Gain insight from this PsychCentral article on healing the lack of love from your childhood to build a more compassionate relationship with yourself and your children. Below, you’ll find the practices discussed in the article along with a brief explanation of each. For a deeper dive into the details, be sure to check out the original post.
How to heal from the pain of being an unloved child
Unresolved childhood emotional pain can lead to feelings of emptiness, depression, or anxiety, but healing is possible with these steps.
Nurture your inner child
Begin by recognizing and caring for the inner child who felt uncared for, offering yourself the love and validation you needed but didn’t receive. Reparenting involves speaking to yourself with compassion and providing the support you deserved. Remember, the lack of love was never your fault — acknowledge your innocence and worth, just as you would for any child.
Understand your parents
Understanding your parent’s hurtful behavior doesn’t mean justifying it, but recognizing it may stem from their own unresolved trauma. This perspective can help you see their actions weren’t about you but a reflection of their struggles.
Validate your pain
It’s important to acknowledge that your feelings are valid and natural, especially if they were never recognized as a child. Validating your emotions as an adult can be a powerful step toward healing.
Identify Expectations
It can be healing to recognize that your parents’ inability to show love is a reflection of their own issues, not a reflection of who you were as a child. Accepting that you can’t change this dynamic can bring a sense of liberation and help you let go of unrealistic expectations.
Try eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is a proven mental health intervention that helps you heal past childhood wounds by connecting past experiences with present feelings, allowing you to respond to triggers more consciously and healthily. While it can’t change the past, it helps you reframe your emotional responses and break free from old patterns.
Practice self-compassion
It’s important to recognize that you’ve been doing the best you can, and practice self-compassion by accepting that your needs weren’t met in the past without blaming yourself. Acknowledge your past experiences and release any shame, then focus on the possibility of change going forward. By shifting your perspective, you can start to heal and create a different future.
How to heal your relationships
Childhood trauma can impact adult relationships by causing you to repeat unhealthy patterns or attract individuals who mirror the unloving behavior of your parents, and recognizing this is the first step toward healing.
Assess your current relationship patterns
It’s important to recognize if you’re in relationships with controlling or abusive partners, as these patterns may reinforce negative beliefs about what you deserve. Healing involves creating safe, supportive, and loving relationships by holding yourself accountable to your values and ending toxic connections that don’t align with them.
Rely on yourself first
You deserve love and support, and it may start with yourself by:
- Developing a routine that meets your own needs
- Constantly reminding yourself that you deserve to be cared for
- Exploring how you feel through journaling
Accept how you feel
It’s natural to feel a range of emotions, including love, anger, or sadness, towards your parents or caregivers, and it’s important to acknowledge these feelings without justification. Pay attention to your emotions and use them to guide your relationship moving forward, setting boundaries as needed if resentment or upset arises.
Consider interpersonal therapy
Psychotherapy, particularly interpersonal therapy, helps address mental and emotional challenges by identifying hurtful behavioral patterns and building effective coping skills. It focuses on the value of relationships in personal development, helping you form new, nurturing connections or strengthen existing ones to heal attachment issues. By integrating techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy, this approach targets attachment styles to promote healing.
How to heal your self-image
It’s common to doubt yourself and question if you weren’t loved due to something you did, but removing this distorted self-view is key to healing.
Change thought patterns
If you grew up in an invalidating or abusive environment, you likely developed protective but harmful thought patterns about yourself and the world. Identifying these assumptions and challenging them, with the help of a therapist, can help break negative cycles. Reframing self-critical thoughts into neutral, objective statements can also aid in changing these patterns.
Put it in writing
Discovering your intrinsic value is key to healing, and one way to do this is by making a list of positive traits, accomplishments, and qualities that affirm your worth. This practice can be a powerful reminder of your value, especially on difficult days.