How many times have you asked yourself the reason for a certain behavior, a certain answer, a series of misfortunes one after the other, of an unbridgeable void around you? And how many times have you wanted to change the people around you, criticized and envied the lives of others, considering yourself the only one unlucky in the world? Well, the answers will only be found if you heal your bleeding infantile emotional wounds, which need suture. They are the basis of our personality, which will show different facets according to the type of wound or traumatic experience had.
But what are these infantile or emotional wounds? These are the five main conditions of our life, that affect our personality to the point that they prevent us from being what we are meant to be: wound by refusal, wound by abandonment, wound by humiliation, wound by betrayal and wound by injustice. They originate from a strong emotional pain (that can derive from a devaluation, an offense, an injustice, a psychological and physical violence and so on) generally felt in the childish age or in that of development, from which our soul and our sensibility are greatly damaged. In fact, soon we will begin to realize that we cannot be ourselves, we realize that, to become part of society, we must pretend and begin to wear a mask. The function of this mask is twofold: on the one hand, that of pleasing others and, on the other, keeping us in the dark of the emotional wound that lies behind it. Consequently, it is the mask that will choose our body, our passion and our relationships with others, which, therefore, will be negative because they are linked to the wound itself. Once we have decoded the message that is hidden behind every specific wound, we will become aware and we can transform the negative experiences of the past into our greatest gift.
With this in mind, attachment to parents is the cornerstone of the relationships that the child will weave into adulthood. In particular, attachment to the mother provides, especially in the first years of the child’s life, the input for the relational scheme that the child will apply as an adult, because the future adult will not do anything other than hunt for people (partners or friendships, it’s equal) who repeat the same relational patterns of their childhood. Therefore, if attachment to the maternal figure has been healthy and accommodating, then you can have an healthy and confident adult, who relates well to everyone and knows how to give and receive love, if, instead, the attachment has been avoiding, the child will become an insecure, cold and detached adult, who will have difficulty establishing a healthy relationship of love and friendship; if the attachment has been refusing, you will have an adult who will be anxious, worried, uncertain and eager to get into symbiosis with his partner or companion, who will have even more difficulty in relating, especially in love. The most serious type of attachment is that which includes the last two, as it will give rise to an affective dependent, who lives with the terror of losing the partner, with the fear of abandonment, with the anxiety of feeling and being with the partner at all times, with the conviction that he is at the center of the universe and nothing else more important and worthy of attention exists, with the desire to be always in symbiosis with him, to the point of suppressing his own needs and demands to give space only to his partner’s ones, following them, submitting to them, to the point of living in function of them.
The affective dependent has an uncontrollable desire to love and be loved, but not in a ‘healthy’ way, too boring for him. He needs someone who ‘loves’ him by making him suffer, because he has learned that pain and suffering are the ingredients of love. Therefore, he will get very easily entangled in the web of the energetic vampire, who will need, in turn, to suck the affective dependent ‘the nourishment’ necessary for his survival, desperately needing to be loved and revered. Who, like the narcissist, concentrates too much on himself, is often lacking in affection and pours upon himself that particular kind of love that he would like to receive, but that he does not find anywhere… Generally, those who do not know how to love is because they did not receive the love they needed or lost it. In the desperate search for love, the narcissist is particularly attracted by empathic people, because he is not so, he does not feel absolutely emotions and feelings, as a result he envies those in possession of them. This is how the toxic relationships originate, in which the two partners fit perfectly, desperately trying to fill their childhood gaps.
That’s why it’s important to suture your bleeding wounds by working on yourself. In fact, it is true there are different methods that use very effective techniques to succeed in it, among which I point out psychotherapy, psychiatry, personal growth paths in a specialized center on addictions, holistic pathways in general, theta-healing, counseling, coaching, however, definitive healing depends only on us. In fact, only with forgiveness one can get to the complete suture of these wounds.
I open a parenthesis about forgiveness, as I often happened, after posting on social networks articles or just phrases about it, to receive comments such as: “but I cannot” or “how do you forgive those who have prosecuted you?“ or again “no, no, I do not want to see him anymore, but to forgive him!” and many other similar ones. It seems to me, therefore, correct to specify that forgiveness does not consist in an amnesty of the incident, but in shaking off the situation, the emotional burden connected to it, that burden which, in the long run, has generated negative emotions and feelings such as anger, resentment, revenge, feeling of guilt, of anxiety, inferiority that, affecting the body, make him sick. In simple terms, forgiveness is useful to us. In fact, continuing to fuel our negative emotions towards our parents, our pain will grow more and more. Not surprisingly, Buddha wrote: “Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace”. And that’s right. Forgiveness does not heal the past, forgiveness heals our future because it is the only road that leads to love for ourselves and, as a consequence, towards others. In this way, not only we will free ourselves from the past and the wounds connected to it, but we will also free others.
At this point, we will be ready to show gratitude. Yes, gratitude to our parents for giving us life, this extraordinary earthly experience that, once free, will make us aware of our past and it will make us generate a healthy baby, cared for and perfectly ready to relate to anyone.