The Three Ego States: The Adult, The Parent, and the Inner Child
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What a powerful thing it is to be free. Empathetically free to live, love, and share your deepest expression of devotion. Living free can be a tricky and cunning thing. Humans are born with tremendous gifts. Undeniably, we are free at birth and unjaded by the world. We come into the world trusting, open, surrendered, and present. However, as we grow, we start to witness the people and situations around us. This can be a great thing if you are lucky enough to have conscious and aware people who raised you to see the beauty and magic in your own being while showing you loving affection. Most people are not this lucky so we have created an Inner Child Healing Retreat.
We know that unfortunately, many people identify with a childhood full of trauma, hardship, stress, and pain. Often, the people we talk to have experienced sharp and damaging human dysfunction of all varieties. This is especially hard when you are a young bright little start, coming into the world open and unaware. You, as a little child trusted and loved others while giving your heart over for just a smile but in turn, there was the stab of a dagger into your heart.
To protect yourself, you built a wall to hide behind. Surprisingly you realized that you could not be who you are, but you had to adapt to the dysfunction around you. To survive, you buried away your sparkle and your gifts, so that no one could steal your light. You buried it away so far, that you have forgotten where you put it. We have a very successful track record of helping you find it at an inner child healing retreat.
Fight or Flight or Freeze: Understand This Clearly at an Inner Child Healing Retreat
Walls built for survival protect and trigger the “fight or flight” response. This wall is extraordinarily strong and hard to break through. Once the threat goes away, there is a wounded inner child. This child is still hiding. The inner child is left behind. It’s like being stuck in pause, as your other ego states have grown. In the mind/ego you have the inner child, the parent, and the adult.
The parent ego state mimics what was shown by its birth parents (or whoever raised you). If your parents were critical, judgmental, harsh, and overbearing, many times the parent ego state will talk to the inner child in this exact way. The dysfunctional parent will overreact and chastise the wounded inner child. Saying things like, “Get up, get out from that hiding place. You are a baby and grounded. You are ugly and fat and no one will ever love you. Do NOT show any weakness. Power through, we do not have time to deal with this!”
This dynamic is even worse for the wounded inner child because the child already does not trust the parent. The child also knows that the parent does not have the tools to be able to care for the child in the right way. So the child continues to hide and burrow even deeper. Hiding who the child is, truly causes a person to lose themselves more and more as this cycle continues.
The Inner Adult & Highest Self: Shifting to a Higher Consciousness
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The adult ego state is a voice of reason and concern. The adult is supportive, reassuring, and responsible. This ego state wants the inner child to come out and play. The adult wants to trust, heal core wounds, grow holistically, and break down the wall that the inner child built. Your adult ego state wants what is best for your highest good. However, this is the ego, programmed and developed by society, then conditioned throughout life.
The adult is affected by societal norms, belief systems, and matters of the heart (broken or intact). When the parent ego state is punishing the inner child, deep down you can hear the adult ego, however quiet, not agreeing with this treatment. This is most aligned with your higher self. The highest self is connected to your higher power. It is of the consciousness that you are pure love and fully forgiven.
Inner Child Healing Retreat: Moving Forward With Learned Tools
Now that we have discussed all three ego states, it is important to take a step back and listen closely to your inner voice. Who “runs the show” most of the time? If you have a wounded inner child, this child will act out, causing issues, until you have fully embraced what happened. Instead of listening and siding with the parent’s ego state, it is important to try and step into your adult and highest self. Imagine a little child or even you at the age when you were first hurt and shown hatred. Imagine how you would teach yourself to build trust and make amends to this child. Children are sensitive and extremely observant. At first, it is a process of letting go, releasing the trauma, and breaking down the wall.
Book an Inner Child Retreat with SpiritQuest to get this process started. Once your core wounds are healed, you release the pain and embrace the lesson learned from the experience. The process of healing occurs. Just like a thorn buried for a long time creates an infected wound, you must dig down (which can be painful) to get the thorn out. Then you actually heal this wound and apply remedies to accelerate the healing process. You may have a little scar, but with continued love and time, this wound becomes healed.
