“How childhood hardships influence your present moment”

Have you ever thought that you are carrying old beliefs from your childhood where somebody said something or did something that makes you feel unworthy? How many of you are suffering from social anxiety, depression, self-worth issues? How many people you relied on put you down or disappointed you? Do you know that those beliefs are affecting your relationships and self-esteem? It even affects your financial success and career possibilities. We carry the issues from our childhood into our adult life, not knowing that it affects our daily lives.

 

We have been carrying years of conditioning and it gets carried over from generation to generation. We do not realize how important it is to heal our inner child to help us succeed in our daily lives, because we believe everything we were taught was true and was supposed to be that way.

 

I have been on this healing journey for 3 years. It led me to come across different mentors and a great spiritual journey. I got the opportunity to do a Sadhana for 21 days to awaken and heal those broken pieces from our soul by doing things that will take us out of the comfort zone. However, I started developing pains in different parts of my body, one pain each day. Day 2- Knee/leg (which was related to resistance) Day 3 – Ring Finger in my right-hand side (which was related to commitment), and Day 4th I had this pain near my eyebrow like a small headache (comes down to overthinking). I had been working on the overthinking part for months but I guess still something deeper needs to heal.

I have created a Facebook page with the intention to help others find and heal the Inner Child. A dear friend suggested I must do a live so my followers get to know me. I agreed to do it, but just the thought of doing a live made me feel nervous, nauseous, shaky; so while sitting there reflecting on the new sensations and reflecting on the other pains and aches; it came clear to me that the reason why I felt resistance, the reason I was afraid of commitment and why my overthinking wasn’t healed, was  because of a childhood moment I experienced that haven’t fully healed.

Let me tell you a short story of how moments or traumas that I experienced during my childhood were damaging the adult I was trying to be, and the decisions I was making in my day to day life.

 

The Beginning:

When I was in 6th grade; I landed in a Catholic school ruled by nuns they were very uptight, and they didn’t like me as much, because of number 1. I always spoke my mind and was feisty, 2. I got into the school thanks to someone who was helping them financially and he threatened them to take the assistance away if they did not accept me.

I had to put all the effort to not fail in any of my classes and did the best I could, but it was never enough for them. One day, there was an incident that got blamed on me. One of the girls wrote a note on a paper that was put inside one of my books, then someone asked me to borrow the book, I handed the book without knowing that the note was in there. She opened and said look sister … what she wrote; my heart stopped when the paper was read out loud, it was obscene and profane for the nuns. I got yelled at in front of the class.

 

The Wound that needs to be healed :

I remember as if it was yesterday. The nuns called everyone downstairs, teachers, students, admins; brought me downstairs to put me in the middle of the courtyard of the school, sat me down and handed me the microphone so I could apologize to all of the students of the school, nuns and the community.

The whole school was watching, the nuns were attacking me, they were saying I was a disgrace and all kind of things on the microphone out loud. I just felt so little, embarrassed, lost and I was crying profusely. Some people were laughing, some people were ashamed they way I was treated, some indifferent. But my young soul was ripped apart by “authorities” and grown adults.

My parents got called and when they got there, they were furious as to how the nuns had treated me. They took me out of the school, and immediately called the man who helped me get in. He took the financial help away and never heard of the nuns again. But, regardless the damage was done and that scene stuck with me forever.

 

Realization:

I didn’t know that the reason for me not wanting to speak in public and always felt the need to apologize for the way I speak, my actions or why I get so defensive when something gets blamed on me without being my fault, was because that specific moment would be influencing my actions as an adult.

It has taken me a few years to heal those wounds caused in my childhood, the knowledge of thyself, practicing compassion towards me and towards others, and last, I end up designing a whole program to help heal my inner child and to give it a voice.

It is very important that we listen to what we feel, that we dig deeper on why things come up, why fears crawl up on us. Our inner child might be screaming at us to be healed. To be hugged and loved.

© Johanna Pupiales