we don’t identify our most significant childhood wounds clearly, it will have a significant effect on our lives. Of course, it is necessary to do more than just identify it, but identification is an important starting step.
We also need to use a variety of potential practices to move toward healing, including effective therapy, inquiry, accessing wisdom, meditation, and working with intention and tone of voice, amongst others. Keep in mind that our earliest wound isn’t always obvious. Being overly validated, excessively motivated, feeling the need to be good or agreeable all the time, and being driven toward beauty, youthfulness, intelligence, or athleticism can be as much of a wound as feeling inadequate, insecure, angry, or rejected. Our society has excessively valued many things that are commonly viewed as qualities that are helpful to us, but in the extreme, they are more injurious than the obvious wounds because we often see them as things we are proud of. This means they live underground or in our unconscious.
Common wounds vs. not-so Common wounds
Let’s take some tangible examples of people who suffer from the excessive building of a certain kind of ego, so we understand better. These seemingly positive attributes can also be childhood wounds because our society most frequently validates this so-called strength. Yet, when we look at it closely, it reveals that those of us who have excessive pride, drive, validation, and egoistic power are also distant from our own hearts — just as much as those wounded by rejection or abandonment. Every individual is injured and suffers in their own way.
All we have to do is look at the many corporate, political, religious, spiritual, and even foundation leaders to see how they often neglect personal relationships, are controlling, condescending, and self-flattering, and have major family conflicts that originate from them. They aren’t empathic and are so self-involved that the conversations have to be about their world.
We can all identify people like this around us, but we might not understand that this is a kind of wound born from excessive validation or compensation for some of the classic wounds we just mentioned. This is a much harder wound to identify for the individual as our society commonly makes this a marker of strength.
If not, it’s only considered a minor limitation because our society approves of people having a strong ego — or ego strength. When our ego feels like it has to be the best or even better than we are, this is one of those more subtle kinds of wounds. It is often equally as destructive to our sense of well-being. I’ve found that an over-validated ego is as perilous as one that is under-validated.
In nearly five decades of my counseling practice, such people have frequently come to seek help because they’re aware that most therapists could be impressed by them. But they are now ready to take on the challenges of being a wound-creator for both themselves and others — even when it appears that they were successful, happy, etc.
This is an admirable outreach in our society as it shows honest self-reflection. When these people are experiencing competition, feelings of inadequacy, isolation, insecurity, shame, or guilt, it is easier to hide. Therefore, it’s even more courageous and humble for them to come forward.
The poverty of too much of a good thing inevitably becomes a standard that most of us are unaware of. It is probably most clearly known in the area of excessive wealth. Here, we’ve found out in an overwhelming amount of studies that very wealthy people are not more fulfilled than those in poverty. It is also clear that overly validated people who almost invariably become self-centered can suffer unwittingly from narcissistic tendencies as those with overt deficiencies. This isn’t usually conscious for most people, but it is painfully evident in the four walls of a therapy room.
How your ego was formed—special or wounded—creates a long-term life challenge. Early in my 20s, I had a teacher who emphasized the observation of the dangerous damages of both praise and blame. This was a great insight that has stayed with me through the decades. In many ways, it is easier to make psychological or spiritual progress with those who suffered from classic wounds vs. wounds like over-validation.
What can we say to help ourselves in times of regression?
When we look closely, we’ll find areas where we are too full of ourselves to be vulnerable.
This awareness can be a gift or can be avoided. When we are triggered into thinking that we are either excessively wonderful or damaged goods, that is when we need to ask ourselves, “How can I move towards being a balanced human being? What do I think are the qualities that I need to expand and which actions are needed to help me do that?”
This is an endless way to progress when we feel regressed in either of these ways.
Let’s all examine this understanding from this vantage point and ask ourselves,
“What is your greatest wound?” Let your observation only focus on one area.
Looking at our wounds can either lead to an “Oh shit, am I still here facing these wounds?” sentiment, where our reaction compounds the consequences. Other times, we might feel something like, “Oh, even though it doesn’t feel good, I appreciate that I can see clearly how this is affecting my quality of life.”
With this attitude about seeing or, in most cases, observing these most profound wounds hundreds of times, we can learn to encourage ourselves. Our repeated insights can help us tolerate, then accept it and pivot toward what will be the healing thoughts, actions, and attitudes that will benefit us.
In our times of greatest regression, we can learn how to identify the feelings and thoughts of this complex that each of us carries as a part of being human. We can also then learn to gradually disidentify — once we see it clearly and choose the most natural and helpful practices for us. In time, we will actually start to have a positive attitude when we see it in our inner worlds. This initial response puts us on a path to either double down on our wounds or see it as an opportunity to improve our quality of life.
It is worth asking yourself:
“How open are you to see your greatest regressive moments of life wounds reopening again?”
“How motivated are you to develop insights and practices to progress toward your healing at these times of greatest need?”
Some Tibetan Blessings for you
Through my life experience and the many others that I have overlapped with, it is clear that the biggest breakthroughs aren’t usually the ones that are brand-new leaps of brilliance but those that involve our hard-wired moments of regression. Nevertheless, they give us the chance to recondition ourselves to welcome them as they appear.
This is counter-instinctual but intuitively evident when we take a close look at our lives. For those of us who have done a good deal of work on ourselves, it is obvious that this is true. Each time we need to dig in as it isn’t automatic even though we’ve had breakthroughs in the past.
Do you know what ‘Tibetan Blessings’ are? It’s a message of congratulation when faced with difficult conditions — frequently related to aging or death-related circumstances. As we face a trial, it is common to say “Congratulations!” emphasizing the unique life opportunity to develop our wisdom and make real evolutionary progress in our human lives. This isn’t very commonly practiced or understood in the Western world, but it is a perspective that is immensely beneficial for us to learn to adopt. This creates a receptivity when challenges arise, rather than simply reacting in a way that lessens the likelihood that we can develop our character and maturity.
It would be extremely helpful and beneficial if we extrapolated this understanding of welcoming challenges after a natural, and hopefully brief, feeling of resistance and dedicated ourselves to working on our life wounds in a way that creates a sense of purpose, humility and courage.