“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ― Jalaluddin Rumi

Most healers have wounded souls. What actually makes them healers is their ability to heal these wounds themselves.

Healing is such a laborious task that requires you to go back and feel the pain once again. As hard as it could be, it’s the only way to heal and make yourself whole once more.

Here are the 7 steps to healing your inner self that John Bradshaw laid out.

7 Steps To Heal Your Inner Self

1. Give your inner self the trust it had been denied of.

One cause of your inner woundedness is the feeling of abandonment or betrayal. Feeling all alone and misunderstood, you can’t seem to trust anyone.

By giving your wounded self that trust, your inner child will slowly open up and come out of hiding. Trust will make him feel that you are there for him.

2. Validate your feelings of woundedness.

Stop rationalizing why you have to get hurt or shamed. Accept that your family or other people have done such a thing to you.

By fully accepting that you have been wounded, you have a clear reason why you need to heal and how to heal.

Also, you need to face the truth that those who hurt you weren’t bad, they’re simply wounded beings too.

3. Accept the feelings of shock.

The process of healing may shock your system, body or mind. It’s normal because you have been used to the comfort of your hiding.

Accept the feelings of shock and move on with it. Be prepared for the ghastly things that you will have to encounter on your path to healing.

4. It’s alright to be angry.

Anger is a normal reaction to the ‘injustice’ that had been done to you. You might ask why others could do that to you when you even could not do that thing to someone else.

Get that anger out of your system. Write it down and let the emotions spill out onto the paper.

Or you may find a lonely place like a mountain or forest, then scream your heart out.

Expressing your anger is healthy as long as you don’t lash out or hurt other people.

5. Embrace your hurting self.

After expressing your anger, sadness may come next. As a victim, it truly hurts to realize that others might have hurt or betrayed you. And it’s ok to be sad. Do not avoid it.

The betrayal or anything that causes you wound may have caused a collapse to your dreams or aspirations too. It’s okay to grieve over that.

6. Be prepared for the feelings of remorse.

You may find yourself feeling remorseful. You may keep on thinking how you could have done things differently.

What you need to see is that your pain is about what happened to you and not about you. Move out of your own way and let yourself experience those emotions.

And remember, even if you could have done things in the manner you wished, it’s still not a guarantee that the outcomes would be different.

7. Go through that loneliness.

Wounded people are lonely people. Though they may succeed in making others believe that they are happy, they could not deny to themselves that they are lonely deep within.

As a wounded soul, you may have related to this that much. You may have felt so bad for being betrayed, shamed or abandoned.

All these feelings lead to loneliness, then to feelings of defectiveness and flaws.

To cope up, you adopt a false self, making your true self stay alone and isolated. But you don’t have to stay this way.

You have to go through that loneliness because it’s the only way out. Embrace that loneliness and meet your inner self in that state.

You do not feel lonely because of what happened to you or because others might have betrayed you.

The core of your loneliness, actually, is the fact that you’ve turned your back on yourself by putting on a personality to protect you from all these emotions.

Once you have acknowledged that shame and loneliness, you encounter your true self.

The process of healing may take months or years. But never count the days.

Focus on your progress. Focus on the light that enters through your wounds.

And when you successfully heal yourself, you will naturally know how to guide others in their healing process.

Source: Conscious Reminder > https://www.mojan.com/content/healing-your-inner-child;