We left off last time having just experienced the traumatic feelings of our mother not always being there, which is very confusing for us. This is a shock for us, however as soon as our mother’s love returns, we usually feel safe and taken care of once again. We have some amount of resiliency, and as long as mom returns within a reasonable time, we recover from these traumatic episodes.

But when incidents start to occur more frequently and when they continue over long periods of our development, the fear and darkness of being abandoned starts to make an imprint. We are still completely vulnerable and reliant on others for everything, and when our life source is no longer dependable, we start feeling unsafe in the world. Deep in our being a fear starts to grow, and instead of relaxing into our basic nature of goodness and love, we contract into a state of pain and confusion.

When this insecure environment persists too long, beyond a certain critical developmental point of no return, feelings of fear and insecurity take hold and become established deep in our personality. Then, unless something dramatically changes in our forming environment, or we find ways to resolve this as the years go by, we carry a heavy burden with us for the rest of our life.

When we don’t fully make the connection with our own sense of love, in essence we are wounded people. This isn’t to imply that somebody did us harm and we are a victim. Rather the point is that we suffered a deep hurt by losing touch with our innate love, and this leaves us confused and pained, i.e. wounded.

In this adult wounded state, our experience of love and of ourselves is still at least partially if not largely externalized. We continue to look to other people to nurture us, and to generally take responsibility for how things go for us in life. A healthy boundary between self and other is never fully formed, and as we grow up, this causes all kinds of problems in our relationships with other people.

The problem is that our sense of self is only partially formed, and our self-love is weak, so we continually look outside of ourselves to fill the gap. As we grow from infancy through childhood and from childhood to adulthood, we develop patterns of projection and co-dependency as we put all kinds of unnatural needs and emotional responsibilities onto others. Of course this doesn’t work out so well, and eventually we realize that our personal lives are in a mess.

However, none of this is set in stone, and it is possible to rediscover our healthy sense of self, and to reconnect with the love in our heart. This takes desire, effort, and commitment, but we can do it.

Continued in Origins of Anger V…

By Craig Mollins