Emotional Expression ≠ Emotional Completion

The frustrating thing about self-judgment is:

Just because you’re aware of it doesn’t mean you can just stop.

But Why? Where does it come from in the first place?

Feeling guilty for making a mistake comes from self-judgment.

Whether other people judge you or not, self-judgment is what you do to yourself.

But how do you “stop” it?

Where does this self-judgment, this Inner-Critic, this guilt come from?

“A part of me believes that I’m bad and I deserve to be punished.”

So when did you learn that?

The reason you’re punishing yourself is a part of you (The Wounded Child) is stuck in the past and actually believes that you’re bad, that you deserve to be judged and punished.

When a child doesn’t get the love they need, they blame themselves. They assume, “Something must be wrong with me. That’s why I’m not getting love and attention.”

But why does the child assume it’s them and not their parents?

It’s safer to do so.

Think of it this way:

“Is it better to be an unlovable child with loving parents or a lovable child with parents who don't have the capacity for love and emotional attunement?” - Laurence Heller PhD and Brad J. Krammer, LMFT

If parents are emotionally unavailable for their children as they attempt to form an emotional bond, this confuses the child.

Self-doubt, overthinking and constant self-questioning begins,

“Why why, why, why?” What’s wrong with me?” The child is left alone with this unexplained pain, the unseen pain of feeling neglected.

Neglect trauma is just as painful as intrusive forms of trauma, except neglect is unseen because it’s the absence of love.

The child begins questioning, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get this person’s attention, love, and approval? What do I need to do? What do I need to fix or change about me so that I can feel connected?”

Since connection is a fundamental human need, if the child is unable to get the love, attention and approval of their parents they’ll eventually seek it elsewhere.

This is the basis of dysfunctional relationships or what in mainstream culture is called toxic or unhealthy relationships:

Seeking approval, people-pleasing behaviour, a willingness to do whatever it takes to make someone else happy to stop yourself from losing the relationship….

All at your own expense.

Because losing the relationship proves your core belief, "I'm fundamentally unloveable because there's something wrong with me.

It’s a profound self-disconnection / self-abandonment that people experience as they attempt to get love and maintain even abusive relationships because their attachment need - the need to belong, seen, loved, validated, etc. to their primary caregiver - was not met.

Achieving or proving your worth is another common socially acceptable way to try to the get love, attention and approval you didn’t get as a child.

This is why you hear of so many people who "reach the top" but are ultimately unfulfilled.

“Shame is a protective response that gives a child hope. If I'm bad and at fault then there's something I can change about myself to get love.” - Laurence Heller PhD and Brad J. Krammer, LMFT

In other words, shame, the belief that “I’m bad and there’s something wrong with me” is a false assumption/conclusion that’s made as a way of perceiving safety in a child’s environment.

The child also doesn’t have any context, life experience or mental faculties to put their emotions into perspective - to make sense of them.

Without this context, and without someone being there to help them make sense of their experience, the child is stuck alone in their confusion, hurt, sadness, anger and fear with no one to valid their emotions.

In many cases the child is also made to feel that they shouldn’t be feeling the way they’re feeling.

If the child could see clearly what any conscious adult today could see, they’d be very angry.

Anger is meant to serve 2 main survival functions:

1) It’s a form of distress/protest from a child which signals, “I’m not getting something I need.” It’s up to the parent to attune to the child’s needs.

2) Anger is also a natural boundaries self-protective mechanism which allows us to differentiate ourselves from others and maintain our individuality. If someone gets too close or does something we don’t want them to do to us, the natural healthy response is, “Don’t do that! Stop!”

But when a child doesn’t know what to do with their anger, there remains this charge of energy, anger, inside of them that:

1) Carries with it a message (that you need to understand if you want to come to emotional completion).

2) Was meant to move up and out of you.

But if that energy didn’t get to move up and out because it wasn’t allowed, then guess where it goes?

Down and in…

No energy is successfully repressed.

That means sweeping something under the rug leads to you tripping over it later. It doesn’t deal with the problem.

When the anger goes down and in, it often leads to dis-ease / dis-harmony in the body and fuels the inner critic.

This energy fuels the fire that feeds and locks in the belief, “I’m bad and I deserve to be punished.”

Can you feel it churning inside of you, or have you seen it in others?

So you end up with this passionate self-hatred and a shame cycle that spirals downward out of control, unless you…

Numb it and avoid it.

Which is why so many people have addictions - temporary coping mechanisms for overwhelming and self-generated feelings of shame.

The shame is fed even more by self-awareness.

The self-aware Adult tends to judge their developmentally traumatized part, the Wounded Child, with their present day fully formed adult brain:

"Why can't I control this? I know better... I should be able to deal with this."

So let’s review and talk about what you can do about this:

There are these 2 key parts of yourself at war: The Adult Self and the Wounded Child.

Even though all of this can make sense conceptually to the Adult, it makes no difference to the Wounded Child, the part of you that’s stuck in the past, still hurt, bitter, unseen, and angry.

It’s this part of you, The Wounded Child, that needs to understand all of this.

And not just “understand this” but literally have a realization, to see clearly that, “It’s not my fault. I’m loveable despite how my parents and others treat me.”

That’s when everything changes.

That’s when you also see the positive reasons for your addiction(s).

That’s when you realize the thing you see as a problem as an Adult is actually a solution to that Wounded Child.

That’s when you get to experience self-compassion instead of self-hatred.

That’s when you welcome back a part of you that you disowned (through judgment) because it was unsafe to express x,y,z growing up.

That's when you get to FEEl connected to yourself because you've ended the war inside.

That void within you, is the felt experience of this internal split, this disconnection from yourself, caused by self-judgment.

Remember, judgment is what makes you wrong and creates this internal split. But who needs to be made wrong? Someone who believes they’re bad.

When you realize you're not bad, judgment evaporates and compassion naturally takes its place.

Remember this realization is experiential, not conceptual.

So, the expression of anger is an integral part of this healing process because it reverses down and in energy - the internalized story/emotions (the burden you took on that’s not yours).

BUT, emotional expression is NOT the same as emotional completion.

Ever notice how emotional expression doesn't actually "heal" you?

That's because the relief that comes from expression alone is not the same as emotional completion.

And that’s what we’re aiming for, to actually put this pattern to bed within you once and for all.