Workbook6

Stopping the Internal Child Abuse

Becoming conscious of the way you treat yourself can be a sobering experience. As the exercises you have been working with expose your "learned value" from the people and circumstances you grew up with, you begin to see that you have in fact learned hat you value us based on your perception of how much other people valued you. You observed the way the important individuals in your world talked to you and treated you. You adopted this treatment and internalized it, honestly believing it was truly the way you deserved to be treated. This is what I call the Internalized external parent. The adult aspect of us adopts this learned parenting style and inflicts it on the inner child. Your external parent can be long deceased, yet your internalized external parent continues the berating, judging, punishing and verbal pummeling. Knowing that your internalized external parent was created from assumed, learned concepts of yourself will free you internally to unassume and unlearn them.

It is important to clearly identify the beliefs you hold about yourself that you swallowed erroneously. To uncover your internalized external treatment of yourself, you need to remember both what was said and what was done. This includes statements such as " You'll never amount to anything"; "I wish you were never born"; "you are nothing but trouble"; "something is wrong with you"; and so on. Some of the hurtful words may be very subtle. Enlist the assistance of your inner child to unearth all the harmful things your family said to you or about you when you were growing up. Remember; if you perceive that it hurt, that is your truth. Sometimes, when you're growing up, teasing feels extremely hurtful, even if the person teasing you had no malicious intent.