How to free your true Self - p. 1 of 3

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The Web address of this article is http://sfhelp.org/gwc/recover.htm

Updated April 07, 2013

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        This video clip introduces psychological-wound reduction ("recovery"):

        This is one of a series of articles on Lesson 1 in this Web site - free your true Self to guide you in calm and conflictual times, and reduce significant psychological wounds. This 3-page overview hilights...

what wound recovery means;

requisites for effective recovery.

typical wound-reduction goals;

pseudo vs. true recovery;

types of recovery help;

typical signs of true recovery; and...

seven common recovery themes.

         This article assumes you're familiar with....

the intro to this nonprofit site and the premises underlying it

self-improvement Lesson 1

the toxic [wounds + ignorance] cycle

Grown Wounded Children (GWCs), and typical wound-effects,

perspective on "mental illness;" and...

this example of a real wounded nuclear stepfamily,

Introduction

        Premise - young kids raised in low-nurturance homes survive (vs. thrive) by automatically forming a protective group of personality subselves - a "false self." False-self formation ("personality splitting") causes up to five other significant psychological wounds.

        Until these wounds are admitted and significantly reduced, they combine with unawareness to cause major personal, relationship, occupational, and health problems. This site calls adults controlled by a false self Grown Wounded Children (GWCs). The media calls us Adult Children of toxic (i.e. wounded) parents or of dysfunctional (low-nurturance) families.

       Since 1981, I've spent over 17,000 hours consulting with more than 1,000 troubled women, men, and some of their kids. My opinion is that well over 80% of them didn't know that a false self was causing their problems and wounding their dependent kids. Restated: these typical adults were unaware of the [wounds + unawareness] cycle that they inherited and were unintentionally passing on to their descendents.

        Unseen psychological wounds and other hazards put needy adults at risk of unwise mate-choices and eventually divorcing psychologically or legally. This free self-improvement course can help couples make wise commitment choices and protect their descendants from inheriting toxic [wounds + unawareness].

       I've been learning how to reduce my own wounds since I discovered them in 1986. This gradual healing process has helped me release life-long fears, shame, and guilt by freeing my true Self to guide me. Harmonizing my personality subselves has significantly improved my life and relationships.

        My clinical work with scores of recovering GWCs suggests that my recovery experiences are common. I've benefited from studying and integrating the works of over two dozen veteran therapists and researchers focused on understanding, healing, and preventing these pervasive, crippling psychological wounds.

        This article overviews a complex multi-year personal healing process. For more perspective and detail on reducing (vs. "curing") psychological wounds, see the Lesson-1 guidebook Who's Really Running Your Life? (4th edition - Xlibris.com, 2011). It integrates the key Web articles in this online Lesson, and is available in print or as an ebook.

  What Is "Wound Recovery"?

       It's an intentional multi-year, mental + psychological + spiritual + social process. A minority of wounded people eventually hit bottom, break life-long denials, and start this healing process - often in mid-life. Millions of other people endure decades of unhappiness, wound their kids, and die prematurely, without ever knowing their wounds and how to reduce them.

        Hitting true (vs. pseudo) bottom can trigger...

years of increasing self-awareness and knowledge, which promote...

major permanent changes in key attitudes, values, behaviors, and relationships. The changes include...

learning how to identify and grieve many major losses (broken bonds) from early childhood through the present - i.e. learning how to finish grieving them.

        True (vs. pseudo ) wound-recovery involves recognizing and freeing the innately wise, resident true Self to organize other personality subselves into a cooperative team working toward clear, long-term personal goals. Part of this process involves seeking and accepting human and spiritual help, and controlling any addictions (maintaining "sobriety").

        Typical false selves are scared to let go of control and follow the true Self, so they can go through the motions of recovery ("talk the talk") without really changing toxic attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. This protective strategy can be called "pseudo" or "trial" recovery. When a GWC is in pseudo recovery, they don't experience the positive life changes summarized below.

        Many mental-health professionals feel that the psychological injuries from early-childhood trauma can be greatly reduced, but not totally "cured." In stressful circumstances, Grown Wounded Children may still be taken over by protective false selves, and old coping attitudes and behaviors (e.g. lying, stealing, self-neglect, etc.) recur. These relapses diminish as wound-reduction continues and becomes a way of life.

        The wound-reduction process is complex, painful, confusing, scary, freeing, exhilarating, and literally life-changing. Every personality and profile of wounds is unique, so there is no absolute "right way" to recover. This article summarizes some healing requirements and guidelines that apply to everyone.

Seven Requisites for True Recovery

        Though each wounded person (GWC) recovers in their own way, the healing process seems to require seven common factors...

personal awareness,

knowledge and life experience,

motivation - wanting to recover,

spiritual (vs. religious) growth and faith,

sobriety - i.e. admit and control any addictions;

a pro-recovery environment, and...

a range of recovery resources.

        Here's a little perspective on these requisites:

§1) Awareness – wanting to become habitually conscious of...

what I think, feel, and need now; and...

how I behave in various situations now and over time.

Evolving self-awareness promotes more awareness of these factors in other people. This helps in choosing a pro-recovery environments and communicating effectively with other people.

§2) Knowledge and life experience – recoverers need to...

learn about (a) early-childhood abandonment, neglect, and abuse; and (b) how to recognize the psychological wounds these stressors usually cause;

learn about personality subselves and how to harmonize them under the leadership of the resident true Self ("Inner-family therapy" - Lesson 1)

learn to apply communication, grieving, and relationship basics (Lessons 2 - 4); and to...

evolve a clear understanding of high-nurturance families (Lesson 5), effective parenting (Lesson 6), and the [wounds + ignorance] cycle and what it means,

        and recoverers need to...

accumulate years of life experience to provide perspective on and validate these topics.

        And recovering people also need…

§3) Motivation to change – this usually requires accumulating enough pain, frustration, weariness, and despair (hit true bottom) and decide “I can no longer live like this (be controlled by a false self).”
        And they also need…

§
4) Spiritual growth and faith – i.e. wanting to…

•evolve steady, genuine faith in an attentive, responsive, benign (vs. "wrathful, vengeful") Higher Power, and to…

turn overwhelming problems over to that Being to gain daily serenity (inner peace).

        And some recoverers need to...

5) Admit and control any addictions (maintain "sobriety") for at least 12 to 18 months. Sobriety is the gateway to permanently reducing psychological wounds. For more perspective on controlling (vs. "curing") addictions, see this and this after you finish this article.

        Another universal requisite is...

§6) A pro-recovery environment – choosing to associate with people who…

•are guided by their true Selves or are working to achieve that; and...

can differentiate low-nurturance (dysfunctional) and high-nurturance (functional) relationships, settings, and belief-systems; and...

understand and accept personality subselves and psychological wounds; and people who can…

think clearly, empathize, and communicate effectively; and who...

are evolving their own spiritual (vs. religious) faith and awareness, and who...

genuinely (vs. dutifully or strategically) support psychological-wound reduction.

Acquiring such supporters usually requires replacing some toxic family, work, and social relationships with more nurturing ones, and grieving related losses. This may include relationships with wounded parents, siblings, partners, and some co-workers and/or friends.

           And typical recoverers also need...

§ 7) To acquire and use some resources like those on p. 3.

        The more of these seven requisites a wounded person has, the more likely they are to free their true Self and reduce their inner wounds over time.

        Pause and reflect. Can you name these seven requisites? How many of them do you have now?

        Now let's examine...

An overview of the Recovery Process

       Trial or true recovery usually begins with a traumatic event or a series of events which finally shatter or weaken life-long protective denials. These events may include a prized relationship ending; bankruptcy; job losses; major injury, disability, or illness; an abortion, a "breakdown," and/or a child's major distress. People in 12-step addiction-management programs call this "hitting bottom" or "hitting the wall." Addicts who relapse are said to have hit a "false" (preliminary, or pseudo) bottom or wall.

        There are many kinds of recovery triggers. Some are sudden and dramatic. Others occur on a trip, watching a movie, taking a shower, in church or a confrontation, driving to a store, reading, or in a sleepless night. I recall one divorced, middle-aged addict saying "I realized one morning that my life was just... gray, and I HAD to change." Approaching or experiencing middle age seems to make hitting the wall more likely - perhaps from really accepting the inevitability of limited remaining years and eventual death.

       Once a Grown Wounded Child (GWC) begins to admit their inner pain and emptiness to themselves and others, they often experience a confusing period of searching, mood swings, and disorientation. Lifelong attitudes and beliefs are no longer valid (e.g. "My childhood wasn't as fine and 'normal' as I've always thought!"), and new beliefs aren't clear or solid. This is typical of true core-attitude shifts.

        Some early recoverers pull into themselves (isolate) for a period, others frantically seek companionship. Through "chance" (a conversation, a book or TV program, a sermon, ...) they come across the idea of addiction recovery or some version of "Adult Child" (GWC) recovery. Something "clicks," and they seek more information.

       The next stages of typical wound-reduction are wonderfully varied. They can include combinations of...

A hunger to learn - reading self-help books voraciously ("bibliotherapy"), using audio or video recovery tapes, going to recovery lectures, finding and talking with others in recovery, asking family-history questions of relatives, meditating, journaling, etc.

A growing feeling of "AHA!", "rightness," or "centeredness" about cascading new personal awarenesses, without being able to identify why; or starting to see their early nurturance-deprivations ("I realized my Mom never said 'I love you' or hugged me."), and how those promoted GWC personality traits, beliefs ("I'll never amount to much"), and behaviors. Vague or compelling longing for a "better life" blooms.

And typical early-recoverers experience...

A gradual shift of daily focus from external events, relationships, goals, activities, and material things to internal awareness, exploration; and growth. This shift may feel alien at first, and gradually morph into a way of life. And...

A growing comprehension of how many other people are unaware of early-childhood trauma and of being ruled by a protective false selves. As their true Self becomes more trusted, recoverers gradually shift from blaming, resenting, criticizing, envying, and/or fearing such people to calm compassion. They may try to persuade wounded people to try recovery, and gradually accept that such decisions must come from within when the time is right for each person.

   And they experience...

A gradual thawing of emotional and physical feelings frozen for decades, and/or a validation of lifelong "unexplainable" feelings - usually surges of resentment, rage, deep sadness ("depression"), guilts, regrets, and profound shame.

        This thawing can come in rushes or in unpredictable spurts, over months or years. Growing conscious awareness of these legitimate feelings and their prior repression can evoke intense feelings of anger at parents, themselves, others, and/or a "loving" God. Long-repressed grieving of lost childhoods, relationships, and life-opportunities begins;

         As these emotions, senses, and awarenesses cascade and amplify, typical people in early wound-reduction may start ...

Seeking and accepting various kinds of recovery help, including individual and/or group therapy; self-help (e.g. 12-step) groups; inpatient addiction-treatment and aftercare programs; spiritual communion and guidance; Tai Chi or meditation classes; dance, massage, or art therapy; retreats and wilderness sojourns;...

        All these experiences add to a growing wholistic awareness of the original early nurturance deprivations, the old coping behaviors and their impacts, and a humbling, exciting visions of the person's true Self and a possible new truly-authentic lifestyle;

As old denials and repressions continue to dissolve, people in true (vs. pseudo) recovery confront a series of difficult inner and social conflicts. To keep healing inevitably requires changing or replacing toxic...

attitudes and beliefs (e.g. "It's OK for me to work 65 hours a week," "I can skip breakfast with no risk," or "There is no real God") with Self-nurturing ones;

relationships - e.g. with significantly-wounded mates, parents, siblings, friends, co-workers, and employers; and ...

social memberships - e.g. working in a low-nurturance organization and/or regularly attending a toxic (low-nurturance) church, club, or other group.

      Toxic means any relationship, activity, belief, value, or setting that consistently promotes (a) personal shame, guilt, distrust of self and others, anxiety, confusion, frustration, pessimism, anger, despair, and "failure;" and/or that promotes (b) disabling one's true Self. Restated: in this context, toxic means wholistically self-harmful and self-neglectful.

        As typical recoverers try these scary, exciting changes, the alarmed Guardian and Inner-child subselves of other (wounded and unrecovering) people try to manipulate them back into their old ways of believing, thinking, feeling, and behaving. True (vs. pseudo) recovery rocks everyone's securities!

Recovery overview continued on p. 2