Certification Training: Wounded Inner Child Work

In the last module of training, I had a rather profound experience of healing.

My online training, through the Somatica Institute, goes through the same paces each day: Through Zoom, a concept is taught, a tool for achieving the concept is introduced to the entire student body, one of the three instructors will ask for a volunteer from the class to be the ‘client’ so they can demonstrate using the tool, then, we’re split up into one-on-one sessions with each other so we can practice using the tool as both the client and the coach. This pattern repeats two to three times each day, for three days per module.

That I’m training to become a sex and relationship coach, some of it is fun, but some of it is also heavy emotional work. And being that kind of vulnerable in front of 100+ people is not something I’ll choose to do just for the hell of it. Until last module, there was nothing that made me want to raise my virtual hand in volunteer service of benefit to my peers.

Last module, the tools built on each other:
*Recognizing our triggers — not ‘I’m triggered because you said words that aren’t in-line with this ideology I’ve become a Zealot for’, but ‘I’m in flight, fight, freeze, or fawn survival mode which is beyond my control because it’s a wounded inner child response that had to develop to protect me then, even if it’s not helpful now’.
*Healing our wounded inner child.
*Identifying our core sexual desires, because they’re connected to our wounded inner child.

The day before learning a tool to help us heal our wounded inner child, we were tasked with some required reading. I read it aloud to the boyfriend that night. Then, without intending to, started the visualization process on my own. I could see my wounded inner child, but I didn’t know what she needed. And I really didn’t know. I felt the intensity of that block and I wanted it removed.

I woke the next morning to a desire for resolution gripping me tighter, so I knew my time, of letting others vulnerably volunteer, was up. I wanted to put myself in the hands of someone with experience rather than take the risk of a peer, trying the skill for the first time, falling short in being able to help me remove the…