Mona couldn’t stop staring at her phone. Why isn’t he texting me back? she wondered. It’s been two hours! I must have done something wrong. Maybe he’s with another woman. And the thought behind all the others: I’m just not good enough for him.
Mona had been dating Juan for more than two years, and even the security of what was a relatively long-term relationship didn’t prevent her from panicking every time he didn’t respond quickly (or quickly enough, in her opinion) to her texts or calls or seemed distant, distracted, or disinterested in any way. When he stayed late at work, she suspected that he was having an affair. When he wanted to spend time alone or out with friends, she assumed that he must be unhappy with her. If he was quiet, grumpy, or low energy, she figured that he had finally grown tired of their relationship. Mona was always, it seemed, looking for evidence to indicate whether her relationship was going to work out.
When two hours dragged into three, Mona started to panic. It’s finally happening, she thought. He’s breaking up with me! She sent another text: “What’s going on? Is everything OK?” The more time passed, the more nervous she became. She had a ton of projects to finish that day—she worked from home as a graphic designer—but she couldn’t concentrate. She’d already skipped her afternoon online yoga class, even though she’d paid for it, and rescheduled several work calls because she was too anxious to do anything other than stare at her phone. She wasn’t even listening to her favorite playlist, which she usually found comforting, since she was too concerned about missing the ding of a possible text.
When another hour had passed since her last message, Mona texted Juan again: “Can you please text me back? Or just call me? I’m getting worried.” Her anxiety was now all-consuming. Should she drive to his work and look for his car? She decided to try calling his phone . . . straight to voice mail! He’s blocked me! she thought. She started crying as she dug around in her purse for her car keys. Even though Juan usually left the office by that time, she would drive over anyway, and if she saw his car outside, she’d walk in and confront him about what was going on.
As Mona was getting ready to pull out of the driveway, her cell phone rang. It was Juan; he’d forgotten his phone charger that morning, and his battery had died shortly after her first text. He’d just plugged in his phone and seen all her other messages. “Is everything OK?” he asked.
Mona wanted to squeal with relief, “He’s not leaving me!” At the same time, she wanted to scream in anger, “Why didn’t you charge your phone at work? You could have asked a colleague to borrow a charger! Is it because you didn’t want to text me back?” But she didn’t scream anything and broke down crying instead as Juan tried to make sense of how he’d upset his girlfriend yet again.
Mona wasn’t inherently an insecure or paranoid person. Instead, she suffered from what so many of us do: a core abandonment wound. We develop this wound if we were physically left by a parent-figure who died, was incarcerated, gave us up for adoption, or simply stopped coming home one day, separating from the other parent or suffering a health crises or accident. We also develop this wound if we were consistently left without the emotional support while going through emotionally overwhelming experiences as children.
In Mona’s case, though both her parents cared for her deeply and were physically present in her life, they had married at a young age when they didn’t yet know how to emotionally support themselves or each other, let alone attune to their developing daughter. They fought constantly, and when Mona was three, her father abruptly moved out after one particularly explosive argument, eventually filing for divorce. Several years later, he married another woman and started a new family. Although she saw him and her half siblings regularly, she never felt part of their family or as though she was even her father’s daughter anymore.
Though Mona doesn’t explicitly remember much about her parents fighting or the details of the night when her father left, her body and brain do. That’s because all the experiences we have in childhood, even when we’re too young to consciously recall them, are recorded as our implicit memories, those that exist inside us as instinctual thoughts and feelings. Because our hippocampus, an area of our brain responsible for conscious recollection, doesn’t fully develop until age three, most of us can’t directly recall what happened to us before then even though our developing nervous system stores those experiences. Before our brain has language abilities, the overwhelming events we experience are imprinted on implicit or preverbal regions of our mind, according to the groundbreaking work of Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, the author of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Simply put, even if we can’t actively call to mind the experiences that impacted us as children, the impact on our conditioning is still there, driving our thoughts, feelings, and reactions today.
To complicate things, if we faced chronically stressful environments outside and inside our childhood home, our body produced more cortisol, which further impacted the functioning of our hippocampus, helping to explain the life-long difficulties recalling the past that many of us have noticed, including myself.
When we experience trauma at a young age, we lack the emotional maturity to contextually understand the subjective nuance of our individual circumstances. This causes us to have immature and self-centered (or egocentric) thoughts as we try to make sense of what is happening or has happened to us. We often think, I’m what causes Mom to always come home in a bad mood; Dad drinks because I’m bad; or If I were more lovable, Mom wouldn’t be depressed. Whatever thoughts we had as children, if we thought them often enough, they eventually became part of our neural patterning and deep-rooted beliefs.
When a parent leaves the family, as Mona’s father did, especially when the child is young, the child can’t understand that the conflict or separation has nothing to do with them. Instead, they may feel as though Dad or Mom left because of them, that they weren’t worthy or lovable enough or were too intrinsically flawed for their parent to want to stay. This causes deep-rooted shame that the child internalizes and carries with them into adulthood.
Because my mom was constantly dissociated, distracted, and lost in her own world, she wasn’t able to emotionally connect to or attune to me. Without the developmental maturity to know the real cause of her distance, I assumed that it was because of me and my overwhelming emotional world. Feeling shameful about myself for causing our disconnection—or so I believed—I stopped sharing my feelings with everyone, believing it was the safest way to maintain my relationships.
Either form of abandonment, physical or emotional, results in adults who still believe that they’re not worthy or good enough to be loved and supported within a relationship. Because Dad or Mom left us, we subconsciously assume that others will leave us, too, as soon as they find out that we’re as flawed, unworthy, or broken as we’ve come to believe we are. Though we’re particularly prone to feeling this way in our romantic relationships, where we are the most vulnerable both physically and emotionally, we can have similar worries about being left out within our friendships or find ourselves feeling like an imposter in our professional relationships.
Believing we’re unworthy, some of us become “chasers” as adults, constantly pursuing or pushing others to try to verify, validate, or prove that they still love us and want to be with us. As a chaser, we may seek out new romantic interests or even casual sexual encounters in the hope of feeling good enough. We may find ourselves constantly stressed about our job security when our boss or colleagues don’t praise our latest project. If we’re in a committed romantic relationship, we may struggle to give our loved one the space they need and interpret moments of distance or disinterest as confirmation of our overall unworthiness. Whenever we perceive the slightest possibility that we’re being abandoned by another person, we easily become reactive as Mona did, texting, calling, or pursuing our loved one, sometimes in unreasonable or irrational ways. We may break down emotionally, becoming inconsolable, all-consumed by overwhelming feelings, or shut down and nonfunctional. Because, as children we subconsciously believe that who we are caused Mom or Dad to leave, we modify how we are in the world. As a result, we never truly allow ourselves to be who we are or our full and authentic Self, continuing instead to embody only the parts of us that were accepted as children.
While some of us weren’t abandoned in childhood, we were wounded in other ways when we were shamed, criticized, ignored, or otherwise overwhelmed by our parent-figures. Every time we heard “Stop being so dramatic” or were teased when we cried, we felt hurt by those we needed the most at that time. Every time our boundaries were ignored or disrespected when we were told what we should or shouldn’t think, feel, or believe, our emotional intuition was invalidated. Every time a part of our external self-expression like our appearance or performance was highly praised, valued, or acknowledged more than our deeper interests or pleasures, our authentic Self was diminished. Every time we were seen as an extension of our parents, pressured to bring pride to the family, or told to pursue an interest, career, or path others had been unable to follow, our natural inclinations and talents were dismissed.
Regardless of what our individual childhood wounds were, those early hurts caused us to modify ourselves in order to feel safe and remain connected within our earliest relationships and environments. Those adaptations became our childhood coping strategies or ways of fitting in. Of course, these coping strategies don’t go away when we grow up; our past conditioning is stored in our nervous system where it continues to drive our instinctive reactions as adults. Because of our learned habits, most of us continue to play the same roles in our adult relationships, even though the conditioned parts of us are immature, reactive, and based in trauma.
These adaptations are what I call our conditioned selves, the consistent roles we’ve learned to play in our relationships based on the ways we learned to feel safest and most loved in childhood. Rooted in years of research and related ideologies, the concept of conditioned selves stem from an evidence-based method of therapy known as Internal Family Systems (IFS). Developed in the 1980s by the psychologist Dr. Richard Schwartz, IFS maintains that our minds are made up of different “parts,” which developed in response to our earliest unmet needs and that continue to live as mental constructs inside us, directing how we act and react with others.
Our conditioned selves are the neurobiologically wired parts of our subconscious minds. Because the thoughts, feelings, and reactions we had as children were patterned into our nervous system, where they continue to exist today, our conditioned selves are a physically and emotionally embodied part of us. Unless we take the time to become aware of or witness the ways in which they drive us to think, feel, and behave with others, they will keep us locked in the same reactive neurophysiological patterns and habitual ruts.
In this chapter, we’ll meet our conditioned selves. To help you start exploring, below are seven archetypes and the common thoughts, feelings, and habits that accompany each. Most people I’ve met or have worked with relate to one or several of these seven conditioned selves witnessing their presence in most if not all their relationships. You may likely recognize yourself in at least one of the seven descriptions you’ll read below.
Before we can more deeply explore our conditioning, though, we need to meet our inner child—more specifically, our hurt inner child. Our hurt inner child is the little being inside us all who was abandoned, shamed, criticized, ignored, overwhelmed, or hurt when our needs weren’t consistently met by our parent-figures. When we reconnect with our hurt inner child, we’re better able to see our core wounds and the childhood coping strategies we developed as a result. Understanding and witnessing this painful and reactive part of us gives us the opportunity to cultivate compassion for ourselves and others as we continue to repeat the same dysfunctional habits, despite wanting or needing change. Reconnecting with our hurt inner child will help us identify which conditioned selves we most commonly embody in our adult relationships, giving us the opportunity to begin to break away from playing these trauma-based roles.
We all have an inner child; it’s the part of us that’s born free, whole, and connected to our inner essence, or authentic Self. Our inner child loves to play, freely speak their mind, and is expressive, spontaneous, creative, trusting, and innocent. Imagine what you might be like if you felt truly free to be fully you. That would be your true Self before you were exposed to all of the life experiences that changed your natural way of being—that is, before all the imprinting, teaching, scolding, chiding, shaming, criticizing, rule making, and other forms of conditioning that we were all subjected to, whether it was functional or dysfunctional.
Our inner child usually doesn’t stay free, whole, and joyful for long. As children, we all experienced moments or situations that caused us to feel insecure, scared, or hurt. If those moments or situations occurred often enough or were overwhelming enough, we eventually learned to suppress our natural instincts and our playful, expressive, spontaneous side to keep ourselves safe. The more consistently we suppressed our natural instincts, the more wounded our inner child became.
Though emotions were a normal part of our childhood and life experiences, few of us were modeled healthy emotional expression by our parent-figures. If we grew up in a household where certain emotions weren’t tolerated—we were told to stop crying or were ignored whenever we were sad—we may have learned that only certain feelings are okay to express. If we regularly witnessed emotional explosions or overwhelming outbursts, we may have come to believe that those were appropriate ways to express ourselves when we’re upset. Or if our parent-figures suppressed or hid their own feelings, emotionally dissociating or disconnecting themselves from us, we may have developed similar habits.
Here are a few common ways many of us were modeled dysfunctional emotional expression and communication in childhood.
Emotional invalidation. An attempt to get someone to believe their emotions are the issue instead of the actual problem or conflict at hand. This can involve saying “You’re too dramatic,” “You’re too sensitive,” or “You just need to get over it or move on” whenever feelings are expressed.
Projection. A defense mechanism of attributing undesired traits or behaviors in oneself onto others. This can involve making accusations such as “You’re probably the one lying” in response to a stated concern.
Scorekeeping. A control dynamic in which two people avoid addressing conflict or underlying emotions by bringing up past wrongdoing to one-up the other. This can involve bringing up a past issue in response to a current concern.
Name calling/shaming. The use of insults as a way to control or modify others’ behavior. This can involve using derogatory language, character attacks, or mean-spirited comments or “jokes.”
Icing. The act of shutting down, withdrawing, or pretending a person isn’t present as a way of avoiding issues or displaying disapproval. This can involve completely ignoring others by not speaking to them or not responding when spoken to (“the silent treatment”).
Avoidance. The act of denying, ignoring, or sweeping issues under the rug. This can involve refusing to take ownership of one’s behaviors, often by refusing to admit to or lying about one’s actions, leaving out certain details, refusing to talk about problems or issues, or ignoring the reality of the problems or issues entirely.
Deflection. The habit of consistently changing the subject to redirect blame toward another (externalization) and avoid personal accountability. This can involve blaming others for being the cause of their verbal, emotional, or physical abuse by saying things like “If you hadn’t X, I wouldn’t have Y.”
Many of these communication styles occurred in my own family. No one in my family showed many feelings other than worry about our daily life and health-related issues. Consumed by anxiety, there was little opportunity for anyone in the family to feel at ease, joyful, or playful, at least not for long. That constant stress created an underlying, fear-based tension, which often manifested itself in outwardly controlling behaviors. My dad, locked in survival mode from his childhood, was regularly stressed by being the sole provider of our family’s financial security. He manifested that stress by micromanaging our home, obsessively organizing and monitoring the cabinets and pantry, and always saving old food and items, including those that were used, like wrapping paper and ribbons from holidays. If anything was moved or misplaced and was no longer where he had put it, my dad shifted into Eruptor mode, yelling, screaming, and releasing the pent-up rage caused by years of dysregulation and unmet needs while also hurting those around him, even the ones he loved most.
From my family, I received a consistent message that talking about or expressing emotions would either be ignored or only add more stress to an already-overwhelmed environment. Because no one in any of my earliest relationships modeled healthy emotional expression, I didn’t know what feelings really looked like. Emotionally under-supported, I started suppressing my inner world and true way of being, appearing outwardly cold or aloof, not in any way even needing the support of others. Though this characteristic wasn’t an inherent part of my personality, it was one of the ways I learned to keep myself emotionally safe in my childhood relationships.
I didn’t even tell anyone after I saw my best friend get beaten up by a group of older peers when I was in my early teens—something I can’t imagine keeping to myself now. Although I was scared and even got hurt myself while trying to run away to escape her attackers, I kept the whole experience secret, more fearful of how my mom and family would react if they found out. I lay alone in bed that night, shaking and crying myself to sleep without any emotional safety or support when I needed it most. That experience only continued to strengthen my growing belief that there must be something about me that prevented me from receiving emotional support.
Just as I avoided showing unpleasant or difficult feelings, I also suppressed pleasant emotions when growing up. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties and my mom was about to undergo a high-risk heart surgery that I verbally told her I loved her. Because that sentiment was rarely expressed directly in my home, I can still remember how vulnerable I felt when I first began to say it aloud.
If you did happen to grow up in an emotionally expressive family, your inner child may have been wounded if you were criticized for having certain interests or hobbies, shamed for how you looked or acted, physically or emotionally abandoned as Mona and I were, inconsistently supported as Monique was, micromanaged or controlled as Dominik was, or expected to put the needs of your parent-figures or family before your own, as was the case for Diego.
Diego was raised by a single, nonnative, non-English-speaking mother. Because she struggled to communicate, she relied on her son to help navigate the family’s new life in an unfamiliar land. Regularly told how mature he was for his age for acting as the man of the house, Diego was often left to take care of his two younger siblings while his mom was at work. From a young age, he was depended on to care for the family and provide emotional support to his understandably stressed mother—her obvious need for support only made him feel guilty whenever he even thought about pursuing relationships outside his family.
Though Diego’s mother was doing the best she could navigating the family’s stressful circumstances, her behavior parentified him, reversing the traditional parent-child role. Relied on to care for his mother and younger brothers, Diego was never able to be a kid and play when he wanted to, get upset when he felt angry or sad, pursue the things that interested him, or given the attention and space to learn how to prioritize and meet his own needs. Instead, he regularly learned that his family benefited when he ignored his needs. As he grew up, he continued to be subconsciously attracted to individuals who appeared in need of some sort of help or support, even though he increasingly felt resentful of their neediness.
Today, Diego continues to play the role of the Yes Person, one of the seven conditioned selves that we’ll explore later in this chapter. Priding himself on his identity as a “nice, responsible, and family-oriented person,” he regularly bends over backward trying to keep others happy, ignoring his own needs in the process.
Witnessing his hurt inner child helped Diego become more aware of the different ways he still plays this role in his relationships as well as the growing feelings of discontent and dissatisfaction inside him. These feelings naturally arise whenever we are suppressing our true needs or desires. And by continuing to suppress parts of ourselves, we never give ourselves the opportunity to be accepted and loved fully and authentically.
Because Diego didn’t have the safety or security to pursue what he really needed, wanted, or was interested in as a child, he remained deeply disconnected from those aspects of himself as an adult. After spending years directing all his energy toward supporting, helping, and loving others, he understandably felt burnt out. Yet at the same time, he didn’t know how to stop playing that role and often felt too proud to ask for help or support from others. Most of the time, he was too distanced from himself and his own emotions to even know that he could benefit from some.
No matter how we were hurt as children, many of us learned that we needed to suppress our needs, overlook our true interests and curiosities, and modify our authentic Self-expression in order to fit in with those around us. And as adults, our hurt inner child still lives inside our subconscious mind, where it drives us to think, feel, and react in the same ways we did as children. When we encounter anyone or anything that appears similar to something that overwhelmed us in the past, we instinctively return to the well-worn neural pathways of our familiar stress responses and learned childhood coping strategies. Because we subconsciously prefer our familiar neurobiology, our brain’s reticular activating system (RAS), a network of brain cells that helps moderate our behavior, begins to filter out any evidence that the experience is dissimilar in any way, locking us into a self-confirming safety cycle that keeps us trapped in old, dysfunctional patterns.
Our wounded inner child lives inside our body as much as in our subconscious mind. When our core wounds are activated and we feel insecure, scared, or hurt in the same way we were as children, our heart rate rises, our breathing quickens, and our muscles tense up. This is our nervous system’s fight-or-flight response, trying to help us to cope with our perceived stress in familiar ways.
This issue is, these survival-driven reactions prevent us from thinking calmly or rationally. Believing that our safety is at risk, our brain will do anything and everything to protect us, including driving us to act in selfish, irrational, or hurtful ways and ultimately preventing us from being the love we seek.
After Diego learned about his hurt inner child and witnessed his habitual tendency to play the role of the Yes Person, he began his journey toward reconnecting with his authentic Self. Today he is on his way to rediscovering his true passions and purpose as well as connecting with others in ways that allow him to open himself up to the possibility of authentic love.
Even if you can’t consciously recall your specific childhood wounds, you can still witness and heal your hurt inner child and, as a result, your relationships, too.
Though I know it can feel silly or uncomfortable for many of us at first, we need to be able to acknowledge and accept that we all have a hurt inner child that drives our daily reactions. Doing so creates the space to develop a more compassionate understanding of our dysfunctional habits or other shame-inducing aspects of our conditioning. There isn’t actually anything wrong with us; we’re not flawed, broken, or unlovable, as many of us perceive ourselves to be. Instead, we’ve adapted in the ways we needed to do in order to keep ourselves as safe as possible in our lived experiences. Our hurt inner child isn’t trying to sabotage our life but exists to protect us from our painful past circumstances.
Though the dysfunctional relationship habits we developed as a result of our childhood trauma aren’t our fault, they are our responsibility as adults. We can empower ourselves to become conscious of the deep inner pain that drives us to hurt ourselves and others by beginning to make new choices about how we want to act in the current moment.
We can all begin to reconnect with our inner child when we allow pause and space to explore or notice, without judgment, all the different ways we attempt to get our emotional needs met in our adult relationships. On a universal level, we all yearn to feel safe and secure enough to be ourselves, freely sharing our thoughts and perspectives, pursuing our true passions and interests, and tapping into our ideas and creativity. It is only when we are able to fully express ourselves that we are able to share a “felt” presence with others, allowing us as individuals to feel supported and capable of dealing with life’s emotional ups and downs. Experiencing our emotions in the presence of another person allows us to communicate with all of us—body, mind, and soul—and to create the “embodied” emotional connection necessary for deep, authentic relationships.
Going through my dark night of the soul, I came to realize that I had never really shared my emotional world within my relationships, despite complaining I wasn’t emotionally connected with anyone. As in my childhood home, I created patterns of stress- or complaint-based communications and dynamics in my relationships, where I expressed only feelings of anxiety and worry about my latest crisis to my friends and partners. In a repetition of my earliest relationships, I didn’t allow for the creation of a deep and authentic connection with another person—although as an adult, I continued to hold the other person solely responsible. I continued to embody my Overachiever self at the expense of my authentic needs and desires, not because others didn’t let me be me but because I struggled to let me be me. I was too shut down and fearful to be fully vulnerable with others or admit that I even had feelings in the first place.
As I reconnected with my inner child, I started to see inside me pain that I had struggled my entire life to put into words. As I began to come to terms with my mom’s lifelong emotional absence, I also gave myself the time and space to begin to grieve for the relationship I hadn’t had with her, which helped me be more honest about the one I did have. I recognized the little emotional connection we’d had and gave myself permission to no longer hold myself responsible for that which had never been. Taking actual space away from my mom and the rest of my family allowed me to see that, as an adult, I am now safe enough to exist in the emotional distance that was always there, a distance that was once a threat to my survival. Letting myself finally become vulnerable to my own pain allowed me to develop a true capacity for empathy, to be truly present to the pain carried by others.
I continued to extend grace and compassion to myself as I began to see all the ways my suffering had grown out of a desperate desire and expectation to be seen and loved for a Self that I refused to let others see. It was a deep pain—and a growing resentment that at times erupted outward as I was subconsciously driven to perceive myself to be neglected, unconsidered, or uncared for.
As I developed more empathy for my own experience, I became better able to show my wounded inner child the compassion, care, and consideration she had always deserved. At first, the practice of extending myself empathy felt surprisingly vulnerable and uncomfortable, and it may be the same for you if, like me, you didn’t experience moments of true understanding or attunement as a child. Over time and with practice, my inner child was able to relax into a deeper sense of worthiness for being exactly who she is. Though I know no one can take away the pain that comes when you don’t bond with your Mom, I am now learning how to provide myself the mothering I always needed.
As you reconnect with your own inner child, you may encounter similar deep-rooted feelings of grief or loss that underlie your unmet needs and relationships that never were. To recognize and tend to our emotional needs within our relationships, we have to accept that we have emotions in the first place. This may sound obvious, but many of us are so disconnected from our body that we don’t realize that we experience the emotions that we do. Our emotions contain evolutionary messages (we’ll explore this idea more in the next chapter) and reconnecting with these sensory signals is foundationally important to both our survival and well-being as humans. We’re constantly gathering sensation-based information to signal to our brain and nervous system whether we’re safe or unsafe. And when we’re safe, we can relax and be authentically express ourselves, however it is we are feeling.
Take a moment now to think about your last week and the various emotional experiences you may have had. Were there moments when you felt sad, angry, scared, surprised, or joyful? When you felt those ways around another person, did you feel safe and secure enough to directly communicate to them how you were feeling? Or did you feel safe and secure enough to express your emotions in another way while in their presence (by non-aggressively yelling, crying, or laughing)?
Exploring the different ways in which you express your feelings with others can help you better understand your emotional habits in your current relationships. Ask yourself:
When we deal with our emotions in immature, unreasonable, or irrational ways, it’s a sign that a hurt part of us is lashing out. Start to pay attention to these moments: If you can more objectively witness the times when you’re reactive, it will help you reconnect with your deeper emotional wounds. In these moments, take some time to consider why you may be feeling insecure, scared, or hurt by asking yourself:
Exploring why you feel activated can help you reconnect with your hurt inner child and witness how your old childhood wounds may be impacting your relationships today.
Some of us are already aware of the ways in which we act immaturely, unreasonably, or irrationally in our relationships. If Mona was honest with herself, she knew that her instinctual thoughts, feelings, and reactions with Juan were irrational, even though she felt that she couldn’t help having them. Similarly, you may know that you react disproportionately to distance or separation or take certain remarks or actions personally, even when others are well-meaning. You may know that you have a tendency to fly off the handle or become reactive when you’re dysregulated, feeling hurt or upset by others. You may instead act passive-aggressively, ice others out, or give them the cold shoulder or silent treatment when you feel that you’ve been slighted. Or you may be hypervigilant, trying to micromanage or control others as a bossy child would do on a playground.
Let’s revisit Mona’s journey to reconnect with her hurt inner child. She started to acknowledge and accept what she already knew on an instinctual level: that she was reactive and irrational when she perceived moments of distance in her relationships. Without judgment, she began to develop more compassion for herself when she heard her hurt inner child’s voice whispering “He doesn’t love you anymore, he will leave you, you’re unworthy.” She realized that this voice was a subconscious by-product of old wounding rather than an accurate indicator of what was happening in the present moment.
Now when Mona heard her hurt inner child’s voice, she began to pay attention to her body. She noticed that her heart rate usually shot up, her breathing became shallow, and her muscles tensed—all signs that her nervous system was in a fight response. As she became more aware of these different physical sensations (we’ll talk about how to do this in chapter 5), she was able to identify when she felt threatened, which made her more likely to misinterpret others’ behavior and act out. In those moments, she started to practice mind-body techniques to regulate her nervous system and soothe her hurt inner child, defusing the intensity of her emotional reactivity. That allowed her to strengthen the wise voice in her head by reminding herself “You just feel threatened right now and may be misinterpreting Juan’s behavior. He’s probably busy, his phone died, he needs space, or he’s feeling uncommunicative, all of which has nothing to do with you. You can help yourself feel safe right now without becoming reactive or acting in ways you won’t feel proud of later.”
Our inner child is the subconscious part of our mind in which we carry our unmet needs, repressed childhood emotions, and habitual coping strategies. When these deep subconscious wounds are activated, we often unconsciously shift into the ways we navigated our emotions as children in the hope of protecting, preventing, or soothing our pain.
Take a look at the list below and spend the next few weeks witnessing your own hurt inner child. Remember that these wounded, reactive states are often signs of emotional suffering, so try to be nonjudgmental and compassionate as you reconnect with your deep-rooted pain.
_______ I’m emotionally explosive and raise my voice, say things I don’t mean, slam doors, or throw things.
_______ I’m highly defensive or am unable to listen to another’s thoughts or feelings without taking them personally, feeling attacked, or becoming emotionally reactive.
_______ I’m dismissive of another’s feelings or invalidate, deny, or try to change how they feel in order to relieve my own discomfort.
_______ I fall into polarized thinking, viewing things as all good or all bad or having a difficult time seeing contextual nuances or another’s perspective.
_______ I center conversations or experiences around my feelings or have a difficult time expressing curiosity or empathy about another’s internal world.
_______ I try to control or dominate conversations by changing the subject to ones I’m interested in or insist on sharing only my own perspectives or experiences.
_______ I actively find ways to distract myself from or avoid uncomfortable conversations, topics, or experiences by scrolling on social media, turning on the TV, or leaving the room entirely.
_______ I remove, withdraw, or emotionally distance myself, shutting down or giving another the silent treatment.
_______ I close myself off from receiving connection or support from another or intentionally suppress my needs and emotions, choosing instead to remain “tough” or emotionally distant.
_______ I use alcohol, food, or other substances to numb myself or engage in other self-harming behaviors when stressed, upset, or otherwise uncomfortable.
The more you frequently notice these reactions, the more likely your inner child is wounded. As you become more consciously aware of these reactive parts of yourself that want to be seen and valued for their once-protective presence, you can begin to practice extending them compassion and love.
Spend a few weeks continuing to witness your hurt inner child in your daily life. The more consistently you notice your wounded reactions, the better you’ll be able to recognize themes. You can use the following prompts to explore any common patterns you discover.
When my inner child wound is activated, I tend to think _______.
I tend to feel _______ [identify your physical sensations].
In my relationships, I tend to act _______.
Afterward, I tend to think _______ and/or feel _______.
As we now know our conditioned selves are part of our nervous system. When we fire the same neural circuits over and over again, they wire together, increasing the likelihood that our brain will continue to repeat the same response to similar events in the future. Like a well-traveled trail through a dense forest, the most consistently used circuits become the easiest and most instinctual pathways for our brain to follow. Neurobiologically, our conditioned selves feel familiar, safe, and even natural to us as adults.
No matter how familiar they may be, though, our conditioned roles can keep us trapped in our dysfunctional cycles or trauma bonds with others. Thankfully, we can create real transformation by identifying the various conditioned parts we play with others. Once we recognize our habitual roles, we can start to make conscious choices to more authentically express ourselves.
We all have unique childhood wounds and have developed unique coping strategies to manage them. That said, there are commonalities in the strategies children often use to meet their emotional needs. After spending time with my clients, in my global community, and in my personal relationships, I’ve identified seven conditioned selves that we often play in our adult relationships. These are Caretaker, Overachiever, Underachiever, Rescuer/Protector, Life of the Party, Yes Person, and Hero Worshiper.
Those of you who read How to Do the Work may remember these as our inner child archetypes. Inner child archetypes are simply common patterns in how we relate to our childhood relationships and environments. Over time, these archetypes become part of our brain’s neural circuitry, eventually solidifying into the conditioned selves that we’re neurobiologically driven to embody or inhabit daily.
As you read through the following descriptions, keep in mind that you may identify with only one conditioned self or with several at the same time. We can shift into different conditioned selves, depending on whom we’re with or the period of our lives. We can consistently embody one conditioned self in our romantic relationships and a different one with family, friends, or colleagues or supervisors at work.
Our goal in this section is to witness the conditioned self or selves we embody most often in our various relationships. Doing so helps us identify the habits that don’t serve us or help us sustain the relationships we want. Once we become aware of our conditioning, we can begin to make conscious choices that will create new habits that better serve us and our relationships. This process is called integration. Integration doesn’t mean that we’re no longer compelled to act in habitual ways but that we’re more aware of the times we feel inclined to play these roles in our relationships. When we become conscious of our unconscious habits, we give ourselves the opportunity to begin to make choices outside our neurobiologically programmed patterns and create lasting change. The “Conditioned Selves Assessment” exercise here will help you begin this process of integration.
Here are the seven different conditioned selves defined.
Caretaker. Gains a sense of identity and self-worth through meeting others’ needs in relationships. Believes that the only way to receive love is to be needed by others or to care for them physically or emotionally, often while neglecting their own personal needs or desires. May seek out relationships, experiences, or careers where care is required or may play this role at the first sign of need. The Caretaker’s nervous system is often hypervigilant and in Pleaser mode, scanning the environment to assess the needs of others.
Overachiever. Attempts to be the “perfect” friend, child, partner, or spouse. Requires constant external validation and is often focused on or consumed by how they measure up to others. Regularly attempts to carry most of the responsibility in a relationship, often struggling to ask for or receive support. The Overachiever’s nervous system is often stuck in Distractor mode as they seek distraction in self-assessing, self-analyzing, or self-criticizing thoughts, especially when external validation isn’t present.
Underachiever. Attempts to keep safe from evaluation and judgment by hiding any and all undesirable parts from others, believing that the only way to be loved is to stay small and unnoticeable in relationships. Has low self-worth, fears criticism, and often can be emotionally distant, avoidant, or disengaged to protect against possible rejection. May occasionally act out to receive negative attention that validates deep-rooted feelings of unworthiness. The Underachiever’s nervous system often shifts between Distractor mode, as they distract themselves with self-deprecating or self-shaming thoughts, and Detacher mode, slowing down their motivation and energy systems, which can result in delayed decisions or actions.
Rescuer/Protector. Regularly finds themselves in relationships that allow them to rescue, protect, or otherwise be of service to others whom they perceive as helpless, incapable, or dependent. May gain a sense of felt superiority for not needing personal help and find it difficult to ask for or receive support, even when necessary. The Rescuer/Protector’s role is similar to that of the Caretaker, but whereas the latter strives to care for others’ physical needs, the Rescuer/Protector is more concerned about tending to and defending those whom they perceive to be emotionally vulnerable. The Rescuer/Protector’s nervous system is often hypervigilant and in Pleaser mode, unconsciously scanning for those who need their rescue or protection.
Life of the Party. Fears uncomfortable emotions or experiences and avoids conflict at all costs. Often avoids voicing issues or opinions that might cause upsetting feelings or disappointment. Typically appears to be happy but is usually disconnected or detached from reality. The Life of the Party’s nervous system is often stuck in Deatcher mode, numbing, dissociating, or distancing from most or all stressful or uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Yes Person. Tends to be agreeable with no expressed preferences in relationships, and is often referred to as a people-pleaser or “pushover.” Regularly engages in codependent dynamics, neglecting their own needs to drop everything for others. Prides themselves on acting “selflessly” (or being a “martyr”) by showing up for others no matter what and often ends up over-giving and under-receiving support and care within their relationships. Regularly adopts the beliefs, habits, and even hobbies of their partners, friends, or family and can feel lost or helpless without others to direct them. The Yes Person’s nervous system is often hypervigilant and in Pleaser mode, constantly putting others before themselves.
Hero Worshiper. Tends to look up to those they’re in a relationship with or put others on a pedestal. Believes that others know what’s best for them, is easily influenced, and can be dismissive of themselves, often viewing others as a model for how to live. In idealizing others, they often blame or shame themselves for thinking or feeling differently or having separate needs. The Hero Worshiper’s nervous system is often hypervigilant and in Pleaser mode, giving more attention and weight to the thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and feelings of others as opposed to one’s own instincts.
Not all the habits associated with our conditioned selves are dysfunctional or should be avoided. Many of the behaviors listed in recent pages, like caring for others and being motivated to achieve goals, aren’t dysfunctional in themselves. They become dysfunctional when our childhood wounds drive us to continually take the same actions, even when it’s not in our best interest or the best interests of our relationships to do so. Becoming more aware of our conditioned selves gives us the opportunity to consciously and intentionally choose our actions instead of allowing the remnants of past pain and other learned behaviors to direct our current actions.
Like many of you, I felt for years that I had no choice about many of my Overachieving habits, even if I wasn’t aware of the idea of a conditioned self. Today, I sometimes still allow my childhood fear of rejection to direct my reactions and choices, as I continue to find it difficult to express vulnerability or personal needs with others. When my mom was dying, I struggled to ask for support from my partners. Instead, I pushed them away to cry alone in my bedroom, and when they didn’t come to comfort me, I felt angry and resentful, believing that they should just “know” that I needed or wanted them to. Not only was that one of my immature, conditioned beliefs, I was not, in reality, acting like someone who wanted or needed comfort. Just as my mom had done to me so many years before, I was unfamiliar with how to connect with others when I was emotionally upset, so I continued the same pattern of disconnecting from both my discomfort and my opportunity for much needed love and support.
I’m continuing to become more consciously aware of how often and when I play the Overachiever with others. I’m growing better able to recognize when I’m putting unrealistic expectations on myself. And in those moments, I practice consciously reminding myself that no one expects me to be perfect and that trying to be inhibits me from connecting with others on a deeper, more authentic level. This conscious awareness then gives me the opportunity to begin making intentional choices that better serve my authentic needs and help me connect more deeply with others and the world around me.
The next year, before the one-year anniversary of my mom’s death, I decided to take a weekend trip alone so that I could be more fully present with my emotions, regulate my nervous system, and create much needed feelings of safety, regardless of how I was feeling in each moment. This time and space allowed me to find my way back to a more regulated state in which I could feel safe enough to open myself up to connect with the love available around me. When I returned, I was able to vulnerably ask for the support I needed. And, in that moment, I was truly okay with however others were available to support me, as I no longer expected or needed another person to take away all my sadness and grief. Not only can no other person do that or even be emotionally available for me at all times, I have learned that the support I really want is for someone to be present and connected with me regardless of what I’m feeling. More simply, I, like each and every one of you, want to feel less alone in our pain and suffering.
Most of us shift back and forth between our conditioned selves and our authentic Self throughout the day, sometimes even on a moment-to-moment basis. While many of us aren’t connected with our deeper needs or sure of who we really are, one of the ways we can reconnect with our authentic Self is to identify the conditioned selves we most often embody.
To explore your conditioned selves, spend some time witnessing or journaling about the typical patterns you see in your relationships with friends, family, colleagues, or romantic partners, using the following exploratory prompts. Remember that it’s possible to see more than one conditioned self in different relationships. The goal of this exercise is to identify your conditioned selves so that, going forward, you can begin to recognize when you’re tempted to play these habitual roles in your current relationships.