Simon Chapple - How to Heal Your Inner Child: Overcome Past Trauma and Childhood Emotional Neglect

How to Heal Your Inner Child

Overcome Past Trauma and Childhood Emotional Neglect

Simon Chapple

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This book is dedicated to the many people who made it possible. The support, inspiration and guidance of these incredible individuals allowed me to heal, grow and believe in myself.

There are too many names to mention everyone who helped, suffice to say that you know who you are and will have had a part to play in my incredible, life-changing journey. Thank you for helping me become able to share it.

Dr David Perl you have been an inspirational father figure. Without you this book would never have happened.

Ruth Perl you helped me learn that lasting change is possible.

Michelle Chapple my wife and an oasis of calm in the sandstorm of my life.

Robin Chapple my son, your eyes see everything, may your dreams forever live.

Jackie McCarron the mother I always wanted.

Annie Grace you helped me push over the first domino.

Victoria Roddam at Hodder & Stoughton, for being patient, supportive and believing in me.

Deri, Neal, Allistair, David B, David W and Tom, The Wednesday Men my brothers, I am thankful for having you in my life.

Judy, Lois, Rob, Janet, Liam, Kate, Lisa, Kim, John and Jaqui my sober ambassadors.

My parents Pauline and Michael Chapple who did the best they were able to do.

And my grandmother Betty Hackett you allowed me to see that unconditional love is a reality.

For over four decades Simon Chapple struggled with feelings of depression, mood swings and emotional upset, he felt empty inside and disconnected from those who were closest to him. He experienced problems with relationships, careers, addiction and many areas of life that most people take for granted. Despite all of this he was somehow able to function and built a successful business, ran marathons and tried his best to be a father and a husband. But something was lacking in his life, he knew he wasnt the best version of himself; his life felt hollow and was slowly falling apart around him.

He chased happiness, and no matter where he looked it seemed to elude him. Meanwhile, his anxiety became worse and his mood became lower, causing him to turn to unhelpful and unhealthy behaviours as a method of coping.

It took time, but he eventually realised that the root of what he was experiencing was in his childhood. An anxious and insecure relationship with his parents had set him on course to destroy his life and what he had learned was not serving him in a way that was positive. He knew that something needed to change, but he didnt know what to do for the best.

Eventually, Simon embarked on a journey of self-exploration and went on to heal himself and discover a life of peace and happiness. Joy flowed back into his life for the first time since he was a child as he experienced the elation of living without constant emotional upset and anxiety. What Simon experienced was so profound that it became his mission to raise awareness and help others who feel stuck in a state of unhappiness and who dont understand why, or what to do for the best.

As well as sharing his own powerful story and inspiring people around the world, Simon is also a Certified Sobriety Coach and the founder of Be Sober, one of the largest quit drinking communities in the world. He has appeared on television and radio and spoken at live events in the US and the UK about his very personal journey from heavy daily drinking to becoming passionately sober. He has released two addiction-beating books: you can find these in the Resources section of this book. He has worked with thousands of people from all over the world in coaching programmes and helped them make a powerful and lasting change, not only to beat addictions, but to understand who they really are and what they need to do to thrive in life.

Simon has written this book to help anyone who has experienced childhood emotional neglect or past trauma. He draws on his considerable life experience, and the experiences of those he has helped in order to provide a structured path to healing.

Find out more at www.simonchapple.com

Many years ago, while training as a psychotherapist, a lecturer expressed a view that anything less than unconditional love expressed to a child while growing up was a form of child abuse. My initial feeling was this was a bit of an extreme viewpoint and that children were far more robust and durable than the lecturer was giving them credit for.

After all, at that time, I believed that my own fathers emotional absence was largely due to being a child victim of both Auschwitz and Dachau Nazi concentration camps; and my mothers violence towards me as a child, because of her unconscious and uncontained anger, hadnt really had that much of an impact on my own emotional wellbeing while growing up and into adulthood.

With my increasing clinical experience, I have since witnessed all too often the impact of less than stellar parenting on my clients and the resulting damage caused to their adult lives, both with their inner psychological landscapes and how they relate in their interpersonal relationships. Ive also come to appreciate that my own parents ineptitude, along with their own trans-generational traumas, had traumatized me in many ways.

While the vast majority of our parents do not intentionally neglect us, it is more through a lack of awareness and ignorance that we, as children, are let down by them. As I was taught in my own training, children are often given too much of what they dont need (criticism, judgement, emotional distance and shaming) or not enough of what they do need (love without imparted conditions). Often, this emotional benign neglect is enough to deprive a child of the secure base that is so badly needed to enable us to grow up into whole and functional adults.

The evidence for this is overwhelming and well documented. Perhaps the most compelling is the American Adverse Childhood Experience study commenced in 1995, which looked at negative experiences in childhood and the impact on their later lives, on both their mental and physical wellbeing.

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood, including witnessing violence in the home or community, or having a family member attempt, or die by, suicide. Also included are aspects of the childs environment that can undermine their sense of safety, stability and bonding, such as growing up in a household with substance misuse, mental health problems, instability due to parental separation or household members being absent.

ACEs can also negatively impact education and job opportunities. However measured, the evidence shows increased risk of cancer, diabetes, depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicide, higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse and earlier death for adults who have been impacted.

As a society, I am all too often perplexed as to why the failings of parents (myself included), are not put under the microscope more. The medical profession is woefully ignorant of the impact on children of later expressions of disease. My own training did not include any insight or education into such issues.