A wounded little child

Edvard Munch : The Scream

I read somewhere, "So many broken little children living in grown bodies, mimicking adult life." This thought stuck with me, and induced a realisation that most of the toxicity of adults and older people, stem from certain wounds they experienced when they were younger. Same goes for us.

When we're young, we're naïve and vulnerable, often fearless and filled with zeal, so much so that we jump into different situations, head first, without even calculating the probable consequences. And often when we get hurt, in order to protect ourselves in the future, we build big invisible walls around us, to prevent ourselves from hurting. But what we often forget is that, life gives us everything that it can offer. Life is not biased, it makes us experience the good, the best, the bad and the worst. No matter how hard we try to protect ourselves, life would never let us miss out on anything. We love the good part but we're absolutely scared of the bad parts because we really do not want to get hurt. But hurt comes to us in all walks of life, no matter whether it is our fault or not, hurt is inevitable and so is everything else in life.

Remember the day you lost someone very very dear to you? Remember the day the person you absolutely trusted, failed your expectations? Remember the day you failed everyone's expectations when you never wanted that to happen? And there must've been so many more days when you either cried to sleep or had countless sleepless nights. I'm sure after each of these experiences you hardened a bit, you slipped into a hard shell and put on a mask. You tried your best to avoid all these feelings and there you made the mistake.

Not confronting our emotions and not helping ourselves to grow through them, is one of the most subtle crimes we commit to humanity. This makes us colder bit by bit. After every negative experience if we don't accept our feelings and try to work on them, our heart gets wounded very deeply, and when we do not accept and treat these wounds, they keep getting worse and worse. We think we are getting stronger by not showing what we truly feel, but instead these hidden wounds continue to make us weaker little by little. The weaker we get, the uglier human we become. Because it takes a very very strong heart to be authentic and to show the world who we truly are. It takes a hell lot of courage to face our emotions. And thanks to the bad experiences, when we deal with them correctly, we come out stronger and kinder.

Those who know how to sit with themselves at the end of the day, bloom extremely beautifully throughout their life. But those who do not heal themselves and stay stuck on certain things forever, miss out on everything beautiful in life and become like a jammed sewer.

Every single behaviour, every single relationship, every single perception of ours is a reflection of who we are within. The person you absolutely do not like at all, bring them to your attention. Why don't you like this person? You know no one is perfect and everyone is allowed to have flaws and you're okay with everyone else around you but why not this person? Is there something within you that makes you see them in such a negatively judgmental way?

The honest answer to this question is always a yes. But that's up to you if you want to explore this answer or not and I would definitely never force you to do this. But only because this will make you more compassionate, whenever you're ready, please think about it. 

People who look into themselves and try to heal their hurt younger self, surpassing the fear of facing their feelings, grow stronger and more confident but most importantly, they become kinder and so loving and forgiving, they know what it is like to get hurt and so they try their best to never give the same pain to someone else. However, those who do not confront their fears and stay in a cocoon because it feels familiar and safe, and never show their true feelings to anyone, either loose complete contact with their emotions and become emotionally numb, so much so that they don't care about whatever damage they're causing to people around them as long as they themselves aren't hurt OR since they are deceiving themselves by pretending and hiding their true self, this dishonesty slowly becomes the truth of their character. They don't realise but soon they become manipulators. They become so so protective of themselves that they never want to know their flaws because according to them, they don't have any. Their confidence is so brittle that they can never accept being wrong ever. And they develop a constant need for praise and validation to feed their brittle confidence. But it's not their fault, they're just very deeply hurt little children.

This reminds me of the story of Narcissus (wikipedia says) :  This is the story of Echo and Narcissus. When Liriope gave birth to the handsome child Narcissus, she consulted the seer Tiresias, who predicted that the boy would live a long life only if he never discovered himself. One day Narcissus was walking in the woods when Echo, an Oread (mountain nymph) saw him, fell deeply in love, and followed him. Narcissus sensed he was being followed and shouted "Who's there?". Echo repeated "Who's there?" She eventually revealed her identity and attempted to embrace him. He stepped away and told her to leave him alone. She was heartbroken and spent the rest of her life in lonely glens until nothing but an echo sound remained of her. Nemesis (as an aspect of Aphrodite^[4]), the goddess of revenge, noticed this behaviour after learning the story and decided to punish Narcissus. Once, during the summer, he was getting thirsty after hunting, and the goddess lured him to a pool where he leaned upon the water and saw himself in the bloom of youth. Narcissus did not realize it was merely his own reflection and fell deeply in love with it, as if it were somebody else. Unable to leave the allure of his image, he eventually realized that his love could not be reciprocated and he melted away from the fire of passion burning inside him, eventually turning into a gold and white flower.^[5][6]

There's a psychological disorder called narcissistic personality disorder, wherein people who are no longer in touch with their emotions and are so insecure that they need constant validation and admiration, manipulate innocent people and seek pleasure in playing with their mental and social standard, so that these innocent people become completely dependent on them and these manipulators feel the pleasure of being the most superior in someone's life. I recommend you to watch documentaries on YouTube about narcissism.

But if you have some unhealed wounds and if you are holding onto certain things that have hurt you in the past, please let it go. The world needs kind and empathetic people and not heartless manipulators. Do your own healing and guide someone else through their difficulties too, because together everything seems easier. Allow that wounded little child within you, to open up to you about everything that hurts and everything that it is scared of. Let that child be vulnerable with you and please without any judgement accept yours and everybody else's wounded little inner child.

🤍Love,

Charvi🌸