What’s the attachment style of the people you seem to attract?
In contrast, how would a secure partner, high in integrity and comfortable in their identity, in contrast, treat you?
How would you respond to a secure partner in the past, and how does that compare to how you know you should respond now?
COMING HOME TO OURSELVES BY STARTING THE INNER WORK
Embarking on a journey through inner child healing, ego development, and shadow discovery is like renovating an old home that’s seen its fair share of storms. A heart sabbatical is the perfect time to roll up our sleeves and get to work on the renovations. Each aspect, from repairing the foundation to polishing the windows, offers a step closer to a sanctuary that truly feels like home. I’ll cover the steps briefly here, and we’ll dive even deeper in Part 2.
Inner Child Healing
The first layer we meet is our inner child. Think of this as the foundation of a house; our childhood memories and feelings are the bricks and mortar. Starting our healing journey here is like fixing any cracks in that foundation. It’s crucial to tend to this layer first, as these early wounds can dictate a lot of our subconscious reactions, triggers, and behaviors in adulthood. Healing the inner child means mending our foundational cracks by revisiting those moments of pain, neglect, or misunderstanding, and offering ourselves the love, attention, and care we’ve been yearning for.
Ego Work
Delving deeper, we find the ego, which is akin to the walls of our emotional home. While our inner child might hide in the foundation after facing trauma, our ego responds by putting up thick curtains and bolted doors. In codependent or toxic relationships, this might look like being overly reactive when a partner shares concerns, seeing it as criticism instead of healthy communication. It’s the urge to cling tighter, fearing abandonment amid unrequited love, or to erect emotional walls to avoid getting hurt. Ego work, then, is about gently drawing back those heavy curtains, lowering the walls, and unlocking the doors. It’s an invitation to let love, connection, and vulnerability shine through, paving the way for deeper connections.
Shadow Work
Venturing to the attic and basement of our emotional home, we meet our shadow. While our inner child leaves imprints on the foundation, and our ego bolsters the walls, our shadow lurks in the less frequented spaces of our emotional home. In the context of toxic or codependent relationships, the shadow is those deep-seated fears and insecurities we’d rather not admit, or the patterns we unknowingly repeat. It’s the jealousy we feel but don’t voice, the guilt we bury, or the unworthiness we sometimes feel but can’t pinpoint why.
Shadow work is like turning on the light in these dim spaces, dusting off old boxes, and understanding their contents. It involves exploring and embracing the parts of ourselves that we have abandoned, repressed, or denied. These can be aspects of our personalities that we don’t want to acknowledge, such as anger, jealousy, or fear. When we ignore or suppress these parts of ourselves, they can manifest in destructive ways, such as in toxic relationships. Shadow work is about facing and integrating every hidden aspect influencing our relationships, ensuring our emotional home is whole, healthy, and solid, from basement to rooftop.
Let’s circle back to Haley from earlier in this chapter. As a child, her parents were often so caught up in their own issues that they seemed to overlook her needs. She felt like she was constantly in the shadows, especially with her younger sister getting all of their attention. This dynamic only amplified Haley’s feelings of invisibility. You see, her sister, always the bubbly one, naturally drew the spotlight and the coveted attention of her parents. It’s as if Haley’s own light dimmed in comparison. She often wondered what it would take to be seen, to have a moment where she wasn’t just the older sister in the background.
In the context of shadow work, this aspect of Haley’s life represents a significant shadow—those unacknowledged parts of herself that were never nurtured. Her feelings of being overlooked in favor of her sister created a deep-rooted belief that she was less worthy of attention and love. This belief, buried in her shadow, has continued to influence her actions and self-perception into adulthood.
It’s clear now that her parents never really grasped how much Haley craved their attention and validation. Today, this longing hasn’t faded. Haley often finds herself going above and beyond in her job, hoping for the acknowledgment she missed out on growing up.
These childhood experiences can shape our adult responses in myriad ways. They can manifest as persistent feelings of self-doubt, toxic shame, low self-esteem, and relentless negative self-talk. Inner child work coupled with shadow work aims to address these manifestations at their core. It involves not only identifying but also embracing and integrating these deeply ingrained patterns into a more holistic understanding of the self. Through this conscientious process, Haley can work toward releasing these shadows, stepping out of her sister’s light, and finding her own place in the sun.
So, what does this work look like in action?
INNER CHILD WORK WHILE ON A HEART SABBATICAL
In this first pillar of healing, you’ll learn how to create a strong foundation of self-love and self-worth that sets the stage for healing the relationship you have with yourself. Since inner child work focuses on early childhood traumas, you’ll be identifying and healing the wounds you experienced during your childhood. These often become the root cause of our behavior and thought patterns as adults. Your inner child is the part of you that holds on to your emotions and memories from youth. Ignoring or suppressing them can create challenges in choosing, forming, and maintaining healthy relationships.
By connecting with your inner child, you learn to give this part of yourself the love, validation, and connection you’ve been missing. You’ll also learn how to release the hold that past wounds have on your present relationships.
Identify Patterns
Begin by looking at your emotional triggers. Are there recurring themes or events that create strong emotional reactions? For Haley, feedback, especially when it’s negative, can be a painful trigger. She will want to pay attention to this and work to soothe her inner child who still feels invalidated when she doesn’t feel acknowledged for her efforts. Her triggers are in response to earlier childhood events that left her feeling “not good enough,” and because these feelings remained unresolved, they’re like emotional landmines waiting for contact to go off.
Connect with Your Inner Child
Dedicate quiet moments to visualizing and engaging with your younger self. It’s about truly listening to this past version of you, acknowledging their emotions and experiences. Haley might envision being in the room with her younger self, comforting her and reassuring her of her worth and importance while in the midst of feeling invalidated and unacknowledged. Engage in activities that resonate with your inner child. This could be something as whimsical as coloring or as grounding as a walk in nature. For Haley, reconnecting with her love for painting—a hobby she’d forgotten about over the years—was therapeutic, as were other activities grounded in play that she enjoyed as a child.
Take your time and allow yourself the space to identify your patterns, connect with the parts of yourself that felt neglected, hurt, and abandoned, and then re-engage in activities you loved but maybe don’t get to do enough as an adult. This will set the stage for the rest of your healing journey. By giving light to these areas, we open doors to healthier relationships with others and ourselves.
The ego can feel like an enigmatic part of our psyche. It plays such a huge role in how we interact with others, yet we often don’t understand it. Do we follow the advice of the monks on a hill and let the ego die, or do we sit with it, observing how it shows up in an effort to understand how it has developed in response to trauma? On one hand, it embodies the childlike innocence of egocentrism. Remember when as children, we believed the world revolved around us? That if it rained on our parade, the skies were crying with us? This is the ego in its purest form. On the other hand, unresolved traumas and toxic experiences can cause the ego to be stunted in this stage, preventing it from maturing healthily.
For Haley, childhood overshadowing left her ego in a tender state. As she grew older, instead of her ego maturing, the unresolved pain caused it to remain as it was—self-centered and easily hurt. When her partner would have a bad day, her immediate thought would be, “Did I do something wrong?” It was not about empathizing with him; it was more about her ego fearing blame. Similarly, she found herself attracted to distant relationships, chasing unrequited love. Not because it was true affection, but because her ego, in its desperate bid to avoid further rejection, became obsessed with winning their heart in order to prove that she was “good enough.”
TENDING TO THE EGO ON A HEART SABBATICAL
By understanding and tending to our ego, we can move past its childlike, impetuous responses and foster a more mature and balanced sense of self. Here are a few steps to do this, but again, we’ll go deeper in Part 2. This is just a taste for the beginning of your heart sabbatical.
Awareness
Pay attention to your thoughts and internal reactions to daily events. What are some recurring themes? Are you struggling with obsessive, intrusive thoughts about a situation? Are those thoughts grounded in control, avoidance, or another defense mechanism? Pay attention to what triggers these negative, unhelpful thoughts. Journaling about this can be a helpful way to keep a record.
Understand the Origins
Reflect on past experiences that might have caused this stunting of your emotional maturity. For Haley, her constant need for validation stems from the overshadowing during her formative years. She may now realize that feeling triggered if her employee evaluation doesn’t have stellar compliments results from her bruised ego, which developed in response to rarely feeling validated growing up. Her goal here is to self-soothe amid thoughts that she will have to overfunction at work and in her romantic relationships in order to feel validated. She’ll also work on self-validation, setting boundaries around workplace achievements and external feedback to understand that she is good enough regardless of the feedback she receives. The feedback is just that: feedback. Not an indication of her worth.
Engage in Ego-Check Exercises
Use the “Pause and Reflect” technique. When you’re about to react, take a moment to ask, “Is this my true self responding, or is it my ego acting out of past hurts?” This can help temper ego-driven reactions and guide you toward a balanced, mature self-perception.
SHADOW WORK DURING A HEART SABBATICAL
Shadow work is like finally opening up that old photo album. Some memories might be awkward or painful, but they’re all part of your story. By understanding and integrating them, we get a richer, more honest picture of ourselves.
Meet the Hidden Guests
Think of your shadow as those old toys you tucked away in the attic. They’re the parts of you that got boxed up because they didn’t quite fit your present-day image. It’s time to climb up, dust off those boxes, and meet them again.
Connect the Dots
