How Early Childhood Experiences Affect Your Response To Life

I thought to touch on this topic because it's something I'm super passionate about bringing attention to. I've come to recognize mostly through my own life experiences, that no matter how much we think we've healed and grown, there are always areas that present to show us where work is still needed.

Frequently I'll have a client come to me who's struggling with something. When I mention early childhood wounds, the most common response is "But I've already worked on this before". Come to find out several sessions later that the current response in question had nothing directly to do with the person or situation, but an original trauma they couldn't see because it was just too painful to process prior.

Surprised that after all the work they've done on themselves, they're still having things surface from early childhood that is affecting their everyday life. The resolution then becomes much clearer.

In my own life, it still amazes me how this dynamic continues to present itself as well. I may do this as a specialist, but it in no way makes me immune to confronting my own wounds on a continual basis. Quite the contrary actually. I'm always presented in every moment with opportunities to take a deeper look into the shadows which are hidden within myself, contributing to why I'm responding to certain things in a certain way.

The beauty of Inner-child work for me is it's always where I seem to find my biggest resolution. Yet I know that if it's something within myself that's not resolving quickly, it's because I'm touching on something really deep, perhaps an extremely vulnerable trigger point that requires a bit more time and attention. This type of situation is to be looked at with lots of patience and understanding. The sensitivity of the child will only allow so much healing to happen if you are touching a super raw place.

Another thing to also take into consideration is that situations we encounter having to do with others are often touching on their wounds too! Essentially we play a bit of a wounded healing dance with others we connect with who are touching on those very sensitive places. It's not usually conscious of course. On some level, while it may hurt, I don't believe we do it to consciously harm each other. I think we actually do it for the opposite reasons. To attract these situations through others to bring forth healing. Though it may feel like a crisis, eventually it can offer the opportunity to transform and finally release the old wounds if we're open to it.

To give an example from my own personal experience, these past few years have been extremely difficult for me. I managed to get myself into situations where I was confronted with some complicated relationship dynamics where communication became next to impossible for me to navigate.

No matter how much I tried to make peace with love and kindness from my heart, I simply couldn't reach the other person in a way where my truth was understood from a loving place. It was extremely painful, but mostly because it was touching on a deep pain point I wasn't aware of at the time.

My entire life I had a pattern of needing to try and find a way to always find peace and harmony with others if there was a conflict. I was taught from a very young age to always apologize if I hurt someone's feelings. To also find an understanding if they deeply hurt mine. And never leave anything unsaid if I had the opportunity to speak to someone and make things right.

While these were coming from a good place, there were also underlying areas of trauma that left me never wanting to ever leave a situation in disharmony. My tendency was to fawn as a trauma response due to living in an emotionally unpredictable environment. It felt like a matter of survival to always make sure I left things in a positive manner. This dynamic followed me throughout my entire adult life. My biggest trigger was to leave things conflicted without a response or resolution.

So here I was now, confronted with having to just let it all go in a place where I was literally hated, seen in a way that did not align with my truth, unable to be seen for what I felt within my heart. It was extremely challenging, as I had honestly never experienced such a thing as this before. I'd had disagreements before of course, but there was always resolution and forgiveness. This also came during an especially challenging transition, as I moved my entire life to a foreign country.

Fast forward many months later I had become physically and emotionally unwell. So much time had gone by and yet I still wasn't able to release the pain which I was experiencing from this particular situation. No matter how hard I tried I was still struggling to let it go, mostly because it didn't sit well in my heart which was now affecting my health. In addition to this, I recognized I was also experiencing a trauma response which was progressively getting worse each day. I was self-isolating to the point where I was afraid to communicate with anyone but my closest relationships. My inner light became so dim I was beginning to feel life slipping away.

I knew I needed to do something to get myself out of this predicament. Reaching out and trying to resolve it with the person wasn't possible for resolution. Just the thought of their lack of response or responding harshly in some way triggered a trauma response that took days to move out of.

When we're in a trauma response, things can become very difficult to navigate clearly. You just want it to shift and can reach for just about anything to make it better. Your thoughts, responses, and choice reactions can make no sense as you grasp anything to help release the tension. At this point, I knew I had only one option.

Having the understanding of the Inner-child dynamic as I do, I knew it was where I needed to look, perhaps the only place I was being forced to go. Having done this work for long enough, I knew there was something deep that was being touched on. When the pain gets intense, it's a signal it's a deep trauma response coming from an original wound.

I decided to ask my unconscious mind (which is synonymous with the child essence) to share the exact age that needed healing. What wasn't being seen and what did she need to express or hear?

Instantly, I was brought back to a moment when I was two years old. I was so innocent and happily playing with my dolls. Suddenly, my parents (who in my world adored each other) got into a huge argument which became violent. My mom left and didn't come back for many hours. Terrified and scared, I hid under the stairwell, though nobody noticed or came to me for hours. My mom eventually came back, but nothing was ever the same. My parents continued to fight. They couldn't "see" each other anymore. Consumed by the energy of their anger instead of love, it took all of their attention off of being able to see me. As a young child, at that moment, I lost both of my parents. I was alone.

Not too long after, my parents separated and divorced. Though there was still love, they never openly expressed it to each other again. This was the biggest confusion and inner conflict for my two-year-old child. How could it be that love could so easily turn to hate? How could both of them not see they were both seriously wounded and hurting from this? There was no winner in this, everyone was hurting. Where did the love go?

After seeing this situation it all became super clear to me why I was unconsciously attracting certain situations. It also became clear to me why I unconsciously was traumatized by situations that weren't able to end peacefully or even worse turned from love to hate instantly. It also made sense why my life force energy was intricately connected to this dynamic. Subconsciously, at the age of two, it's literally survival to have both of your parents watching you and protecting you sharing love. It imprinted a fairly strong belief in my early foundation that I must somehow always have situations that end peacefully in love in order to be "seen" for survival.

Of course, we know that's an impossibility for a child to fix a situation for their parents by attracting a similar dynamic themselves. It's also important for the child within to realize that even though it was a difficult process to navigate, she survived! Life went on and I'm still here and she is loved!

That statement was exactly what the two-year-old needed to finally know. She survived and life did go on.

And while my desire is to still always try to find a loving way to leave communication in relationships, I'm at a place where I am finally at peace if it doesn't work out this way. It still hurts that certain people in my life were unable to truly see me and reach out directly to find peace with me, but unfortunately, life doesn't always work out this way.

In the perfect world of my two-year-old self, the more profound love is known and felt in a place that doesn't need explanation because it's felt with the heart. Our truest self is always known from this place and love sees this.

Of course, I always have forgiveness and the desire for those I have been blessed to have a connection with in this lifetime, to find peace and happiness in their life no matter what transpired.

I think sometimes my two-year-old self doesn't have it all so wrong after all. It would be a much better world if we could get past our wounds and shake hands with our hearts.

That all being said, it's an important point to mention that what I was touching on was extremely vulnerable and more challenging to work through and see right away because it was touching on an original wound from a very early age. Original wounds can take time to work through and process. This is why it's recommended to work with someone who is trained in being able to assist you during the process. Luckily for me, my partner was able to guide and support me through this experience.

If you find yourself working through a situation that you find difficult to process and release without an understanding of where the intensity of the emotions is coming from, it most likely stems from an original wound. Know that if you need support and guidance, we're always here to help!

With love,

About Jenine

Co-founder, creator, and leading expert in freeing others to awakn™ their unique gifts and step into their authentic self, Jenine's propriety method, based on healing the wounded child, guides you to reconnect with your child essence™, the Sacred You™, where all solutions reside. 

An award-winning, international, best-selling author, skillful subconscious facilitator, and inner-child specialist, she continually embodies and demonstrates a simple truth...that anything is possible if you believe...even unicorns!