Understanding Core Wounding

“We cannot really love if we are forbidden to know our truth, the truth about our parents and caregivers as well as about ourselves. We can only try to behave as if we’re loving.”

– ALICE MILLER 

 
Core Wounding: The most dysfunctional experience or dynamic affecting who we become in the world.

According to Cathleen Brooks, (Becoming Your Own Parent, 1988, p. 221), the first step to recovery is to acknowledge there’s something wrong: ‘The reason I am the way I am is because I lived in a world where my basic human needs weren’t met. Things happened to me and I did the best I could. I survived and I developed as a result of that need to survive a set pattern, beliefs, and behaviors that may or may not work very well right now.”

In Somatic Cellular Release, we refer to the “things that happened to you” as your “Core Wounding.” Typically, your Core Wounding (CW) involves one or both of your parents or primary care-givers, as these are the people who most profoundly influenced your environment.

All of your current issues, dramas, conflicts, etc. are a “mirror” of your Core Wounding.

It is important to remember that by examing your Core Wounding you are not branding your parents as “bad” people. You are simply going into the “shadow” of your childhood to shed light on behaviors, beliefs and patterns that are negatively affecting you today.

Your Core Wounding can lie anywhere on the “dysfunction spectrum.” It may be that you experienced childhood in a large family and, hence, did not get the attention you desired; or it may be that you experienced more severe physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, you are seeing the results of it in your present life. You deserve to know the Truth about your childhood so that you can begin to create consciously in your adult life.

SEE ARTICLE ON DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES BY JOHN BRADSHAW >>