Our Parental Wounds are traumas that have been chugging down the line through the generations for a very long time and are issues that our fore fathers and mothers have not examined or tried to heal/change or resolve in any way. They just kept perpetuating unhealthy cycles of behavior and belief systems. The wounds that are played forward include toxic and oppressive beliefs, toxic practices/rituals, completely dysfunctional ways of relating to family and friends and dysfunctional coping mechanisms to deal with pain, suffering and rejection. They can also include racism, bigotry, homophobia and religious fanaticism.
Parental wounds are inflicted by:
- Shaming their child so they feel that they are not good enough, that something is fundamentally wrong with them and that they are unlovable.
- Comparing their child to others in order to belittle them, so that they feel that they are not good enough and never will be
- Criticising their child in front of others
- Devaluating anything that their child does so it is either ignored or dismissed as unimportant and a non-achievement, this can range from a drawing to getting a degree
- Splitting siblings so that they cannot form a close bond
- Interfering in relationships with 3rd parties
- Telling their child what they can and cannot believe/think
- Brainwashing their child by constantly repeating the same negative messages
- Telling their child what the can or cannot feel
- Not letting their child express their emotions in any way, such as fear, sadness, pain but also happiness, joy wonder and curiosity
- Ignoring or “not allowing” their child to be physically sick. Such as sending them to school with a temperature ignoring symptoms of an illness or not attending to broken bones
- Refusing to comfort their child when scared or in pain
- Withholding affection/attention
- Denying their child opportunities to grow and develop in life skills/hobbies/education and sport for no good reason
- Blaming their child for their own short comings and mistakes
- Frightening their child through threat of abandonment or putting them in physically dangerous situations
- Never listening to their child
- Withholding information from the child
- Never playing with their child
- Not bonding with the child
- Parentifying the child