Are patterns from your past impacting how you show up to your life and relationships today?
How we learned to cope with childhood wounds and unmet needs often become the dysfunctional patterns that we live out in adulthood. This is one way that the impact of emotionally immature parenting can leak into our adult lives.
Healing starts with noticing and naming these patterns. When we invite God’s spirit into this process, change begins. In this week’s Faith & Feeling’s episode, I talk about 2 ways that we may have reacted to emotionally immature parenting as children (internalizing or externalizing our pain), and how these childhood coping styles might be showing up in our adult lives today.
Or listen to the episode on Spotify here.
8 patterns of internalizers
In her research, psychologist Lindsey Gibson found that most children of emotionally immature parents are internalizers. In this episode, I highlight 8 common patterns of internalizers in adulthood. I’ve listed them below (listen to this week’s episode for a more in-depth description of each characteristic):
Internalizers are highly sensitive and perceptive.
Internalizers can have difficulty finding the emotional connection they crave.
Internalizers often apologize for needing help.
Internalizers can feel disconnected from their own emotions.
Internalizers may not recognize safe vs. unsafe people.
Internalizers tend to do most of the emotional work in relationships.
Internalizers often attract needy people.
Internalizers can believe that self-neglect will bring love.
It’s so important to remember these patterns were incredibly adaptive as children. For many of us, engaging in these patterns is how we survived. I imagine God holding so much compassion for these patterns and wounded parts of us. I can also imagine God’s invitation to join him in this compassionate posture towards ourselves.
It’s also important to understand that, no matter what happened to us in the past, we can begin changing some of these patterns. How? By just beginning to notice and name these patterns as they happen. As we invite God into this process, we can ask him to help us see when these patterns are showing up in our lives. And when we lean into these moments with curiosity? We will begin to see so many opportunities to make small changes... one step at a time.
Journeying together,
Taylor Joy