This is a 5-part series:
- Core wounds
- Core values
- Core beliefs
- Core fears
- Core hopes
By doing the CORE work, you will be better suited in overcoming narcissistic relationships. Read More
CORE wounds:
- are primal
- are the psychological injuries from childhood that never fully healed (they didn’t heal properly and they hurt)
- can be the side effect of: early trauma, abandonment, neglect, bullying, inconsistency, invalidation, gaslighting, abuse.
- they can be: feeling not good enough, feeling not ever chosen, feeling hopelessness in relation to abuse, unsafe in the world, being discriminated, not being seen or heard, abandonment rejection wounds, not being noticed, being blamed, being a scapegoat
- they are triggered by events in our life
Example:
- you are interviewing, getting rejected, the rejections are killing you, your rational mind can’t understand your physical reaction.
We all have them.
The best is to identify/recognize them.
The core wounds are the central issue why someone gets into a narcissistic relationship, and gets stuck in them and has a hard time healing afterwards. They are the key to trauma- bond. They are activated by the trauma-bond and constantly activated in that relationship, and makes the narcissistic relationship so intriguing, in an attempt to work it trough. It’s a constant pinging of the core wound. So it can set you back to childhood trauma.
What to do about them?
- identify them (e.g. with therapy)
- recognize them
- bring them into the light
This will make them less scary, allow us to be more compassionate. Become more aware why situations are more painful to us, why we become reactive at certain times and why we are completely exhausted after certain encounters.
It may teach us to take a more critical look at why we do things that are not good for us, and not do things that are good for us.
How to identify them?
- journaling
- meditating
- therapy
- mentally exploring our own mind
(Recognizing when you react strongly, less than adaptive behavior).
What to do with this knowledge?
- coexist with them
- increase empathy
- don’t judge them, but accept them
- be more mindful in situations