Healing Our Inner Child’s Survival Patterns of Control
HEALING OUR INNER CHILD’S SURVIVAL PATTERNS OF CONTROL
RETURNING TO UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AS OUR ROOT & FOUNDATION
SAFETY - SECURITY - STABILITY
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Healing the Root & Wound under the Patterns of
Anxious Attachment & Avoidant Behaviours in Relationship Dynamics
What began as a journey, an intention to get to the root of the anxious attachment and avoidant wound and its patterns, is something many of us experience. Even when we’re conscious of it, we feel disempowered to make the choice to choose our peace. We still take the breadcrumbs, still self-abandon for fear of abandonment. It runs deep in the subconscious mind and the unconscious body, and these are running the show, even when we consciously want to get off this chaotic, unserving dynamic.
Somehow, relationships in the present mirror our wounds and experiences as a child. The story and picture we create of love is what our child created, yet never received.
Saying no, cutting off dynamics and relationships that don’t serve us, brings up a fear of deep grief, a loss. Yet this loss is already there, sugar-coated in a dream we had as a child.
What we’re actually grieving is what we didn’t have as a child: the unconditional love we so desired from our emotionally avoidant parent, or both. For me, it was my father.
So saying yes to our peace by saying no to others, closing contact with dynamics that don’t bring us joy now, can feel like cutting through the very essence of our survival, our safety structures. Hence the absolute desire to keep the channel open, no matter what and no matter how bad we feel. Hence accepting breadcrumbs. Our nervous system has been conditioned this way to survive, to find control in the chaos.
So this wound that’s being unearthed is a past wound activated in the present to be healed. Yet the nervous system knows no time. It is still running the conditioned pattern of survival and security from whenever it began.
No conscious choice will break down this hardwired pathway until it is met, in present time, with unconditional love.
This is what this guided meditation did. It took us to our inner child, to the point when we froze, when the nervous system went into shock. And what we did as a beautiful little being, to somehow feel safe in the storm and chaos, was to root a pattern of control when we felt completely out of control.
This beautiful somatic transmission takes us back to that time, held in heart-conscious presence, to weave and heal in unconditional love: for ourselves, for our inner child, and for the nervous system that has been locked, so it can soften and release now.
This was hugely emotional for me to record, yet deeply healing.
May this be a gentle guide to finally bring closure to these old loops and return you to your truth, which is unconditional love, to radiate and receive in abundance.
With deep love,
Gemma
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VERSIONS & DURATION - 60 minutes
Introduction - 0-12 minutes
Channelled Transmission - 12:30 -60 minutes
TRANSCRIPT
So welcome, beautiful souls. I’ve felt the need to come and do this meditation following conversations and experiences, and knowing full well that Venus has now gone retrograde in Scorpio. She’s bringing up all these old patterns we thought we’d dealt with, and they’re coming back up to bring full closure.
This has come through conversations with women, and I expect men will feel this too. It’s the attachment to the masculine, to men. The avoidance, the anxious attachment. Women seeking, taking the breadcrumbs, chasing the dopamine, knowing it’s not right for them, yet stuck in this loop.
And equally, there are women who’ve done this work, really done the work on their self-love and their boundaries. They’re not unconscious to this. They’re fully aware. Yet it’s a pattern they can’t quite get out of. It’s a bit of a mindfuck, and you don’t feel like yourself.
So it feels like we’re in this space of consciousness where we know what’s right for us, yet the subconscious and the unconscious are still running the show. And the question is how we finally close this pattern.
For me, it’s the feeling of being out of control. The first time around, it brought up so much: self-abandonment for the fear of abandonment, the fear of being too much, not being able to express myself. Jumping, appeasing, moving and dancing to see what I could do, because a deeper, unconscious part of us is trying to control a situation when we feel out of control.
This would be patterning from childhood. I’ll explain it from my perspective. I had a father who was abusive and also emotionally avoidant, emotionally not there. So my whole nervous system learnt to take the breadcrumbs. Somebody else is in control. I’m not in control. I can’t make those choices or those decisions. It’s happening to me, not for me.
And that complete lack of control has the brain wired to look for the dopamine kick. Does that person message you? When they do, you’re like, “Oh, great.” When they don’t, you feel out of control. You feel psychotic, out of control of your own mind. Yet you’re also conscious of it, witnessing yourself, thinking, what is going on? You can recognise the pattern, you know it isn’t serving you, yet you can’t seem to stop it. How do I shift this? How do I change it?
It feels like a new pattern, but it’s also an old one, revisited to finally bring closure. That’s what Venus in Scorpio, in this cycle of the rose, is about: calling in the closure.
And the reason I’ve put this headdress on (the rest of me is in baggy trousers underneath) is that I was called to, because the root of this goes very deep. When I first went through this, I felt absolute grief at the severance of the masculine and the feminine. I felt it beyond my own experience. It made no sense whatsoever. I felt it on a soul level and on a universal level.
I even witnessed how Sophia fell. She believed creation was outside of herself. It was a false masculine she felt she created with, and she believed she could only create through something outside of herself. That’s when she fell. She fell through the darkness. Everything got stripped right back until she hit rock bottom. And it’s at that rock bottom that she met herself. That’s where she found herself, and finally realised that everything she needed was already within her. It was the belief that she needed something outside of herself to create, when actually it was already within her.
So the descent, the fall, which is Venus in Scorpio, was the finding of herself. It was the making of herself. When you recalibrate that and say, “This descent is happening for me, not to me,” then rather than fight it, maybe you just fall into it and ask, “Okay, where are you taking me? Take me to the root of it all.”
I’ve felt very connected to Isis. I’ve pulled an Isis card, Goddess Isis, and I’ve anointed my forehead with myrrh. This felt like a very sacred connection. Initially I was just going to tune in and see what happened, but there’s something very sacred in this wounding.
It plays out a lot with women and empathy. We see the wound in the other and want to heal them, because we see their potential and connect to it. But it isn’t real until that person recognises the potential in themselves and does the work. And again, this is all about sovereignty. Nobody can do it for anyone else. We can support one another, but we can’t go and save other souls. We have to save our own. Every time.
So the process I’m sensing is this: save yourself. Save yourself from these patterns, release them, and release this conditioning that feels very, very deep. Like I say, our conscious mind can’t compute it, and there’s a part of us we don’t seem to be in control of. Whether that links to childhood or not, maybe all of this is coming up so that we, maybe we can call ourselves more conscious women doing this work, can get to the root of it and finally free our souls.
I’m speaking from a female perspective. I’m sure there are men and avoidant women out there too, or protected women. But what’s coming through for me is the Sophia line, the feminine and its relationship with the masculine. Which is very interesting, because I’m currently holding a men’s container for three months, and I’ve been sharing the wounds there. So it’ll be intriguing to see what this shows us that the conscious mind can’t quite access right now.
The card that came through was the Flower of Life. The Flower of Life is the connection to all, the one thing that connects everything. The card talks about recognising how creative you’re becoming and being here as your soul. Seeing that really positive things are coming through, and being mindful of what you want to create. Which again, with the new moon tomorrow, feels very timely. I appreciate you won’t be listening at the exact time I’m recording this, but these meditations, these channelled transmissions, are timeless.
So it’s really about getting into alignment with unconditional love. And unconditional love means no attachments. None whatsoever.
Yet as I’m speaking, I’m aware that unconditional love has a structure that enables it to move and flow. That feels like the masculine energy. Love is the flow, the feminine, and the masculine is the embodied structure that holds what could otherwise feel like chaos. So we’ll connect into that. That feels like the beautiful intention.
The card also talks about releasing old patterns and behaviours in a gentle, kind way. Maybe that’s the other pattern, the belief that we have to work really hard on something to make it shift. Maybe that’s another belief system we need to let go of as well.
So I’ll read the prayer, and then we’ll go wherever we need to go.
Bring your hands to your heart. Always begin there, always choosing unconditional love, for the highest, greatest good and spiritual benefit of all beings.
Flower of life,
Circles repeating,
Manifestation now increasing.
Creativity flowing fast
With power of the universe vast.
The whole within a grain of sand,
Manifestation forms from this hand.
With unconditional love so wise,
Uniting power of earth and skies.
Flower of life,
Circles increasing,
The energy grows
Through this speaking.
As I was reading that, it felt like we’re calling in the structure of the divine feminine and the divine masculine, in that union of unconditional love. Which makes me smile, because it’s all in alignment with the work I’m doing and exactly where we are: the new moon in Libra, the balance, and Venus in Scorpio.
One day, my whole body and mind will be fully in the flow of trust. It’s getting there. The universe couldn’t speak any more loudly to say everything’s in alignment. Follow it.
So maybe that’s our journey: the trust, and the grace of it.
Reflective summary: the journey
Landing and widening the circle
We began by landing and opening the intention to everyone: men and women, and all kinds of relationships. The anxious and avoidant patterns were named as the same wound showing up in different ways. That root wound is detachment, the disconnect of unconditional love between the feminine and the masculine, both within ourselves and in our relationships.
Calling unconditional love into the body
Unconditional love was called in as a blueprint, the flower and seed of life. It was invited deep into every cell, the nervous system, the blood, the organs, and everything inherited from our ancestors. The soul was seen as the light holding a mirror to old patterns, so that experiences that once triggered us could be understood as unearthing the wound so it can finally heal.
The caduceus, and remembering
The feminine and masculine were seen merging and dancing like the caduceus wand, the DNA of life, unconditional love in form. Through the heart as a portal, consciousness was brought down into the subconscious, the limbic system and the old “reptilian” brain, the parts that learnt that love is hard and has to be earned. The message was that you are already this love, and this is a remembering. The chains broke away like dust. The light body began claiming its space, and the spine, cerebellum and autonomic nervous system were called into alignment.
Feeling love, and the throat
We were invited to feel what unconditional love actually feels like in the body. Resistance showed up in the neck and throat, the place where we hold back our truth and our boundaries. Words were honoured as spells. Silence can be golden, and when we do speak, every word, thought and breath can be a choice to come back to our peace.
The doves
Yeshua appeared, smiling and releasing white doves, calling us to our peace. There was space for the emotion of having believed peace, safety and stability weren’t possible for us. We gave compassion to the part of us that has always worked hard to second-guess the next move, creating control because we felt so out of control.
Meeting the inner child
A younger self came into view. For Gemma, this was a toddler who had only just started walking and had dug in deep to stay here amid the chaos. Control was recognised as a masculine energy, the child’s way of finding roots so they weren’t washed out to sea. We honoured the wisdom of this survival pattern rather than resisting it out of frustration.
The freeze
The child was standing in shock, frozen. This was named as the freeze response, not fight or flight, held in the body as if frozen in time, and that is why it feels so stuck. Because the body holds no sense of time, we could meet that child now, through the heart.
Presence, not force
Slowly, gently, we let the child know we were there. We used touch on the back of the heart, stroked their hair, held their hands, spoke their name, and told them, “I’m here. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” We expected resistance, because this child learnt that words couldn’t be trusted. So we connected through the eyes and let the child come to us, honouring each small step. In the end the child curled into our heart, and the sobbing and the tears they couldn’t express were released.
Free to be a child again
Held in safety and healthy boundaries, the child was free to play, explore and show us the wonder and magic of life again. We became the loving parent. The child fell asleep in our arms, exhausted and at peace, and the old patterns dissolved as the body was given permission to cry and release.
Rooting from the heart
A new root was formed, running from the heart down the spine, through the legs and the sciatic nerve, and into the earth. This root came from unconditional love rather than survival. The masculine was seen weaving this love into the earth, the structure that lets the feminine light root and flow. The heart’s light expanded through the womb or groin, sacrum, belly, throat and shoulders like an orb.
Honouring the clever child
We honoured the intelligence of the little one who created those roots. They were never powerless or insignificant. They found their power within when they felt powerless. Gentle rocking helped the nervous system settle and let go.
The garden of roses
Roses opened within the seed of life geometry, fed by the awakened heart, sending waves through the universal field. A golden path with gentle curves appeared, and there was no need to see where it ends. The more present and still we are, the more beauty and abundance gather around us. The union of the feminine and masculine, Sophia Christos, was sealed: it is done.
Returning to the body
We came back by placing our palms at the brow, then the heart. We rubbed the sternum, massaged down through the belly, thighs, calves and feet, and tapped the temples, chin, chest, armpits, crown and wrists. The closing invitation was to be gentle: give yourself hugs, go to your pets, cuddle your children, and keep giving that unconditional love to yourself.
The science behind the journey
Attachment theory. John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth’s work showed that babies adapt to how available their caregivers are. When a caregiver is inconsistent, the child learns to become hypervigilant and cling, which is anxious attachment. When a caregiver is consistently unavailable, the child learns to shut down their needs, which is avoidant attachment. These strategies are intelligent survival adaptations, and they tend to carry into adult relationships. This fits the idea of “same wound, different patterns.”
Breadcrumbs and dopamine. The “does he message, doesn’t he” loop matches intermittent reinforcement. Dopamine responds most strongly to rewards that are unpredictable. Wolfram Schultz’s research on reward prediction showed this, and it’s the same mechanism behind fruit machines. This is why inconsistent attention can feel more compelling than steady love, and why knowing better doesn’t break the loop on its own.
“The nervous system knows no time.” Early experiences are stored largely as implicit memory, as body states, feelings and expectations, rather than as stories with a date on them. When this kind of memory is triggered, it can feel like it’s happening now rather than being recalled. This is why insight alone often doesn’t shift the pattern.
Memory reconsolidation. Research from Karim Nader and others, applied in therapy by Bruce Ecker, shows that when an emotional memory is reactivated, it briefly becomes changeable again. If it’s met with a new experience that contradicts it, such as safety, presence and love where there was once fear, the memory can be updated at its root rather than just managed. This closely matches the understanding that no conscious choice will break the pathway “until it is met in present time in unconditional love.”
Freeze. Freeze is a recognised survival response, alongside fight and flight, especially for a small child who can’t escape. Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory describes it as a shutdown state governed by the vagus nerve, and offers a helpful map for understanding why unresolved freeze leaves the body feeling stuck and out of control.
Inner child imagery. Imagery rescripting, which means revisiting a younger self in imagination and giving them what they needed, is used in schema therapy and trauma treatment. It has a solid research base for reducing the emotional charge of early memories. Internal Family Systems works in a similar way, meeting protective parts with compassion rather than fighting them.
Soothing touch and rocking. Slow, gentle stroking activates C-tactile nerve fibres in the skin, which are tuned to affectionate touch and linked to feelings of calm and safety. Hand-on-heart self-soothing is also used in Kristin Neff’s self-compassion research. Rhythmic rocking calms the nervous system through the balance (vestibular) system, which is why we rock babies.
The sternum, the vagus and the phrenic nerves. Both the vagus nerves and the phrenic nerves pass down through the chest behind and either side of the sternum. The vagus is the main nerve of the rest-and-digest system, carrying calming signals to the heart, lungs and gut. The phrenic nerves control the diaphragm, our main breathing muscle. Gentle rubbing and warmth over the sternum brings attention and soothing to this whole area, supporting slower, deeper breathing and a calmer heart.
Tapping (EFT). Emotional Freedom Techniques combine tapping on acupressure points with focused attention on an emotion or memory. Clinical trials and meta-analyses have found significant reductions in anxiety, depression and PTSD symptoms. One study, by Dawson Church and colleagues in 2012, found that a single EFT session lowered cortisol, the main stress hormone, by around 24%. Tapping offers the body a gentle, rhythmic signal of safety while difficult feelings are processed.
A gentle note for listeners: because this journey touches on early and abusive experiences, it can bring up a lot. Going slowly, pausing when needed, and having support from a therapist or trusted person for deeper work is wise.
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