How divorce is the playground of our unhealed childhood wounding
Spread your wings softly.
It’s not fun and jelly shots, but let’s get real about our childhood wounding. We are all wounded in some way. Depending on our upbringing, some of us have more wounding than others, but all of us can revert—when the situation calls for it—to our hurt little inner children. Just as marriage is the place where we project these unmet childhood needs, divorce is often the place where we channel our childhood rage or abandonment.
Most people going through a divorce feel like they are living in a hellscape—under-resourced, anxious, alone, and dreading the next lawyer’s letter or court date. Add to this our unmet childhood needs and we have a recipe for an emotional bonfire night.
The emotional toll can be significant, as we may feel a sense of loss, betrayal, and also uncertainty about the future. The legal process can also be overwhelming, as it involves navigating complex laws and procedures, and often requires the assistance of attorneys and other professionals. Additionally, the financial strain of divorce can be significant, as we may need to divide assets and debts, and may also need to pay for legal fees and other expenses. Hello, lack programing and overwhelming fears of poverty.
All of these factors can contribute to feelings of anxiety, isolation, and dread. At The Heartful we not only support you during your divorce, but we also help you process underlying emotions, feelings of lack and low self-worth so that you can operate from a more empowered and safe standpoint. Because hell, we’ve been there.
So let’s break down the ways we get entangled emotionally with the actual process of divorce.
Triggers
When you react to a trigger, say a lawyer’s letter demanding you do something scary or unjust, it can feel like the world is caving in on you. This is why we use a neural processing technique (called Inner Space Programming) and psychological prompts to help you source this feeling, to find out how you may have felt it before. This helps you to process the old dormant emotion making this trigger so hurtful, so that in the future this trigger isn’t as powerful as it once was. And then you can get back to the business of divorce.
How we project childhood wounds onto partners and ex partners
Projecting childhood wounding onto a partner is a common phenomenon in adult relationships. It refers to the unconscious process of transferring unresolved emotional pain from one's past onto the present relationship. This can happen when individuals have not fully processed or healed from past traumas or emotional experiences, and instead, unconsciously seek to reenact or resolve these experiences in their current relationships.
This happens all the time in divorce. All the deep, icky stuff comes out. Ther revenge, the rage, the anger, the resentment.
For example, an individual who experienced abandonment from a parent during childhood may unconsciously seek out partners who are emotionally unavailable or who repeatedly leave them. This person may blame their partner for their feelings of abandonment, rather than recognizing that these feelings stem from their unresolved childhood wound.
Or—when an individual who experienced neglect or abuse in childhood may unconsciously seek out partners who are controlling or abusive. This person may blame their partner for their feelings of insecurity or low self-worth, rather than recognizing that these feelings stem from their unresolved childhood wound.
Projecting childhood wounding onto yoour partner can also manifest in the form of blaming, criticizing, or becoming overly dependent on the partner. It can also lead to a lack of trust, insecurity, and a feeling of being stuck in a pattern of unhealthy relationships.
It is important to understand that projecting childhood wounding onto one's partner is not a conscious choice, and it is not the partner's fault. It is an unconscious process that can be addressed through self-reflection, therapy, and the willingness to take responsibility for one's own emotional healing.
Be aware of your patterns
To overcome this, it is important for us to become aware of our own patterns of behavior and emotions in our relationships and to explore the underlying emotions and experiences that may be driving these patterns. This can be done through therapy, self-reflection, and learning effective communication and coping skills. We use our deep, subconscious reprogramming Inner Space Patternings to rewrite old beliefs with new ones, adding in heart prompts so that we can engage the fourth chakra in healing.