Wounded Spirit

THE WOUNDED SPIRIT

 

Can we identify some of the characteristics of our true ‘Inner Person’ (Natural Spirit) and the actions, beliefs or thinking of the ‘Adapted Spirit’ which may have resulted from a ‘Wounded Spirit’.

The natural spirit or natural person can be seen as the way we are in our inner most selves – our real selves. Perhaps we were born with some natural tendencies for the characteristics in this column. We may prevent this natural spirit from being seen by the outside world. We may be suppressing our feelings and spirits. We may even stop ourselves from being aware of impulses or intuitions from our natural spirit.

We may have experienced a traumatic event or series of events, which hurt us at a very deep level. As a result our spirit may have been wounded. To protect ourselves from further pain or out of revenge, we may have adapted our thinking, beliefs and actions. These adapted mannerisms may have become destructive to us without us knowing it. And they may have become so ‘normal’ to us that we cannot see or believe our behaviours are not OK.

Natural Spirit	Wounded Spirit	Adapted Spirit
Centre of a safe and loving universe	Centre of an unsafe, unloving universe	Centre of a world that can be made safe and loving through playing games
Spontaneous	Restricted, fearful	Reactions restricted to roles and missions
Creative	Reactive	Reactive, passively compliant or manipulative
Sees self as maker of joy	Sees self as the maker of pain; causing it, responsible for preventing it or fixing it	Sees survival as depending on avoiding dreads of ambiguity, abandonment, blame and betrayal
Curious, in awe of life’s mysteries	Frightened, suspicious	Knows all the answers, has false pride
Relational	Fearful, withdrawn	Creates barriers to authentic relating; relates to others in terms of scripts and games
Joyful	Sad	Triumphant when games are working; sad fearful when they are not
Secure boundaries	Born in autonomy violations	Tends to merge with others, be a victim or perpetrator of boundary violations
Consolable	Inconsolable	Only happy when compliance, manipulation or reactiveness is successful
Naively grandiose	Powerless	Obsessed with interpersonal power and its use
Tolerant	Intolerant of others	Over sensitive
Hopeful, confident and has positive faith	Pessimistic	Never gives up mission
Momentary fear, anger, guilt, sadness, pain, pride etc.	Obsessed with pain; knows that pain means true self is worthless, bad, weak, unacceptable to others; knows he is basically unlovable	Uses emotional behaviour to get own way
Confident	Low self-esteem	Develops self-image in terms of role; gauges worth in terms of reactions of others
Flexible	Deals only in blacks and whites; focuses on inevitability of impending doom; never alters world view	No tolerance for ambiguity; deals only in blacks and whites; focuses on avoiding of impending doom; never alters world view
Trusting	Distrustful, suspicious	Sees people, organisations and events as out to ‘get them’
Interdependent	Isolated, relies on own resources	Dependent, blames others and outside events for problems
Accepting	Has unreasonable expectations of others	Judgmental, intolerant; views others through his own distorted view; focuses on the shortcomings of others
Humble	Has distorted sense of self	Grandiose; promotes self in interactions with others, uses the ‘I, Me, Myself’ inflection
Motives, desires and emotions appropriate to age, needs and societal expectations	Has motives, desires and emotions of a teenager	Mainly seeks to satisfy self; bodily senses, ego and emotions
Open, accepting, realistic	Fearful, denying	Fails to see how ones thinking, perceptions and behaviour contributes to ones situation

In Twelve-Step terms the Wounded and Adapted Spirits may be known as Powerlessness (1st Step), Insanity (2nd Step), Wrongs (5th Step), Defects of Character (6th Step) or Shortcomings (7th Step).

In Alcoholics Anonymous colloquial terms the ‘Adapted’ self would be known as a Dry Drunk.

The Wounded Spirit may have created a WALL of DENIAL of ACCESS to the real inner person – your Natural Spirit.

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43 Things Tags: Aftercare, Disease, Help, Recovery, Self-help, Spiritual, Symptoms, Treatment, Wounded spirit, Natural, Adapted, 12-step, Powerlessness, Insanity, Wrongs, Defects of character, Shortcomings, Denial.

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