Dear Peter,

I think I understand what you’re trying to say – that we can help ourselves by changing our perspective, by looking at things differently. That’s true up to a point. But if we step on a piece of glass and hurt ourselves, we can’t pretend that it doesn’t hurt. We can’t look at it differently and say “no, I’m not in pain.” It’s pretty simple with physical pain.

With emotional pain it’s a bit trickier, because we can actually tell ourselves that it doesn’t hurt. We can rationalize it. We can try to “transcend it”. But the inner child is the part of us which still feels the pain – and the pain is very real. It’s like when we step on a piece of glass, only the glass is in our soul, in our heart. We can try to ignore it but it comes out in different other ways.

“Because perhaps it’s true what they say, that up to a certain age a child loves you unconditionally and uncontrollably for one simple reason, you’re theirs. Your parents and siblings can love you for the rest of your life, too, for precisely the same reason.” ― Fredrik Backman

It’s true that a child loves their parents unconditionally, because it depends on them completely.  They are the source of love,  nurturing and protection, and the child depends on them to meet their physical and emotional needs. Without the parents or care-takers, the child wouldn’t survive.

Parents or care-takers (or siblings) on the other hand, don’t necessarily love the child unconditionally. Sometimes they withdraw their love when the child doesn’t behave in a certain way. Sometimes parents can be physically and/or emotionally abusive. The fact that someone is our parent doesn’t guarantee they love us unconditionally. We might have been wounded  by the very people who were supposed to love and care for us, and that’s why it’s so painful. We need to heal those wounds if we want to have a happy, fulfilling life.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.