This is a great article that applies to our CoDA and ACA- I wanted to share it with you. I have felt like I am gaslighting myself from time to time, pushing feelings down, devaluing myself. This article gave me some perspective and I found it very helpful. I hope you enjoy it. - Kimberly S.
In our childhood, we learn to parent our inner child; punish her/him, neglect, reject or abandon (if this is what was done to us).
I often talk about what we do to our inner child is what was done to us in childhood. We learn to parent our inner child, punish her/him, neglect, reject or abandon (if this is what was done to us). Many of these experiences create codependency in adulthood. We do these things to our innerchild and then we look outside of ourselves to be saved FROM OURSELVES.
Oftentimes, this means we look to our partners, bosses, “false idols” for some type of permission slip to love and own ourselves. Some type of permission slip or validation that allows us to be less hardon ourselves and calm the inner critic. We become “dependent on undependable people.” They are in dependable, because they are not your inner guidance and do not know what is ultimately inalignment for YOUR BEST INTEREST. Also, people change and so do their opinion’s.
Gaslighting the inner child is when we intellectualize our trauma, pain, and experiences.
Gaslighting the inner child is when we intellectualize our trauma, pain, and experiences. An example of this is when we know that our father was treated poorly in childhood so that is why he treats us poorly. We make it ok so that we can deal with it and know that the pain caused by him is not personal. Only this does not work. This is a form of gaslighting the inner child and doing a bypass. We mentalize it, but that keeps our emotions stuck. The inner child was not able to “mentally understand this.” This inner child emotionally imprinted this experience and now needs YOU to help integrate the body and mind. We know this is happening when we are still getting triggered, having shame come up and sometimes even sabotage our own joy.
Instead, we need to VALIDATE the childhood experience. “I felt unloved, I was neglected and did not get my needs met.” Many of us feel guilty for even saying this. Like we are doing something wrong by telling the truth of our own experiences. We must do this part, because it RECONNECTS us withour inner child by melting those stuck emotions. In doing this, we reconnect with our own sense of WHOLENESS , ENOUGHNESS & PURPOSE.
By validating the unvalidated feelings, our stuck emotions are able to mature through our own reparenting...
By validating the unvalidated feelings, our stuck emotions are able to mature through our own reparenting and we are able to bridge the gap between our past childhood pain and our current adult reality. This is how we come into empowerment, wholeness and SELF VALIDATION at the highest level.
With love,
Candace Van Dell
Codependency Recovery Council (2022, August 26).