Why Address Both Inner Child Wounds and Internalized Oppression Wounds Together?
At Come Back to Care we address both inner child wounds and internalized oppression wounds together because they are connected to each other. They’re also connected to liberation.
These two types of wounds are similar in that they stem from a survival need to contort, conform, and perform to fit into someone’s expectations. A child needs to adapt to fit with their parents’ expectations. Similarly, parents need to adapt to fit with society’s expectations. In both cases, contorting your body over and over again to survive by meeting external expectations leaves a wound.
When these wounds aren’t healed, they get scratched every time your parenting trigger gets pushed. In parenting, this is usually when you might react and unintentionally repeat the things your parents said to you when you were little that you promised yourself to never say to your child. In social justice advocacy, this is usually when you might react and unintentionally repeat power-over, urgency, or other traits of white supremacy that you’re trying to unlearn.
Grace Lee Boggs, a Chinese-American civil rights and labor activist and author, wrote “transform yourself to transform the world.”
When we heal our wounds- inner child and/or internalized oppression wounds, we put fragmented pieces of ourselves together to show up to both parenting and community organizing with our whole selves.
Whatever healing work we do at home reflects the alignment we bring to our social justice advocacy in the community. That’s why liberation starts at home.
Doing this healing work at the intersection of intergenerational healing and communal liberation builds a liberated world for your child and future generations.