Healing Your Heartaches

One of the most frequent things I observe when working with clients is their lack of willingness to face the pain and trauma of the one thing that trips them up most when looking for love – their childhood. It’s understandable to a degree since we’re programmed to move toward pleasure and away from pain; however our soul came here for the experience of the contrast of our existence, and to find our way back to peace. The choice to remain mired in the pain of our childhood wounds keeps us stuck. When the pain of staying stuck becomes greater than the pain of pushing through and Healing your Heartaches, you will do the work and change, which will allow you to finally attract the high quality love you’ve been looking for, for so long.

When you were a child, you had perfect self-esteem. You knew what you wanted, you asked for it, and didn’t doubt that you would receive it. Our well-meaning parents, who did the best they knew how to do, typically modeled what their parents did to them, and taught you all sorts of wonderful things, and many not so wonderful things. Most parenting teaches children to conform to parental ideals and societal norms of what constitutes acceptable behavior. Unfortunately, parents use unhealthy strategies such as physical force, manipulation, guilt, power trips, coercion, etc. to mold us into little people pleasing robots. We learn to chronically seek our parents’ approval, because it feels better in that moment when they are pleased with us, rather than when they are not.

This pattern follows us into our intimate relationships. Have you ever found yourself doing something for a love
you would never do for a friend? Why does this other person hold so much power to influence your behavior? Because we are constantly seeking approval; and we equate their approval with love. When we’re adults, the instant gratification of having our mate pleased with us for a series of individual moments, unfortunately does not add up to a lifetime of happiness. Often, the opposite occurs. You and your partner both end up miserable because you (and most likely your mate also) are being who you think your partner wants you to be instead of who you really are.

Our parents did us a huge disservice by teaching us to be pleasers because they stripped us of our authenticity. Who says it’s wrong to stand on the arm of the couch and sing at the top of my lungs? My parents couldn’t have known for sure that I wasn’t going to be the next top singing superstar? They meant well. They didn’t want to get a headache, or have us be chided by friends, or wounded by failure. They mostly just wanted to protect you. But, how do you get over the one or many things they did to you that you’ve been carrying throughout your entire life, feeling angry, hurt, and resentful over?

There are many modalities I have used to help me heal from layers and layers of issues from my childhood that I have carried into my adulthood.

Here’s a list of some of the things I have tried that worked for me:

• EFT – Emotional Freedom Techniques® or Tapping (as EFT is becoming known.)
• Breath-work / Rebirthing
• Jou
aling
• Past Life Regression
• Affirmations
• Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
• Visualizing
• Modeling
• H’opo ono pono
• Meditation
• The Forgiveness Diet
• Reiki
• Acupuncture
• Craniosacral
• Yoga
There are some other modalities that I have not tried that have worked for others:

• Hypnosis
• Rolfing & Massage
• Art Therapy
• Dream Revision Therapy
• EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
• Somatic Imagery
• Chakra Energy Healing
• Muscle Testing / Kinesiology
• Drumming Circles & Chanting
• Movement Psychotherapy
• Anger Management Treatment
• Religious doctrines
• Tarot, Parapsychology, Intuitives
• Feldenkrais
• Qigong
• Vibrational Attunement
• And many more

The type of modality is not important. What does matter is that you:

1. Explore the Modality that feels right to you – Doing something just because someone else suggested it will not work if it doesn’t feel right to you. Listen to your inner voice and research a new modality. Then try the one or two that speak to your values and beliefs and resonate with you. Believing something will work for you is half the battle. Finding something you love and that feels right - down to your core - is what will produce the best results for you.

2. Reach a place of Forgiveness – Forgiving your parents, or anyone who abused you, does not make what they did right. It allows you to free yourself from the bondage of the feelings that are holding you hostage and keeping you from moving forward in your life. The forgiveness diet and jou
aling helped me the most to reach a place of forgiveness with my parents and others who I perceived wronged me. Reach a place of forgiveness and set yourself free.

3. Diffuse the Emotions from the Memories of your past that no longer serve you – I found EFT® to be the fastest, most reliable way of diffusing the emotional triggers to my wounds from childhood. Gary Craig, the founder of EFT, states in the EFT Manual that all trauma lies in an energy meridian in the body somewhere, and clearing that channel will neutralize the emotion and eliminate the power it holds over you. Obviously there are many other modalities that can help you diffuse your emotional ‘hot spots’. Go back to number 1 and figure out which ones you want to try that feel right to you.

4. Create new Beliefs about your Childhood – Most of our childhood probably wasn’t as bad as we make it seem when we’re in our victim mentality. Once you’ve diffused the emotions and reached a place of forgiveness, it will be easier for you to begin remembering the parts of your childhood that were fun and good. It’s not our fault that we default to the negative; we heard the word “NO” 60 to 70,000 times a day as a child. Take your time, catch yourself when you start going toward negative thoughts of your childhood, and then choose to remember a positive childhood memory or experience. In time, you will have reprogrammed your thoughts about your childhood to be more positive than negative.

If you’re thinking that your childhood wasn’t so bad, dig a little deeper into your parents’ thoughts, beliefs, and values about relationships. Were they positive or negative? Do you desire to have a relationship exactly like your parent’s? If not, why not? I bet when you explore more deeply, you’ll realize that you were handed down some beliefs that you do not desire to recreate in your life.

Remember, a belief is just a thought you choose to think over and over. Your beliefs originally came from your parents’ beliefs, but now as an adult you get to choose which ones you want to incorporate into your life, so remember to choose wisely!

Attracting the love of your life - who is a high quality individual, with his or her own issues he’s working through, yet who’s authentic, sincere, and willing to take responsibility for his life, is the ultimate base for an amazing relationship. Since you attract based on where you are currently in your emotional development, commit to doing the work required to become authentic, sincere and responsible first. That way, you can stop attracting men based on your unhealed childhood wounds and find someone who’s ready to grow to higher emotional states alongside you.

Remember to be easy about all of this, be kind to yourself along the way, and trust that you will be led to everything you need at the perfect time. The Universe has your back baby and wants you to be happy, as do I. In the words of Abraham-Hicks, “There is great love here for you.” Now go forth and be willing to do the work that will allow him in, help you to get unstuck, and create the life of your dreams with your man.