Injured Inner Child Behavior in your partnership
Hello dear ones, since I have received so many inquiries, requests and wishes regarding the inner child, today we will take a look at injured ego child behavior vs. healthy inner child behavior in our partnership (1. Small explanation of terms for everyone who took the course "The magic of the inner child" didn't do it: "Injured ego child - you yourself with your experiences from your childhood in this life - "healthy inner child" - the pure part of the soul, unharmed and full of potential for you - if you feel like it to do an online course - you can find more information at the end of the text and 2. By partnership I primarily mean our love relationships, but you can also transfer it to your relationship with your children, your parents, etc.)
Actually, we all long for a relaxed, loving, peaceful and fulfilling relationship - at least most of us. However, the reality often looks different. We fight, we discuss, we argue, we question the relationship, we set conditions, think about breakups, long for the perfect partner. But the new partner quickly shows that we are playing exactly the same games that we had in the previous relationship. We always take ourselves with us, even the annoying parts, the unconscious features of our behavior.
It's good that we're taking a look at the actions of our injured ego-child in our relationship today, then maybe we can act a little more consciously from now on and thus bring peace to our relationships. Let's start and as always: be kind to yourself. We all make mistakes, we all act in ways that we can only wonder at ourselves at times. We are on the path of soul consciousness, nothing needs to be perfect right away, but we can always give ourselves a lot of self-love, self-forgiveness and self-esteem.
- reward instead of free-flowing love
It's actually tragic, but most of us learned in childhood that love isn't something that comes easy, it's based on a reward system. (and be careful: I don't blame the adults here, they've grown up too. We learn from our environment and adopt these behaviors.
So it's a game that's been played for generations and we're welcome to see where we play this game with our own children). When I do something well in the eyes of my parents or teachers, I get a smile, kind words, and positive feelings flow to me. When I did something wrong as a child (and children often know very well when they did something wrong), we usually don't get loving support and encouragement that I am still lovable. No, then there is usually something "on the cover" - scolding, punishments, something is taken away from us (the television, the mobile phone, leaving the house, meeting friends - preferably something to which we as children had no logical connection our actions and the consequences).
We learn quickly: if I want to get good, loving, positive feelings, I have to function the way my environment likes it. And we learn that not only at home, but also in our groups of friends and in our relationships. Even if that doesn't sound so bad, it hurts.
That love is not a state of being that is just freely brought into the world, but a matter of negotiation deeply hurts children (and quite frankly: it still hurts us as adults - we feel that this cannot be the right love. That this is not the Love is what we know is dormant somewhere within us, waiting to unfold).
When we're in the state of love, it doesn't mean that I have to put up with everything the other is doing (it's often interpreted that way) and that I have to like everything the other is doing. No not that. But true love doesn't impose conditions or give rewards for desired behavior. True love is whether our partner has gained 30 pounds, is stressed at work, has no money, is unsteady in bed, or is on the dark side of the soul.
The little game "only if you're nice to me, then I'll be nice to you too" belongs to the injured ego child. But how do we get to the true core of the healing inner child? In which we go in search of true love. (Hey, nobody said it was all easy) Yes, this is perhaps the greatest task we are allowed to master in our lives: to find the true state of being of love within us.
We can start giving ourselves the love that we might not have had as a child. We are allowed to welcome ourselves to earth and tell ourselves that it is good that we are here. That we are valuable, that we are beautiful, that we are worth experiencing a good and fulfilling life. yes we are worth it We can take these steps at any time. Instantly. We don't need parents who allow us to do this, no partner, no children, no therapist.
No, we can allow ourselves to choose the path of love now and then find out what that might look like for us. Self-love is the key to being love, which then radiates out into the world and then into our relationships.
The reward system is then allowed to calm down more and more.
- Finding the culprit instead of constructive problem solving
We also learned that in our childhood and when you look around you in the news, in your company, in politics: if something has gone wrong or is not going as it should, then the finger has to be stretched out to to point to the culprit. Where's the culprit? Surely it was your fault as a child if you brought home a bad report card.
Guilt that your sister is crying, guilt that mommy is in a bad mood now, guilt that there is no money, guilt that something has to be repaired or painted again. Guilt is a pervasive issue in our society. We grow up with guilt, the church is also a big part of it - for them we are all sinners anyway.
And of course we continue to play the game in our relationships: it's the partner's fault that we don't have an orgasm, fault that the children behave this way, fault that one doesn't have any money, fault that life is so—blame that you are feeling bad. If your partner were different, if your parents were different, if your teachers were different, if your own children were different – yes, then we would be fine. Then everything would be fine, then life would be worth living. Warning: this is hurt ego-child behavior in a destructive form.
Blame games will never get you where you really want to be: a life where you feel good, where joy and happiness prevail. With guilt you give up your self-empowerment. The other has to fix it. And you can wait your whole life for that. Blame games take you nowhere but down the negative emotional spiral.
The healthy inner child invites you to let go of the guilt and to start finding constructive solutions to your problems. Okay, this or that in your life isn't going in a way that makes you feel good. What can YOU change. What can YOU do to change it. We can always do something. Sometimes it takes a little while before we can clearly see what that might be.
But we are not helpless sheep - in us with the inner child, there is true creative power. We have the power to change our lives at any moment. Sometimes it takes a little time for positive changes to show up. But we can take the reins of our lives into our hands at any time.
We are adults now. We are no longer dependent on our parents to protect, protect and provide for us. No, we can and are allowed to do that ourselves. Guilt turns into responsibility. We are responsible for what happens in our lives. Our inner child invites us again and again to see if we like what we find in our life and to change it if necessary until we can feel joy in life.
- Manipulation instead of free will
We could probably write several books about manipulation. But it can also be summarized very clearly in one sentence: Manipulation means that you influence the other person in such a way that he does what YOU want (that doesn't necessarily have to be what he wants). We are all great manipulators, whether unconscious or conscious.
Many forms of therapy work with manipulation that is not immediately obvious. Not going to the manipulation level is a master craft to work on daily. The hurt ego child manipulated. It knows that, it was also manipulated. Do you remember the reward system? This is manipulation.
I act as the other wants because I want to be loved. At some point I stop asking myself what I actually want. The injured ego child functions in the manipulation system and since it has learned this, it also applies it in its own partnership. And often very strangely, because 1.) we haven't learned to find out what I actually need and want and what I can do to make myself feel good and 2.) I now expect my partner to please act in such a way that it goes well with me – although I don't even know that myself. So we bitch and complain about each other.
We take refuge in the idea that if my partner was like this, acted like this, yes, then I would be happy, then I would be fine, then we would have a wonderful relationship. We try to tell the other what to think, how to speak, how to act in the hope of getting the loving relationship we long for.
Don't you agree, when you read that, that you immediately notice how weird this behavior actually is. But in our real behavior we keep falling into this trap. Self-knowledge and self-reflective action is one of the hardest things of all. We like to fall back into childish behavior patterns, while at the same time our mind fools us into thinking how mature and conscious we are already acting.
The healthy inner child has understood free will. It knows you have free will, your partner has free will and together we go on a journey in our relationship to connect with our wishes and ideas of a wonderful life and to see if it can be even bigger as a couple , than alone. With the inner child, life takes on the character of a game.
We develop the courage to try things out, to get involved with our partner's ideas and visions, to find out whether I like it or not. Instead of projecting the hope of a good, fulfilling life onto my partner, the healthy inner child - this part of the soul - has the knowledge that it is in its own hands to make the best of its lifetime, even in the situations , where things are not going as you might have imagined.
The inner child is very flexible, it can play with the possibilities, change them, take on new perspectives and no longer follows the outdated patterns of thought and behavior that our grandparents were already stuck in. The inner child is free and, above all, it also allows others their freedom. The interesting thing about it: true encounters only take place with this freedom and the relationships can become much more intense because everyone gets involved freely, without coercion, without manipulation, without a sense of duty or the longing for reward.
- Power games instead of cooperation
In addition to manipulation, power games are often added. The injured ego child always feels – often unconsciously – that it has to defend itself. It has to assert its position, fight for its place. Nothing comes easily to him. Nothing is easy in life. Also in the relationship you have to be careful not to go under or come up short. You always have the feeling that you are doing everything to make your partner happy and you get nothing in return, not even a wet handshake.
This injured ego-child part is often a real control freak. It always has to know what the partner is doing, where he is, with whom he is on the phone, what he does in his free time, etc. And ideally, this part also wants to dictate to the partner what he can do with whom, when and how.
Incidentally, this pattern often degenerates when one of the partners decides to give up the relationship, decides to escape the control of the other. Then things really get going in court and in private, because control simply cannot be relinquished. Because the balance of power has to be clarified, and of course you want to be the stronger one. The injured ego child really blossoms here. And if the children weren't often the ones to suffer, one could almost laugh about it. But a runaway hurt ego child in power play mode is rarely a laugh.
It's more despairing. And sometimes one can only wonder how grown-up people can tear each other down like that. But we see the injured children at work here. Abandonment often triggers the strongest trigger points. There is often a lot of anger behind the power play (and behind it the sadness and fear) - not being loved, being abandoned, not being worthy of staying with him, not being good enough to be loved learns. so much pain So much incredible pain. Behind so many tears that the hurt child never cried. All the burden, all the pressure that one was saddled with as a child from parents, teachers, friends, etc., find an outlet.
This usually happens unconsciously, the feelings overwhelm us and we act irrationally and differently than usual. Because injured ego children in power play mode can appear very controlled, very sovereign and even superior for a very long time. But if the ideal world collapses, then things can get down to business. So intense that as a partner you sometimes wonder how you haven't seen these features in the other for so long.
How to lead this hurt ego child to peace? When you really feel your own pain. Really allowed. All the hurt, all the demands, all the rejections, all the feelings of failure, all that really feels, allows, and cries and screams, and is really mad at the parents, at herself, at everything, and cries again until there are no more tears.
Yes, sometimes we are allowed to feel pain in order to come to a good solution. If we always suppress ourselves, then a huge barrel builds up, which can eventually fly in our face. However, so many people are afraid of their anger, of their pain, of their tears. But why? You can feel them. It doesn't mean go out and yell your anger at everyone, hurt your loved ones or anything.
That's not what it means. It means that you take your space in which you can feel yourself, in which the injuries can come up, be seen and then be let go. If you don't trust yourself to do this on your own, there are so many good people out there who can lovingly support you in this process. But this bruised ego child desperately needs your attention when you feel like you are carrying around power games and mechanisms of control. It also just wants to be loved.
It wants to hear from you that it is valuable. You are allowed to give yourself the feeling that you are valuable, that you are lovable. Even if you have been bad at it, that within you is the core of good behavior and that you are now an adult and have the responsibility to dig up that good core and live it.
The healthy inner child is always for cooperation. Together we look at a situation and try to find solutions that are good for everyone involved. If I have a problem, I address it without apportioning blame, but rather with the question: what can we do to make things better again. The healthy inner child never instigates a battlefield, it always strives for peaceful solutions in which neither partner is neglected. Yes, it sometimes takes time for the good solution to show itself, but there is nothing to rush here either.
- education instead of relationship
Most of the time in our partnerships we don't lead a relationship, but education. We constantly feel the need to tell our partner what to do and what not to do. And vice versa, the partner does the same with us. Because the injured ego child is not only at work with you, with your partner as well.
Sometimes in a partnership it's as if we met when we were children to play father, mother, child. We play the partnership, we are not as long as we are in the ego-child pattern. The woman is looking for the good father and tries to find it in her partner, who then does not take on the role of partner, but shows paternal upbringing patterns from his childhood. And vice versa it is the same with the man. He is looking for the good mother he would have liked to have had as a little boy, and the woman plays the role, just as she learned from her mother when she was a little girl.
The accusation: "You are just like your mother / your father" is not so far-fetched. And instead of finding ourselves as equals in a relationship as man and woman, we play the game of education with all the levers that people like to use, such as reward/punishment, manipulation, power behavior and more.
None of us, or let's say almost none of us, has experienced a partnership of relationship with our parents, but rather of upbringing. The mother tells the father how much he can drink, what he should do with the money, how he should handle his laundry. The father telling the mother what to say, what to think, what to wear. If we want to get divorced because of the open tube of toothpaste or the toilet lid, then we clearly have a partnership of parenting. Getting out of this cycle is really important and really not that easy.
Because, of course, change always starts with ourselves. Our partner is our partner, not a father or mother substitute. Our partner is not there to heal our hurt inner ego child. We can take on this task ourselves. (I know there are moments when you wish someone would take all your burdens off your shoulders.
Just wear the backpack that we have with us all the time - but that's exactly where the invitation lies: take the backpack, have a look and start sorting. We no longer have to act like our parents - we can, but we don't have to. We can decide to be the good mother/father to our injured ego child ourselves - we can find out what free will means to us, what cooperation means to us in a relationship, we can find out what it's like to love being, and not just playing, we are allowed to find out what dance we feel like in every moment of life, when we are close to our partner and when we need time for ourselves.
We are allowed to define partnership - free of the experiences we had with the relationship of our parents and grandparents, free of what Hollywood and co want to sell us. We are allowed to find answers to all these questions ourselves and our healthy inner child can support us wonderfully.
Because it brings in the energy of lightness, of playfulness. The drama is allowed to take a back seat and laughter, dancing and love that is is allowed to come forward. Remember, this is a development path. Your inner child, this part of your soul is always there and waiting for you, you can connect with it at any time to find out what joie de vivre is for you, what a fulfilling partnership means for you, where ease can be found and yes love, to you and your life, your partner, your children.
So dear ones, there is so much more to write about the Inner Child, but for now we'll leave it here. If you are interested in getting into Inner Child work with me, check out the Inner Child Magic course below.
Thank you for being here today and giving me a moment of your lifetime.
Love, your Jennifer and may you have or find a blessed connection to your inner child.