For most of my life, I would fly off the handle over the slightest thing, going from 0-200 in a matter of seconds. I was always told that I was ‘born arguing’ and when I look back, I can recall so many times losing my temper whenever I perceived that someone was ‘out to get …
What Is Your Shadow Self?
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” — Carl Jung When thinking about the shadow self, I always think back to an argument I was having with my eldest daughter a few years ago, when she was a teenager. I remember she snapped something …
What Is The Mother Wound?
WHAT IS THE MOTHER WOUND? The bond between a mother and her child is so strong that British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott believed that there’s no such thing as an infant, but only an infant and their mother. He believed that a child’s sense of self is built by the kind of a relationship that they have with …
What is Codependency?
I was a codependent for most of my life. Desperate to be loved, I jumped from one long-term relationship to another, from a very young age, most of them being abusive. I was desperate for friends, so clingy and needy, I either put up with bullying and toxicity even in adult friendships, or drove any …
How Can EFT Help Inner Child Healing?
EFT tapping involves using our fingers to tap on specific meridian points on the face and body. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is effective because unhealed emotions can get trapped in our body. ‘ The physical body stores the trapped emotions when wounding occurs’ (The Body Keeps the Score by Dr Bessel Van der Kolk) Many …
Do You Have ‘Good Girl’ Syndrome?
On Friday afternoon, I was taking a shift for a mental health charity I regularly volunteer for. Many of the service users are children who are suffering abuse at the hands of adults, and Friday was no exception. When I had finished the shift, I had a phone call from the PE teacher at the …
The Fawn Trauma Response – Are You A People Pleaser?
I have been a people-pleaser for most of my life. Not trusting my own judgement, so relying on others to tell me what to do. Ignoring red flags in people, trying to see the best in them. Which has got me into many dangerous situations, and stuck in a cycle of toxic friendships and abusive …
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Reenactment and Trauma
In his book ‘Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner child‘, John Bradshaw relays a story of how, as a grown adult on holiday with his wife and children, something didn’t go his way, and before he knew it, he had stormed out of the accommodation, and was pacing up and down in a new hotel …
Reparenting Your Inner Child
If the concept of the ‘inner child’ all sounds a bit woo-woo to you, you’re not alone. At my first meeting with my therapist, in the midst of a complete mental breakdown, begging for help, I remember her gently explaining I had CPTSD, and needed to heal and reparent my inner child. She went …
Welcome! From Me (and My Inner Child)
Welcome to The Healing Nest. My name is Andrea Clark. I have gone from codependent and broken after years of toxic relationships and friendships, to now helping others to heal. I was severely codependent; a magnet for attracting narcissistic and toxic personalities into my life. I’ll be talking a lot on this site about ‘Inner …